[K]elly has been hooked on Army Wives recently. She watches a few episodes each on Netflix via Apple TV. When the kids are asleep and I am in bed trying to read, but even with my noise-cancelling headset, I can still hear the show, and tend to get sucked into the stories. I don’t want to get sucked into the stories. I just can’t help it. The general noise-cancelling effect of my Bose headset is not strong enough to overcome the TV.

Until last night. Last night I decided to try an experiment. Rather than just put the headset on in noise-cancelling mode, I downloaded some “white noise” soundtracks in iTunes. Mostly rain and distant thunder. I put that on while Kelly watched Army Wives and I read–and for a wonder, it worked!

In fact, I liked the sound of rain and thunder in the background so much that I spent much of my day today, writing code, and listening to that white noise album. It was wonderful. I love when thunderstorms roll through in the summer and I love the sound of rain on the roof when I am reading. I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t think of this sooner.

Perhaps best of all, I can read to the sound of rain and thunder. I cannot read to music, no matter what the music is.