Living !

Rick and I have been busy with many different things the last little while. Fall always seems to be a busy time with kids back in school, activities starting up again and just getting life going again after the summer.
I have been getting more and more involved with my toastmasters club and am really enjoying that. I am also looking into a couple of other things to try to fill my time while the kids are at school and give me that sense of accomplishment. I am settling into my new life better in the last few weeks. I have a lot of people telling me that they would love to stay home or wish they had that option when their kids were young, and I agree they probably would have liked it, but the big difference people are missing is that that would have been their choice and this was not my choice it was kind of forced on me. And like losing a loved one I am in many ways grieving the life that I had even though I have always had vision problems the last year has been one of the hardest. My vision has drastically changed and is well just plain useless at this point and that is not easy no matter how prepared you are no matter how determined you are it is difficult.
Rick is defiantly making this journey much easier and much more enjoyable because as my vision gets worse I don't have to worry or lock myself in my house because I know I can get where I wanna go with him by my side ! And thank god because I would not make a good hermit one day of being stuck in the house and I am done and needing to get out ! The bond between Rick and I is getting much stronger I trust him with my life, I couldn't imagine having to trust a white cane again ! That would be one slow walk now that I have Rick by my side !
It is defiantly a life style change having a guide dog, and a adjustment for my family especially my husband when it comes to the dog hair everywhere ! There is defiantly benefits to not being able to see because I don't notice the dog hair everywhere ha ha ! But the lifestyle is defiantly one that I will never give up. Sometimes it would be nice to go to a store and people not stare, make comments, pet Rick and ask personal questions but I will deal with those things to have Rick by my side.
The confidence I now truly feel is amazing and that is part of my issue with staying home and where we live, since we live in a small community it is hard to get out and do things because well there really  isn't a whole lot to do. And now that I have Rick and I want to go out and do things explore, do what I want because I feel like now I can. Even before my vision really took a turn for the worse I didn't like to go new places and do lots of things alone because I couldn't read street signs, menus, store signs and lots of times price tags and that was a really hard thing for me I hated showing that vulnerability but now with Rick I don't care lets go, lets live life and love it !