The bad news:
This Sunday, March 9th, marks the beginning of Daylight Saving Time or what I like to call, “You Ripped Off an Hour of My Precious Sleeping Time.” We lose an hour at 2:00 AM when time springs ahead to 3:00 AM. Dawn will break an hour later and the sun won’t slide behind our mountains until 7:02 PM. It will be one of those groggy days which will oddly resemble jet lag. It will creep into Monday morning with an increase in traffic accidents and heart attacks.
I love when it ends in November and I have a whole extra hour to play, but the start-up is killer. I can’t believe one little hour can mess with our heads so much.
I wonder if anyone has ever screwed with time in order to win a war. I can imagine the enemy sneaking into camp and setting all the clocks ahead by one hour. Just think of the mayhem, friendly fire, and subsequent heart attacks.
Did you know that Ben Franklin is responsible for our abrupt and jarring time change? In 1784, he spent some time in Paris and came up with an idea to save on the cost of candles. It’s always about money and sometimes about the cost of wax.
The good news:
Here in Boulder, day lengthens by 2 minutes and 37-38 seconds every 24 hours. For all of you still in the eye of the Polar Vortex, spring will arrive on Thursday, March 20th, whether Weather likes it or not. The 4th of July is less than four months away. How can that be? Time is precise and controlled. It ticks on and on, with concise rhythm and constant meter. Weather is obstinate and unpredictable. It throws tantrums without warning. It has its way, always. It doesn’t care about Time or the season. It’s an emotional monster, a willful child, and a hormonal teenager.
On Sunday morning, when you set your clocks ahead, you’ll be one hour closer to spring. The days will lengthen, temperatures will rise, and snow will melt.
But don’t mention anything to Weather. We don’t want it to become a hot mess.
Are you for or against Daylight Saving Time?
Photo courtesy of Free Wallpaper
Susie Lindau's Wild Ride 
Mathair and I love winter hours. We do most of our writing at night and we prefer it that way. We’re night owls, winter lovers, moon gals. My favorite kind of weather are those gray, cold, windy, rainy days. Rather depressing for most, but I’ve always found them beautiful. The actual act of daylight savings time doesn’t bother us, it’s the simple fact that it segues into Spring and Summer. Good Lord, Mathair and I sound like Debbie Downers! LOL. We’re not really that weird… who am I kidding?! Yeah, we are. 😉 LOL Great post, Susie.
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Thanks gals! You are hardly downers… 🙂
I agree and love to hole up on days like that and by now I am used to the early sunsets. In November, it freaks me out! It will be a distraction when it is light outside and the garden beckons. 🙂
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I am for anything that helps bring more SUN to my day!!
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Me too! I need some vitamin D! I’m looking forward to the darker mornings.
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I do not like spring forward. It messes with my body and head. Fall back is much more civil. A leisure way to save wax.
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Exactly! I am not looking forward to Monday when the day will seem really short, but at least the sun will shine one hour longer!
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Bring it on! After this long dreary winter here we on the Northeast welcome an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day. Will be nice to leave work and it’s still daylight outside!
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It won’t feel like the day is over at 6:00. We can start playing outside again! Do New Yorkers play outside?
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Ever hear of Central Park? Coney Island? We actually do a lot outside actually. Not like Denver of course, but I would just go there for the craft beer!
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That’s right!
I love Central Park!
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I’d rather not lose my hour, thank-you-very-much. I have a hard enough time waking up in the morning, to have to get up in the dark is preposterous! Not to mention having to do that with an hour less sleep? It’s rude, I tell ya!
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I do too especially with the low pressure systems that keep coming through. I could drink coffee all day!
Thanks for stopping by Jessica!
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Thanks for the reminder. Here in Canada we have one Province (Saskatchewan) that opts out of Daylight Savings Time. There are also various communities in each of the rest of the Provinces that opt out. It can get a bit confusing. Do you have any States that don’t go along with it?
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I think we do! I’ll check……Hawaii and Arizona, but the Navajo in AZ set their clocks forward. It is confusing!!!
Thanks for stopping by!
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Oh, I forgot about the time change.And I’ve been waking up at crazy hours. Don’t need to lose anymore sleep.
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Now, I learned something here. I always thought DST was because of the farmers needing extra time to, you know, farm. No?
