I think nearly everyone hits that point where they say “where had the year gone?” at some point of time during the spring.  That really came to light for me over the last couple of weeks.  And … “Light” is the pun in that sentence.

May 11th, and we are only a month and a half from the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, so as you can guess the days are getting pretty long here.  For the last couple of months, we have been gaining about five minutes of daylight a day.  Think about it, we get over a half an hour longer of a day every week.  It is noticeable, maybe not day to day, but definitely week to week.  It was the recent weeks and the existing daylight that makes it seem just an edge past insane.

I am writing this blog right around the official sundown today — which would be 10:32pm.  Rainclouds aren’t behaving to see it, but it definitely is light outside, if just a bit grey.  Sunup tomorrow is officially at 5:19am, which is only 20 minutes after the pup starts whining that he wants to go out for his morning business.  Because mountains block sunup, it should be nearly full daylight by the time we get up tomorrow morning.  So that means the total nighttime, officially, is about seven hours … shorter than the recommend “8 hour sleep”.

It won’t get to be a good dark until about 11pm, and there will be a glimmer of daylight past midnight.  The new day will start showing up around four or four thirty. How’s it affecting me, you might ask … well … not that much.  Maybe I am just a good sleeper, or maybe it just came along subtly, but the additional daylight hasn’t had much affect on my sleeping patterns.  I go to bed around the usual time, and I wake up around the usual time.  I joked about a month ago that I was going to bed when it was still daylight at 9pm, well, unless I want to stay up well past bedtime, that is the norm now.  It’s not a full daylight, remember, its a darker setting sun.  It tends to be low light, just enough to maneuver around the house without a blink; so it seems not to urge me to get up.  It helps maybe that my bedroom window faces south, and that seems to be about the only direction the sun doesn’t shine.  The guest bedroom will get the morning sun facing east, but I put up some blinds there to counteract (btw – watch for pictures of the guest bedroom in the next couple of days … its just about done).

The funny change that I really am noticing is my use of lights.  Basically, I just don’t.  I found that I don’t turn on the lights I usually do.  It started with the deck lights, that I always turned on when I took Auggie outside, that stopped months ago.  The dining room came next, then the hallway.  Now, the only lights I seem to turn on are the bathrooms (with no windows) and the kitchen (facing south, like my bedroom).  I don’t make any effort to reduce my light usage … I’m not a hippie, y’all should know that by now … but I don’t keep lights on that I don’t need, and these days, well, I don’t need any light.

Well see if I complain about daylight next month, probably will knowing me, but that’s for June.  For now, its the repetition of going to bed in the “not dark”.