Look at that face. It's a face only I could love, because I'm eight hours away and can't smell her dog breath.

How can you not love that face?

Or, as I ask myself, how can you not get homesick when you see that face? It's my mom and step-dad's dog. Home! Mom! Step-dad! Sixteen-year-old annoying brother! OK. That last one might have been overly sarcastic.

My homesickness has been laying low for a while. I've been pretty busy, pretty stressed, and fairly entertained by what's going on here. Oshkosh is my new home, blah, blah, blah. You've heard it all here before.

But I've got Ohio friends coming. No, not the dog. Two -- maybe three -- weekends of friends visiting Wisconsin. Can I take it? Hardly not. It'll be awesome to have them here. I can't wait to show them off the town (using predetermined routes so I can't get lost and end up looking like a jerk). I've got a whole list of places to drive by and point out, and I might even show my cubby-cle (like a cubicle, only smaller) at work to one of my friends, just because she has a newspaper job (and mine's way cooler, and she knows it). Who knows? We'll live like rock stars and make plans later.

It'll be fun, but it's not the same as going home. When I wake up on those Saturdays, there may be Ohio friends in my living room (or a hotel room, whatever), but I won't be in Ohio. And when they leave on those Sunday mornings, it'll be the most quiet of Sundays, leading into the most depressing Mondays. Oh, I can't hardly stand it already.

No, Erin. Snap out of it.

I am NOT going to mope about those horrible Sunday evenings/Monday mornings until they happen (and I promise to try really hard not to mention them then, either). But I can't help feeling like I know that homesickness is coming. I'm OK now. I'm happy now. But it's coming. I can see it. It's right there -- on my calendar! Get it -- kill it! EEk! It has 18-and-a-half legs!

Oh, wait. No, that was the bug in the bedroom. That's another blog for another day. This one's going to end on a happy note: look at that dog's face again. There. Happy enough for ya?