The North

There are a couple of things I miss about the southern portion of the United States (particularly the Southwest). Now that it is winter, there is one in particular I am reminded of almost every day. I am reminded that in the winter we get significantly less daylight each day than the southern half of the United States. Almost every day (with maybe the exception of Saturday and possibly Friday), I go to sleep when it is dark (and has been dark for a while) and I get up and leave when it is still dark. Now, I know I don’t usually get as much sleep as I should, but it should be noted that it is dark here for at least fourteen hours a day, if not more. If I went to bed when it gets dark around 5 or 5:30 and got up when the sun rises sometime between 7:30 and 8, then I would be very well rested.

When I was in high school, which was the last time I really remember getting up early on a regular basis, it was only around the time of the switch off of daylight savings time in the fall that I would drive to school in the dark. I almost always left the house to go to school at 7, and usually the sun was up by then. But this is New Mexico which is closer to the equator. This is showing me how much further north Ohio is and subsequently darker (not to mention all the clouds which usually don’t bother me). My temptation is to say the whole getting up before the sun thing needs to stop, but I don’t really see that happening while living in Ohio, at least in the winter anyway. During the summer, I would usually get up before the sun, but by the time I left the sun was usually up thanks to the rotation of the earth. That’s the bonus I guess... darker during the winter and brighter during the summer.

So that’s the random musings of the day... more later I’m sure.

Kate