When your alarm clock goes off at 4:45 a.m., after an ungodly long day yesterday and as a prelude to what promises to be another bitch of a day today, it's nice to have your morning brightened with a few stories from home.

My brother sent an e-mail with the following tale...

Last night after the boys first swim lesson (in the water by themselves for their classes and couldn't have gone better), it was drizzling a bit outside and the boys were wondering why it was raining as it had not been when we went into the Y. Crazy Nephew #1 then says ..."maybe God's crying because we swam so well." I was laughing so hard that I almost drove the car off the road.

He then followed up with this one...

Both boys were asking where you were last night and I told them that you were traveling for work and were in North Carolina. The little one says..."are we going to North Carolina tonight to sleep with Aunt Jersey Girl?" and then he became agitated with me when I told him that we couldn't go to NC tonight because it would take 10 hours to get there and they needed to go to bed. I recovered by telling him that we would go to NC soon. Hopefully he'll forget that by today.

Yep, that'll help make today a better day.