It’s early in the morning, and I hear a thumping on my bedroom window. I am guessing somehow somebody has left for the morning and locked themselves outdoors. Groggily, I get out of bed and stumble out my bedroom door and go open the living room door to let that person in.

And I find nobody there. Our dogs, Patti and Opie, glance over at me with that look that says, “What is that fool doing up in the middle of the night?”

All the cars are there in the driveway. I briefly toy with the idea that someone was once there, but I realize the odds of the dogs, who bark when I drive up, would likely bark at any other intruder. In fact, the dogs begin barking at the light coming from my bedroom window.

So I quietly as possible return to my room. I crawl into my bed, knowing the odds of me going back to sleep are low.

I start trying to get sleepy by working a word-find puzzle from a book by the bed. I’m not very good at word-finds because there is always that one word that I cannot find at the end of the puzzle. No matter where I look, it is not there.

Then when I finally do find the word, it seems to stand out, almost as if the book has somehow been retitled with that word.

From there, I go to a Sudoku book I have bought. On most puzzles I am not even smart enough to look up the answers in the back of the book. I hate it when I cheat and look up the answer and still do not finish the puzzle with the right answer because I copied the numbers wrong.

From there, I go to my Bible. I am trying to read the Bible through in one year. Each night I read how something else I did that day was a sin. I often wish I had known it was a sin so I could at least enjoy it more.

From there, I start reading the books I have on my rotation. Right now, I read at least a chapter from seven different books, rotating them as I read. And so far it has worked. I don’t know what is going on in any of the books.

By then, I am finally sleepy again, which means it’s about an hour from the time my alarm clock is set to.

So have a nice day.