Seize the Daylight

Happy Daylight Saving Sunday. For most Americans, this is one day when we deposit an hour of our lives in return for five months of defying Mother Nature and Father Time to make the afternoon sun stretch into the evening. The good news is, we get that hour back on a chilly Fall weekend when an extra hour of sleep seems like a great idea.

For me, these two "Spring Forward/Fall Back" days really mess me up. Now, I can hop on a plane, cross several time zones and wake up the next day with the sun. But, when time changes in the comfort of my own home, that's something else. Today, that "lost hour" has seemed to multiply! 7:00 am became 8:00 am before I got out of bed. Thinking I'd have lunch around noon, I looked at the clock and it was 1:00 pm. Hoping I could get a little blogging done this afternoon, I sat down to the computer only to see it's already past 4:00 pm! It feels like I've lost three hours already today.

Things change next year, as DST starts earlier (in March 2007) and last longer ('til November), all in the hopes of saving more energy, preventing more traffic injuries and stopping more crimes. There's even a book on the history of DST: Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time. Check it out.

The book reminded me of one grammatical "pet peeve" of mine: It's Daylight Saving Time. No "S". And, the calendar reminded me of another: Today the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II's death. Not -- as we'll see and hear countless times today -- the one-year anniversary.

Now, it's almost 5:00 p.m....already! Time to go enjoy this extra hour of daylight.