Day: February 1, 2016

29 days and a lot going on…

Helen

 

days-of-the-months-poem

 

This year February has 29 days so it’s called a leap year. I set out to understand leap year via this internet but for me leap years are like technology …  I don’t really need to know how it works, I’ll just work with it.  Of course like any good Googler, I learned an awful lot about February, and pretty much skipped over the leap year bits but I found these 10 facts about February you might like to know.  

  1. A lunar cycle is 29.5 days making February the only month in which it is possible to have no full moon.  Most years February will have a full moon but in 2018 there will be none. This doesn’t mean weird things won’t happen in February 2018, it only means that we can’t blame the full moon.
  2. February 2nd is Groundhog Day, when Punxsutawney Phil will tell us if spring is right around the corner, or not.  Statistically, flipping a coin will provide the same percentage of accuracy as Phil, but that’s not nearly as cool.
  3. February frequently occurs in lists of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language.  Last year a press release from the White House consistently spelled it as Feburary.
  4. Black History Month is always the month of February and there are some really terrific movies to help educate us on this topic.  My personal favorite is Glory.  I still can’t get over the real face to face combat.  See Glory it if you can.
  5. February is also: National Pet Dental Health Month; National Canned Food Month;  Hot Breakfast Month, Potato Lovers Month. You’ll have to choose which National Celebrations work best for you since there are no days off from work or school for these types of things.
  6. President’s Day is always the third Monday of the month.  It was changed from the actual birthday of President Washington as  the result of the Uniform Holiday Monday Act from the 1968. This was signed under President Nixon.   He intended for it to be Washington’s Birthday but now we lump in Lincoln’s birthday too, and of course retail sales.
  7. Valentines Day is February 14th. There are many stories of the history of Valentines Day.  Some theories include the poet Chaucer as the person who equated Valentines day with love, but the biography that I read makes no such association.
  8. Non leap years are called common years.
  9. If you were born on February 29th you were most likely conceived on June 8th or 9th. 
  10.  Leap year babies (Feb 29th) have a special name … leaplings.