This
weekend our alarms went off a little sooner, our eyes were a little heavier,
and our son woke up a little later. The last one was welcomed but the first two
we could have done without. With all the changes that have happened recently, daylight
saving time was more of a shock to the system than it had been in the past.
One
thing that has become precious to us (in addition to our son) is sleep. It is
something that we enjoy while it lasts and are still not getting enough of
which is why we have been dreading this weekend for months. A single hour may
not seem like much to some, there is a good article in Time Magazine about the minimal impact of this time shift, but
for us it makes a huge difference in our own sleep pattern and our son’s schedule.
With that said, it is nice to wake up to a room filled with sunlight and hopefully
the loss of time will mean the rapid arrival of warm weather and a release from
the four walls of which we have grown rather tired.
While
the momentary loss of sleep is something that we are not fond of, the approach
of spring is something that we are both looking forward to. The weather
combined with the birth of our son has kept us confined to our house more than
usual this year and the ability to go outside and simply walk is something for
which we have been longing. Not to mention that the bitter frigidity of the
winter has wreaked havoc on the temperature inside our home. And this last note
was really the driving force behind the adoption of daylight saving time.
While
Ben Franklin is commonly considered the first to propose such an adjustment,
the recent history of the adoption has a similar rational. Franklin’s proposal
as well as the modern ones were a means of saving energy… candles in the
beginning and fuel as the most recent rational. A more detailed look into the
modern history can be found on Wikipedia. If you
are interested in acquiring some more random knowledge (just in case you are
even on Jeopardy) it is definitely worth reading.
So,
what it comes down to is that in an effort to save some energy we are going to
lose some energy for a day or two. Sometimes that seems like a fair trade but
that has to be reserved to hindsight. However, having seen our recent PECO
bills this winter I think I am okay with that even if we are a little grumpier
than usual this weekend.
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