The times, they are a'changin'

Somehow, this calls for a video...

(Flogging Molly -- "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" song by Bob Dylan)

Which is actually pretty apt. Dylan is a foavorite of my brother's, but not of mine, and I've recently been turned on to paddy rock (which is to say, Irish rock groups). Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows my love of Carbon Leaf and Gaelic Storm, but honestly, I didn't even know this was A Thing -- somehow, I assumed they lived in a bit of a bubble.

But I digress...

As you may know (if you've read anything previous to this, or, my "About Me" stuff) my husband is military. A week ago tomorrow, we said goodbye for the third deployment in our military marriage (prior to the Youngest Child's conception, we were a civilian family). This time is particularly rough -- the first two deployments were both in Iraq; and the second one had many more contact options available. This one is going to be shorter than the first two (nine months, compared to the 15 months and 1 year, respectively), but chances are we'll only get to talk intermittently by computer, and even less frequently by phone.

Just in case you're not getting how stressful this potentially is, let's take a look at the last, oh, five months of my life:

November: Cartman, beloved family dog, who had been part of our lives since our oldest (currently 11-1/2) was 2, had a heart tumor and had to be put down. A week later, Hubby had surgery to remove a bone spur on his heel, which required the Achilles tendon to be removed and then reattached with metal screws. (Apparently, it does not heal in the "reattaching itself" way.) A week after that was Thanksgiving. Hubby could not drive until he was off his crutches, which occurred at the end of January, just a few days after rumors of deployment were confirmed (yep, they went on less than 3 months of prep. Think about that for a moment.) Not long after that, he was cleared for putting on his combat boots again, and then he left for California for a month of intensive training, during which we had little-to-no contact. March was spent running around like headless chickens trying to get done all the forty-three thousand and one things needed to prepare him to leave and to prepare us to not have him here -- things like ordering new uniforms, making sure we have two vehicles in good running order (although I don't think he ever managed to bleed the brakes on the Jeep, and the inner door handle on the driver's door is broken.), hiring a lawn service... And then, somewhere in there (just over a week ago) our neighbor found a tiny puppy abandoned behind a local business. They couldn't keep him because, well, they have several dogs already, and one of them had just days earlier, given birth, and was Not Happy about having another baby in the house. SO...well, Hubby fell in love. So I am now wrestling with our HUGE 2YO boxer/Great Dane mix, 2 cats, 3 kids, and an un-housetrained (in fact, probably-too-young-for-housetraining) puppy.

I swear I thought next week was Spring Break, but as it turns out I was wrong. I still haven't done any Easter shopping; I need to find someone who'll watch the kids for me so I can do that later today.

I still need to get the puppy into the vet for a first checkup. And all the other pets are due, too.

Oh, and not next week, when they go back to school, but the week after, all three kids have standardized testing. Luckily none of them seem to have the same levels of test anxiety that I do. But it's gonna make for a rough week. It'll mess up the youngest's schedule and that always makes life hard for everybody.

Less than two months of school, and then we'll be out for the summer. I may lose it before then.

And I'm not entirely sure this is where I wanna be anymore.