"Where do I begin? I can't breathe and haven't been able to for over a week (more like 2 but who's counting?), I have a darling cough and hork up lovely things first thing in the morning. I fell down the stairs on Wednesday and I ache from my neck to my tail bone. No bruising but oh my god ow! Oh, and MB has pinkeye. It's been a fantastic week."

"I go through fits and starts of being either completely depressed or marginally tolerant of my current living situation (for those just jumping on the Independent Ter bandwagon, I live with my boyfriend and his mom)."

"It's very weird to miss the one you love when he's right there with you."

"My parents were definitely on a suck up mission while I was there. I got Dunkin Donuts twice plus steak and lasagna for dinner. I'm not spoiled or anything."

"My dog is fat. Little BB head, tiny chicken legs, tank of a body."

"MB tried to go toe-to-toe with one of L's cousins in drinks consumed, so by the end of the night MB was crocked. I intercepted at least 1 and a half of his Jack and Cokes and got a little tipsy myself. All in the name of love. Of course, that meant I had a little drunk Irish monkey on my hands."

"MB and I would row about my issues, more or less him telling me to shut-up-and-take-this-twenty-or-I'll-go-nuts-if-I-have-to-listen-to-you-whine-about-being-broke-one-more-time."

"Not to worry, though. For the last two days I have been subbing! Hurray! Huzzah! And so forth."

"Any foliage that is on the trees is now on the ground, though I'm not sure we've hit peak time yet. Not that I've ever cared if it's peak foliage time."

"Of course now I'll have to use a little restraint and not go overboard. I need to save! I need to spend wisely! I need to budget! I need to stop ending my sentences with exclamation points!"

"I've put in 21 hours over 3 days this week, which by most working stiff's standards is a light week, but I went from zero to 60 in a short amount of time so please forgive me if I'm just a little too eager to down a jäger bomb or partake in some lovely fire water or (yuck at first) a Jack and Pepsi or, my personal favorite, fuzzy navel after fuzzy navel."

"And on today's To Do list: figure out where the smell of ammonia is coming from. I have a feeling someone mistook our stairs for a litter box again, but I could be wrong."

"Note: these pictures were taken with MB's cell phone, so that explains the poor quality and not the fact that we'd had a few."

"The whole week has progressively become more frantic. It also didn't help that on Tuesday, the only day I subbed, I promptly got my car stuck behind the main shop. It was also the one time I finally listened to the shop owner and parked beside the big barn. On the grass. The ground wasn't absorbing the rain that refused to stop falling. I was only going to be a minute."

"I drive a mud buggy now."

"Tenae is sucking around me and it's real sweet and all, but if she whines one more time I'm going to bop her on her fuzzy black head."

"I've taken it as a matter of course that from now on Independent Ter now comes with Super Snuffly Noises (tm). It punctucates conversations both out loud and in my head, it interrupts sleep like you wouldn't believe, and really makes singing along in the car a drag and a half."

"Wednesday night was the big costume shop "Holy crap, we survived another Halloween!" party."

"We're at Burger King and I say to MB, "Listen to my car when I start it. It's making a noise." So he does and guesses it's a belt and he'd make an appointment for me with the Miracle Mechanic (hear that noise? It's me laughing because, I love him dearly, but MB isn't exactly on top of things like that -- lots of talk, little action. I'm no better, but this isn't my point)."

"Wednesday gets its own paragraph."

"I have exactly one hour before I have to go sit in a nearly empty mall and babysit a cash register. Let me tell ya, I think having my ass waxed might be a little more entertaining."

"The stupid school messed up and somehow thought "certified 7-12 English" meant "elementary aide". Yeah, because that's the same."

"Next Friday's entry will be pre-empted due to Thanksgiving. It will be celebrated here with MB's family, a first for me, then Friday MB and I are heading up to my parents' for fun, fun, fun till Daddy takes the T-bird away."

"Mom C and I stood out in the gale nailing a tarp over the entrance to the barn because the doors still aren't done and the poor horses were turning into something you'd find in the frozen section of the grocery store."

"Thursday: First I gained 5 pounds looking and smelling all the great food at MB's aunt and uncle's, then I gained 10 eating it."

"Hello, stream of consciousness!"

"It's very frustrating trying to get the First Job."

"She and D gave MB an Irish shot glass, which is basically a skinny 20-oz. glass with gradations on the side like "O'Wuss" all the way up to "100% Irish"."

"I've always been the different one, why stop now?"

"But first, I'm going to EverQuest. Because MB has hand-crafted me into a dork like himself. And I love him dearly for it."

"But first, rewind... we have a new puppy! He's 7 weeks old today and we named him Baron Balian (yes, Balian as in Kingdom of Heaven Balian, as in Orlando Bloom ::drool:: played him Balian. I can't believe I got MB and Mom C to go along with that)."

"My family is the Clampits."

"And crafty devil that he is (he'd shoot me if he knew I was blabbing this all over the Internet), he bought me another sexy lil nighty and wrapped it in tissue paper and put it under the covers of my side of the bed, prompting me to say in the oblivious and braindead way I have, "Have you been sleeping with tissue paper in bed the whole while I was gone? I could have sworn I picked it up before I left." Smooth."