February 29, 2012 - A Perfect Day for Cake

Here we are in the longest year in four years. At 366 days, depending on how the first two months have gone, it might end up feeling like a pretty LONG year. But if you put a positive spin on it, this extra day of February 29th could make this year the best you’ve had in…four years.

According to wikipedia, the knower-of-all-things, Leap Year happens once every four years, in order to catch up with ….stuff.
“A leap year (or intercalary or bissextile year) is a year containing one additional day (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, a month) in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year.[1] Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is called a common year.”

Huh….pretty heavy stuff if you ask me. If we didn’t have this extra day, we would be thrown off kilter forever, and never catch-up…on anything.

So instead of worrying about catching-up, maybe we could make this a day of celebration and have a Leap Year cake! Or we could celebrate the fact that we have an extra day for Christmas shopping and getting our income tax reporting done on time – no excuses. We won’t see this day again for another four years, and who knows what may happen in the next four years, so let’s enjoy it. Maybe it’s a good idea to buy a newspaper dated February 29th, so we can look back in four years’ time and say things like ‘remember when,’ or ‘it happened on this day.’

The folks at wikipedia say the extra day, also known as leap day, acts as “…a corrective measure, because the earth does not orbit around the sun in precisely 365 days.” It better be extra sunny out on that day because as tradition in the British Isles, women may only propose marriage on Leap Day. Who wants rain when they are granted one day in four years in which to propose…

And for those folks born on February 29th who FINALLY get to have a proper birthday, it’s another reason to celebrate – with cake! (This is turning out to be a pretty good day, if I do say so myself.)

Y2K-panic happened in 2000, having everyone fearing for our computer-based lives. January 1st, 2000 came and went, and we lived to see another Leap Year that following February 29th. I think our computers are set to withstand an extra day, so need to panic, there.

Aside from the birthdays and the extra day for Christmas shopping and income take reporting, it could be a day to celebrate this one extra chance to fulfill goals or resolutions made at the beginning of the year.

Since the last Leap Year in 2008, what did you accomplish in the last four years? If your answer is ‘nothing,’ that’s silly because EVERYONE has accomplished SOMETHING, even if it was organizing your underwear drawer. Make this February 29th a time to make a four-year plan, as opposed to a five-year plan which can seem overwhelming. As goals and dreams are often more achievable in shorter increments, why not make a four-year plan and make the most of February 29th, making February 29, 2016 a quirky goal date.

Aside from being thankful for this extra day we have been granted, if you having nothing better to do on February 29th, you can still eat cake. If you have been dieting since January 1st, technically this day doesn’t count, because you won’t have it on your calendar again for another four years. So go for it.

So with February 29th right around the corner, I wish you Happy Leap Day/Week/Year! Make the most of it!