February 29, 2012 – YA Chit Chat

Happy Leap Day everyone, especially you Leap Year babies! By the way, what day to you celebrate your birthdays, usually…February 28 or March 1?

I was talking to my twelve year-old neighbor today and he asked me why we even had a leap year, and that got me thinking, how many other people (especially kids) don’t know why we have a leap year?

Simply put, the Earth doesn’t take exactly 365 days to orbit the sun. It’s closer to 365.242 days, and while that doesn’t seem like a whole lot of time, when you add it up, it amounts to almost six extra hours a year. Without ‘leap year’, there would be a shift in our calendars because of the extra hours and our calendar would eventually fall out of sync with the weather. Without it, we would eventually see winter-like conditions in July and warm, sunny days in December. (Of course, if you live in Florida, you pretty much have warm, sunny days year round.)

So who was the clever genius who invented leap day? Why, it was none other than the Roman leader, Julius Caesar. And while it was a brilliant plan, it wasn’t perfect. The leap day threw the calendar off by one day every 128 years. It wasn’t until 1582 with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar (what we use today), that the problem was remedied.

But who cares about all the historical mumbo jumbo? How about you just enjoy your day and have fun. I know I am. Why? I found out today my non-fiction short story, From Traps to Talons, has been accepted for a reader’s choice competition at Midlife Collage! Whoo Hoo! The story will post on Sunday, March 5, and readers can pop over between March 5 and March 11 to vote for their favorite story (hopefully mine – *wink* *wink*). I hope you all will take a peek and participate in the voting process. Maybe even take the plunge someday and enter your own short story for a contest.

See you later. Have some blog leaping to do.