Birds woke me up at 5:45 am.  

Realized I had no clean pants so I put a load in the washer and went back to bed. Dogs were content to sleep as well.

A litle while later?  A 4 and 6 year old decide to come into my room, unannounced, and get all up in my business, can we see your phone, will you play videos for us on your computer? Can you write me a note - the oldest got a small mailbox for a gift from grandma and ever since that little addition to the family, he has been asking me to write him "mail".

Parents soon realized what was going on and demanded they come out of my room, thankfully, as I was in no mood yet to get up but didn't feel like being mean to the kids.  They got into trouble 6 ways from Sunday including the fact that they can't be anywhere near me today.

After that, I sneaked back to the pantry, put my clothes in the dryer and then came back to my room to try to sleep some more. Don't ask me, when it hits, it hits hard and I have to sleep.  After a little more sleep I eventually decided it was time to get up.  After doing the morning rituals of bathroom/shower stuff, I was out in the kitchen cleaning up.  And there it was.  A text from my manager.

He knows I get busy with stuff on my days off, so he just said hey Ben! We have a load for you to take out tomorrow! Please give us a shout when you can!  Well I wanted to find out where I'm going, it's still early, if I have to prepare meals I have the day to do it. 

Sure enough, it's one of the longest drives I can get.  Palm Pennsylvania. The run I love to hate. But, this is different.  The trailer is preloaded.  How am I getting this run when there were fully 9 trucks in the yard yesterday when I got back from Brownsville?  I dunno, but I have to say that even tho this isn't my favorite run, I have some catching up to do in the finance area. It's about a $1,700 trip for 6 days.  But, since I'm getting there late - this load usually delivers Monday morning and I'm not going to be there until Tuesday morning - I won't have to wait around an entire day to get the thing offloaded.  I can drive in on Tuesday morning, get unloaded and at least get started back towards Texas.  

It is still strange they are giving me this run when there are undoubtedly drivers ahead of me.  Supposedly we can turn down a trip, I never have.  This particular run is loved by many of the other drivers, especailly the ones that are OTR and don't live near the yard.  I would start complaining about how going to Brownsville would get me  more money, but they are only sending one load a day down there ATM.  I probably would have been off 2 to 3 days without this trip.

I can only guess that, since the truck is preloaded - wait, I have no guess. It doesn't make any sense, I'll just take the run and be happy I have something to do to try and get my checking account back up to the place it was before Snovid21 and 7 days off being sick.  It takes a while and a lot of work to get the 3 thousand dollars I'd need to have it back to levels before that all happened.  

Meanwhile, we are going to the Ice thing tonight.  But, it's at 5:30 pm, so not too late, I think it's an hour and a half.  My plans today have been dashed.  I cleaned the entire kitchen, got my laundry done but now instead of going to that property I wanted to traipse around on, I have to go to stores and buy stuff to eat for the road, prepare some food in advance as well.  

Good, some of the cooking I don't have to do, the lady that made my last meals is goiong to make me 3 more.  I had her make 5 last time but that was far too much food.  I was eating on it for 7 days and there was still some left.  3 of her meals is like 5 or 6 of anyone's normal eating.  So, get some fresh Keto bread, lunchmeat and make some egg breakfasts, perhaps cook a whole chicken for something different and call it good.  

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Many hours later.  Cooked stuff for the road, they finally delivered my 3 meals 10 minutes ago - I'm going to bed soon.  Trip is ready to go.  We went to the Circus on Ice, it was pretty entertaining, especially the clown character who was really the main attraction of the show but the dancers were pretty cool as well.  

Anyway, the day is done, not necessarily looking forward to 6 more days on the road, but it's the career I chose and have to live with it, lol.