I tired.

Last night, a headache sent me to bed early. It's gone this morning, so that's a good thing. But I can't imagine how I got rid of it with all the noise in this neighborhood. I woke up at least four times during the (too short, too loud) night.

At 10:45, when we were deeply asleep, my hubby realized he had forgotten to turn off his cell phone. He didn't have a EUREKA! moment and get up to turn it off in case it rang... oh noooo. Instead, the DAMN THING RANG!!! And he doesn't have a pleasant or innocuous ring. No song, no cute little melody. Hell no, not him. Instead, he has a horrible beeping noise. BEEPBEEPBEEEEEP BEEPBEEPBEEEEP!! My daughter said it reminded her of a smoke alarm when she heard it last night. Yeah, that sounds about right. And we all know smoke alarms are designed to wake you up.

His boss frequently calls him in the middle of the night and leaves him a voice mail, knowing that Eric turns the PHONE OFF AT 6. I bet he will check it twice tonight! (He'd better.)

Cletus has alarms on his current fleet of cars. One went off around 3. It went off for about 3 minutes before he finally figured out it was his and hit the little button to shut it up.

We have train tracks about half a mile away. Most of the time it's really not bothersome, but occasionally the train stops out there. I'm not sure why. When it does, there are lots of crashing noises involved. When it starts up again, more crashing. I heard crashing twice last night. The second round of crashing came after I had drifted back to sleep. Of course.

We have a freeway a little further away. The traffic noise doesn't usually annoy me too much because after more than 10 years, I've gotten used to it. However, early this morning, there was some sort of police or fire action going on, and many sirens went by, followed by all the news copters flying over. I'm thankful the action was further down the road, because when it's close, they hover and go around and around and around and around. I mentioned this last year around this time.

Where's Rambo When I Need Him?
I want to go back to bed. Instead, I am going to shower, do some laundry, get ready for work.

I hate to admit it since I've said at least 50 times that I HATE it, but this year, I am actually enjoying the summer program. I think the kids are having a good time, which helps. We're making projects and singing songs and telling jokes and making messes.
Yesterday, the company brought in a huge flat plastic bin full of rice and beans. Measuring cups, sand toys... at the rate we're going, it will be about a week and the thing will be empty. It will have been swept up at a rate of about six cups per day and dumped into the trash.

We have beads. Lots and lots of beads. They'll be dumped into the trash at a slightly slower rate. This is because it's mostly girls playing with the beads and they're messy-but-not-as-messy as the mostly male crew playing with the rice and beans.

On tap for today:

Friendship bracelets. A word find puzzle I created with the kids I took to the zoo on Wednesday. More trivet activity. (We're making them with yarn on frames that Eric built for me.) I'll post a picture of one eventually.

I have the Balloon Rockets activity ready and waiting in the wings. It has to be a specific type of day for me to bring it out. A day with fewer kids, a lull in the activities and an hour or so to kill.

This post has been interrupted eleven times. Each time, it takes me at least a minute to get back into writing mode, thus making a bit of fluff that should just ZIP onto the page an hour-long chore instead.

And my family wonders why I don't sit down and write that book.
I just don't think the frustration is worth it.