reasons why i only got 2 hours of sleep last night

I pride myself on getting an average of 7 hours of sleep every night during the week (and an average of 9 on the weekends). I can fall asleep in less than five minutes of riding in a car (as a passenger of course). I can fall asleep watching a movie (even a really good one) or reading a (good) book. I can fall asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow and not wake up until my alarm goes off. I love sleep. But last night, while I was dog-sitting/house-sitting/baby-sitting, I only got 2 hours of sleep. The reasons:

1. It probably didn't help that I spent most of the day reading an extremely good book. So my brain wouldn't shut up. My mind kept thinking and "talking" the way the characters talk and the way the novel is written and my mind kept continuing the story of its own accord (like having a song stuck in your head).
2. The five dogs slept in the bed with me because if I cage them up, they whine all night and I can't sleep anyway.
3. Because they sleep with me, they curl up right next to me. Which you would think is cute, but after awhile it's not. Every time I shifted, they shifted. I started to feel extremely claustrophobic.
4. Three of the five dogs really enjoyed licking themselves and each other. One of the absolute worst sounds is licking. Especially dogs licking. It's disgusting. Multiply that by three.
5. The furnace kept turning on and half, making it sound as if the house was situated next to a highway with huge semis driving back and forth.
6. The sound of the furnace would've been okay if it'd just stayed on: it would've lulled me to sleep. But then it would turn off and the house would get so quiet that even the silence was deafening. So of course I kept hearing every tiny sound and thinking about ghosts and such.
7. One of those automatic air fresheners is out in the hall so every time it went off, I woke up and it sounded like someone shuffling past the door. Causing me to think about ghosts and such even more.
8. One of those really loud grandfather-type clocks that chimes incessantly every 15 minutes kept going off. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I was asleep. But I wasn't.
9. I also drank two cups of coffee throughout the day. Which wasn't bad, but I don't usually drink coffee and when I do it actually puts me to sleep. But not last night. Go figure...

So around 3am I gave up and continued reading. I think around 4:30am I fell asleep with my glasses in one hand and my book in the other, the overhead lights still on. The dogs woke me up at 6am to let them out and now I'm at work, buzzed on a little coffee and hoping it lasts until 5pm!

Source: Lissy Elle