The Good Things in Life

Everyone has differing opinion on what exactly encompasses the 'good things in life'. Tonight, I allowed myself to indulge in just a few of them. Cookies and Cream and Honeycomb and Butterscotch icecream heaped onto arrowroot cookies being the first and foremost. It wasn't too long ago that I would have either not let myself eat something like this at all, or I would have spent the next few hours berrating myself for 'giving into weakness'. As someone who has abstained from eating icecream for the last four or so years I can happily say that my years of depirvation are well and truly over. I was standing in the kitchen smelling the very essence of the cookies and cream icecream float up from the container and a smile crept across my face. After such a hard day (which i'll elaborate more on another time) it was nice to unwind in the comfort of my own home without being uptight and stressed at the the calorie consumption occuring right in front of me.

Another of life's indulgences which I allowed myself to take tonight was a good glass of wine. Unlike the icecream, alcohol is something which I havent abstained from over the years but I have treated it with much the same disrespect as I approached eating in general. For so long I was so concerned with the amount of calories in each glass that I just wanted to get really drunk really fast so that I could
a) forget how much i'd consumed and
b) wash away the guilt of consuming said calories by just getting wasted.
Wine is an awesome part of adult life. Its aroma's, tastes and general culture is something that I totally bypassed until recently. So tonight I let myself slowly and surely have two and half glasses (probably would have had three but I ran out at 2.5, ha!)

I'm sitting here at the moment writing about the class strucutres present in both the traditional version of the Cinderella tale and how the ideology in relation to class in the modern variant, Ever After has changed. I've had icecream and cookies, wine, peace and quiet and now i'm writing an assignment topic about something that I've always wanted to write about: Literature. Until just recently I always thought literature was fruitless, that it wouldnt take me anywhere so it wasnt worth more than that casual read on the tram etc etc. Thank God above I pushed through that snobbery. Studying literature is one of the best decisions I have ever made. I enjoy it so much that I dont mind sitting down to writte complicated essays about class structures. I love what i'm studying so much, that actually studying is a pleasure. Go figure. The good things in life will always take you by surprise.

A friend of mine will disagree with most of the things that i've written about tonight. He doesnt like alcohol and he doesnt particularly find literature all that exciting either. To him, the good things in life are scary horror movies and things like that. I was sitting on my lounge today thinking about the diverse range of people ive chosen as my friends and realised that we dont really have all that much in common, except for the fact that we know that the good things in life are going to be different for everyone and we all accept it as just the way it is. We appreciate each other for who we are, not what we do and what we have. That, is one of the very best things in life.

As a writer, I feel its my duty to contribute to the world of blogging. I've had loads of fitness and health related blogs before but never really one dedicated to my personal thoughts. So here it is...

Where does one start with a blog like this? I guess the things which are pressing most upon my mind would be an ideal place to start.

I've just become a guide dog puppy carer and i've got my first puppy, Selwood, sitting on my lap as I type. I've only had him for five days but goodness me we have bonded already. I've had dogs my whole life but when you're a teenager I guess your parents kind of take care of all the hard stuff when it comes to raising a pet. This time, its all up to me. He's like a newborn baby, he wakes up in his cage/pen two or three times a night and cries endlessly. Sleepless nights are quite common at the moment. Not that I have any children of my own to measure this by, but I feel as tired as a new mother does.

He requires constant attention and supervision at the moment because he's teething and he chews just about everything he can get his little jaw around. Because he's a guide dog in training we have to make sure he stops chewing as soon as possible. He's also having some issues with the whole toilet training thing. He has to be taught to pee and poop on command and at the moment he is just going wherever he happens to be at that point in time. He is completely and totally dependent on me for everything.

My girlfriend came over last night and was so shocked that I'd actually gone through with the decision to become a carer. It was almost like she didnt believe it when I told her that I'd got the dog and when she saw it with her own eyes, she went into a state of shock. She asked me whether I'd thought about how much responsibility i'd just taken on. The thing is, i've been ready for something like this for such a long time. And the sleepless nights,the constant washing of pooped towels etc are nothing compared to the joy that he brings to my life. I adore him and I adore taking care of him. My life has obviously needed to be altered to cater for him, but I dont care. He's sitting on my lap right now all curled up and I look at him and all I can see is total love. When I look at him I realise there is nothing I wouldnt do to make sure he grows up a strong and responsive guide dog. Its now my job to ensure his success. More than ever I want him to succeed. When someone else is so completely dependent on you for the general day to day things they need in order to survive, you really get an understanding and sense of self worth. I feel like my own life is now so much more important because he needs to succeed.

It is however, going to be VERY hard giving him back...