Finally, January has come and the days are each getting eleven seconds longer! You might not think that's noticeable, but when it comes to daylight in Alaska, every eleven seconds count. Just think of all the things we can do in those eleven seconds that we didn't have time to do the day before! For instance... um...
Well, if we save up the seconds, surely we'll have time to do something by the weekend. If we start saving today, we'll have almost a minute more daylight on Saturday, including Saturday's seconds. Some people won't even notice that minute, but I will, and I'm going to take advantage of it by ... uh... 
Okay, if I save them up until the following week, I'll have... oh... a minute and twelve seconds. Alright, but this time next month I'll have six minutes and 53 seconds! Ha! That's enough time to do something with! So, by February 8 I'll have almost seven minutes more daylight than I have now!
In that amount of time, I could even do more than one thing. I could brush my teeth, make coffee, feed the cats and maybe run a brush through my mop before anyone even realizes the sun is up. I can enjoy seven more minutes of my daylight, which means I can start seven minutes earlier or stop seven minutes later, which means my day can be...longer...
Why is that so exciting to me? When it gets dark before the kids get home from school, daylight is not a factor in our routine. We stay up until we're done and go by the clock instead of the sun. It is easier to sleep a little later, staying dark in the morning like it does, but I seem to have plenty of time for everything I need to do. It's just the light that's shorter, not the 24 hour day.
Our light bills will gradually go down and that's a boon. We can walk our dogs or work on our yards and cars after work if we want. When the sun sets, the temperature naturally drops, so we have a few degrees to hang onto just a little longer when the day lengthens. My husband goes to work earlier and comes home later in the longer light, which means more money, but when we get back to 20 hour days, he'll be too tired to play.
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