I don’t really mind the back and forth of time because it’s all I’ve ever known. And really, nothing can mess with our sleep more than babies and toddlers and sick children, so I don’t get too mad at DST in that respect! 😉
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I like being able to sleep that extra hour, but dislike that anything needs to change in the first place.
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I’ll be against it this weekend because I’ll be traveling and this will mess with me. I left my office at 5:30 last night and it was still light! YaHOO!
Love the new avatar, Red. You go, girl!
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That will be harsh. I am looking forward to the sunseting later too!
I am experimenting with the gravatar. Thanks! It’s a photo which was taken when I had long hair and wore a wig to a party. A few months later, I cut it off in the same style, just not as red.
I could not figure out why my follows plummeted in April. Yesterday, I remembered I changed my profile picture. I thought I would give this a try!
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NZ’s ‘fall back’ to standard time is in a few weeks as we descend perilously into autumn after a cool non-summer. Our ‘daylight saving’ is out of synch with the whole of the rest of the world for various reasons. Causes some interesting adventures trying to skype my relatives in the Netherlands – can never remember whether they’re exactly 12 hours behind, or if it’s 10, or what.
I prefer summer time, but what I’d really like when it comes to monkeying about with time zones is a TARDIS…
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That would be most confusing. Let me know when you find, build, or buy a Tardis!
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I’m against being at the mercy of the clock all-together, Susie…
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It is so strange how the clock speeds up when I’m on my computer. Today I was writing a story about something that happened to me in my twenties. One moment it was 10:30 and when I looked up again, it was 1:00!!!
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Ignorance truly is bliss, it seems.
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Ugh….I love that it is lighter longer so I can enjoy the outdoors, but I hate that loosing or gaining just ONE HOUR makes me feel as if I traveled the world over night and have jet lag for days.
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I know! It is going to be a tough couple of days. I went to be early last night. Maybe if I can do that again, it won’t hurt so much. *yawn*
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I aught to be ashamed to admit I’m in my happy little world with no clue that this is about to be the day the clocks skip. Not going to say a word Mrs Weather.
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Hahaha! It will catch a lot of people off guard. It was never this early until a couple of years ago. I didn’t know until a random real estate agent sent me a reminder postcard and her contact information, of course…. 🙂 I am hitting the hay after setting the clocks ahead!
Good to “see” you Neville!
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The best thing about springing ahead is that we’re one hour closer to more favorable weather.
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Exactly. It will be nice when the sun is just setting at 7:00 tonight.
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I love DST as I like the long evenings–what I don’t like is your reminder that the 4th of July is only four months away. Didn’t we just celebrate the beginning of 2014?
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Right? I mentioned the 4th to warm the cockles of Americans and Canadians who have been in the throes of the Polar Vortex for months! It just HAS to warm up!
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We love Daylight Savings Time. Last night we went to bed an hour early after setting the clocks an hour back. This morning we woke up and felt no change at all had happened.
“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ” — Denis Waitely
Philip Zimbardo: The Secret Powers of Time (10 minutes)
Zimbardo says: Developing the mental flexibility to shift time perspectives fluidly depending on the demands of the situation, that’s what you’ve got to learn to do.
From my post here Time Keeps on Ticking Into the Future
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Well, despite the rain and cold today, the redbud trees are blooming along with the other early bloomers: plum/pear trees. So it’s coming! They say the wild flowers should be beautiful this year because of all the rain and cold here
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Here in Australia, I live in one of the few states that don’t have daylight savings time. Although this saves a lot of confusion and sleep, the sun rises about 04:00 each morning and in winter sets at about 16:30. I’d much rather have to reset my clock…
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Aliens would wonder whether we are intelligent life forms. What species messes with it’s own schedule? Ah well. Daylight savings gives me something to blame everything on for the next week.
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I am still out of it! I stayed up too late last night…
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I am sorry to be late but I overslept! No, I do not like time change of any sort be it clock or travel. It messes with my inner timetable. And going forward is the worst. It will take me six months until I gain my sanity back. And somehow I just knew that wax was at the bottom of this predicament. Thank you Ben Franklin. I’m going back to bed. Good night Susie!
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Hi Karen!!
This is the first day that I feel I e adjusted. I woke up at 6:00! Watch, I’ll probably be exhausted by 2:00 this afternoon and need a nap!
I hope you had sweet dreams Karen!
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