So many things have happened in my personal life in the past few weeks in addition to the usual busy work season pain-in-the-assedness that I don’t even feel bad about taking a leave of absence from the blog for, um, 21 days — that’s not even a whole month! I think that bit of brightness I’m seeing way off in the distance may just be the end of the tunnel, but I’ll withhold a final ruling until I get there for sure.

I’m sure all of my personal life antics would make great posts, and maybe one day I’ll get around to writing about all of them. Of course, seeing as I still have never written at length about our wedding, now four and a half months in the past, I’m not sure I’d bet on it. But just to impress upon y’all how crazy life has been, I’ll go with the lazygal’s bulleted list in the mean time.

In the past three weeks, I’ve (or with the Modern Love Machine have):

• made multiple trips to the vet because of the annual dog ear infection. I will be better about cleaning those ears, I swear.
• gotten serious about my run routine and ran a 5k without stopping. That, while not impressive, was more than I’d done for about six months.
• drank a lot of beer at the annual brewer’s festival without getting drunk or angry at anyone. I also managed to dress appropriately for the weather for the first time in three years.
• broke out the Barenaked for the Holidays album on Oct. 20, haters be damned.
• went to two high school football games.
• attended a very basic, very introductory, very free class on Python programming. Mostly understood what was going on during said class.
• watched every last game of the World Series and basked in the delight of My Team winning all the bananas, despite the fact it had absolutely no business being there in the first place; subsequently cried about Tony LaRussa retiring.
• crafted my own fall wreath for our naked door out of yarn, styrofoam, felt and a hot-glue gun. Decided it, while incredibly cute, did not look right on our front door. Sewed a skirt from scratch (with pockets!). Ripped out a seam from said skirt that I need to correct before I can wear it.
• got accepted for the spring semester at the local community college.
• bought a new car.
• had a friend come live at our house for about a week.
• read the entire Hunger Games trilogy (ohmigaw, so good!)
• ate lots of delicious sweet potato and chocolate chip cupcakes and chocolate-chip cookies, baked by my fabulously talented husband.
• had my parents visit. Twice.
• polished off an entire growler of Marble City Brewing Company’s Spiced Pumpkin Ale
• and journaled daily but boringly on paper about every last thing.

Exhausting, yes?

Things I did not do include cook much beyond basic sandwiches, soups and noodle dishes or celebrate Halloween. I would love to get back to celebrating Halloween some day, but it just does not work around my schedule.

I cannot express just how much I’m thrilled for November to be here and for Thanksgiving to be a mere two and a half weeks away. The MLM will get to experience his first Memphis Thanksgiving and all the crazy family that comes with it. I’ve also been eyeballing early December in hopes of taking some extended time off work then. I’ve got a gift card for a massage and a long list of movies calling my name.