Visiting family and self image

The past weekend we headed up to visit my parents in Tamworth.  We hadn't been up for a while so it was good to see them all, but the visit had more purpose than just this.  Firstly my partner needed a break away and he always feels better after having a break away from the city, secondly I needed to deliver Flat Puglet to my sister who had agreed to carry on his travels around Australia, she's also a big advocate for recycled pets and recently gave a cat a forever home herself.  That was another reason for our visit, we really wanted to meet the newest member to our family, my sister's new cat, Cindy.

The most important reason for our visit however was my dog Richie.  Richie was a gift from my parents when I got into university, however after I finished uni I went to live in Japan for 3 years and couldn't take him, so he stayed with my parents and got to like farm life, so I could never take him away from that when I returned to Australia.  Richie is getting old now, he's 13 years old, has arthritis, is deaf and almost blind with cateracts. 

A few weeks ago was a wake up call that he might not be with us for much longer as he was really struggling.  Mum was taking him to the vet to see if there was anything to be done.  Purely by accident in the process of this she took him off some eye drops he'd been given by the vet and made remarkable improvement.  So the ideas being tossed around that he might need to be put down were given up, but the dread I felt about it remained.  So I really wanted to go up and spend some time with him. 

It was good to see that while Richie is not doing as well as he once was, he is okay.  The other dogs there take care of him, which is a little ironic since before all this he wouldn't have anything to do with those young, energetic girls.  The important this is that he's okay for now and I got to see him again and so if he must go I will feel more at peace about it.  I certainly don't like the idea of him suffering.

Monday was a hard day for me.  I've been dieting and exercising a lot lately, but it's hard to constantly deny yourself.  Well not that I do really, I still have little treats, but when your partner is eating chocolate everyday it feels like denial.  I ended up balling my eyes out on Monday after I couldn't resist some chocolate, the dogs new instantly that something was wrong and started barking and trying to get through the windows to me.  That alerted my partner after a bit that something was wrong.  So we ended up having a long talk about not making it so hard for me to succeed at these challenges for me.

I think what was really important about it was the negative way I viewed myself and how I need to keep working on improving that.  And I really am working on it.