Happy Leap Day!

For some reason I love the idea of Leap Day! It seems so fun and exciting to have an extra day in the year. I know no one treats it that way. Everyone just goes on as if it were just another day. Even so, an extra day is exactly what it is. Last year we had 365 days, this year we have 366, a whole extra day.

I always want to celebrate Leap Day, but am never sure how. The only people I know who do so are people who were lucky (or as some think unlucky) enough to be born on a Leap Day. One fun way I thought of celebrating it would be for me and Afton to walk over to the hospital (the one where she was born is just across the parking lot from our building) and see if there were any babies born today and smile and wave at them through the nursery window. I thought better of it, deciding that may be a little weird. Still, it is fun to look at newborns in the hospital. Everybody knows that!

The best celebration of the day I have had so far was reading up on its history this morning in The Christian Almanac. Ron started reading it to us each morning this fall and I was very excited today that in our first February of reading we got to read the entry for the 29th. As I told Ron this morning, we could have very easily gone four years with out getting to read it! Here is what Grant and Wilbur had to say about Leap Year:


"The leap year system was adopted by Julius Caesar to keep the calendar from getting out of whack and was adjusted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XII. An extra day is added every four years, except for years ending in 00 -- unless the year is divisible by 400. Thus 2000 was a leap year, and so was 1600, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not."

I, for one, had no idea there were any rules about years ending in 00. I guess that is because 2000 was the only year with double zeroes during which I was alive. Apart from some pretty rad medical advances and/or the special intervention of God himself, I probably won't get to see a 00 year that is not a leap year. That is okay with me, though. I am glad I was here for one of the few that were leap years.

I have spent the day deciding what I will do with this extra day. I couldn't do anything but the usual today, but I have a fun plan that I am rain checking for myself and my family. Now, I also realize that what I would do with an extra day is probably not exactly what Ron would do, so I am going to encourage him to decide what he wants to do with his extra day this year and take a rain check on it himself. They will have to be different days, of course, because he is a big part of my extra day plans.

I think this is going to become my new way of celebrating Leap Year. Decide what I would do if I had more time and then take a day that year and do it! I am pretty excited about it! I will let you know when I have my day, what I decide to do, and how it goes!

I would love to hear what any of you would do if you were a give an extra day this year. After all, let's face it, you were.

Look Familiar?

I think we can all relate to this on some level.

I Told You I Love Birth Stories

My sweet friend Mary Lindsey finally got her sweet baby last week! What a delightful blessing! Read all about it here:

http://blantonbaby.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-am-mommy.html

Home-Making ~ by J.R. Miller

I wrote this review for my church newsletter which I hope explains its brevity and broadness. I wish I had time to do this blessed book more justice, but for now, I simply do not. I will add two things:

1. I am not exaggerating when I say this is the best book I have ever read.

2. It makes an excellent wedding present. I doubt I will ever give anything else.

I heartily recommend Home-Making by J.R. Miller to anyone who is a part of a family! Yes, that is everybody! Do not be misled by the title or the cover. This is not a book written only for wives and mothers. All members of a Christian home – fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives will be blessed, encouraged, sharpened, and challenged by a reading of this book.

Miller begins his book with a chapter on what the calls "The Wedded Life" which is the very bedrock of the family. He then devotes a chapter to each role in every family. There is a chapter directed to the husband, the wife, the parents, the children, and a chapter on the special relationship between brothers and sisters.

In each of these chapters Miller describes with beauty and eloquence what it looks like when Christians live out the sweet sacrifice of Christ daily in the most important place on earth – the home. The final chapters of the book are spent on more comprehensive topics such as the home life and religion in the home.

I hope you will be as inspired by this lovely book as I have been.

"You know what a true home ought to be. It ought to be a place where love rules. It ought to be beautiful, bright, joyous, full of tenderness and affection; a place in which all are growing happier and better each day."

To Remember When Overwhelmed, Interrupted, and Delayed

"It is something that my husband has been satisfied with his wife and his home today; that does me good."

~Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward