Mark your calendars!
We will be closing early on Friday, Feb. 2 due to construction. We will be open that day from 8 a.m. to noon only. We will be closing at noon. We will still have Breakfast Bingo at 9 a.m. Decade’s Diner will be closed for the day and no meal delivery will take place. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this time.
Can you believe that we are getting ready to be in the 2nd month of the year already? Where has that time gone? Don’t forget that Noah Back will be here serenading us on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 11:30 a.m. It is open to the public and while you are listening to his music, you can order some delicious food from our diner. Seating is first come, first served basis.
February has an extra day this year, so we get one more day of sharing our love. How do you share your love or show your love to your family and friends? It can be as easy as calling them on the phone, making time to meet up for a meal, spending time with them here at the senior center, sending them a note or a text message, stopping by their house, asking them if they need anything, or just being there for them.
What does leap year do for us anyways? Why does it exist? According to Bob Craddock, Geologist of Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, from the National Air and Space Museum, (https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/science-leap-year) “A calendar year is typically 365 days long. These so called “common years” loosely define the number of days it takes the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun. But 365 is actually a rounded number. It takes Earth 365.242190 days to orbit the Sun, or 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds. This “sidereal” year is slightly longer than the calendar year, and that extra 5 hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds needs to be accounted for somehow. If we didn’t account for this extra time, the seasons would begin to drift. This would be annoying if not devasting, because over a period of about 700 years our summers, which we’ve come to expect in June in the northern hemisphere, would begin to occur in December! By adding an extra day every four years, our calendar years stay adjusted to the sidereal year, but that’s not quite right either. Some simple math will show that over four years the difference between the calendar years and the sidereal year is not exactly 24 hours. Instead, it’s 23.262222 hours. Rounding strikes again! By adding a leap day every four years, we actually make the calendar longer by over 44 minutes. Over time, these extra 44+ minutes would also cause the seasons to drift in our calendar. For this reason, not every four years is a leap year. The rule is that if the year is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400, leap year is skipped. The year 2000 was a leap year, for example, but the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not. The next time a leap year will be skipped is the year 2100. And why is it called “leap year?” Well, a common year is 52 weeks and one day long. That means that if your birthday were to occur on a Monday one year, the next year it should occur on a Tuesday. However, the addition of an extra day during a leap year means that your birthday now “leaps” over a day. Instead of your birthday occurring on a Tuesday as it would following a common year, during a leap year, your birthday “leaps” over Tuesday and will now occur on a Wednesday. And if you happen to be born on leap day Feb. 29, that doesn’t mean you only celebrate a birthday every four years. Every three years, you get to celebrate your birthday on March 1 and continue to grow old like the rest of us. Thanks to leap year, our seasons will always occur when we expect them to occur, and our calendar year will match the Earth’s sidereal year.” So, a leap year reasoning is a little more complicated than just every 4 years. Thanks, Bob, for sharing this good information.
We’d love to see you come on down to the Senior Center for some fun, food, and socialization. It’s a wonderful place where you can connect with someone or get involved with something. Don’t forget that you can become a member for just $10 a year and you will stay up to date with all of our events and happenings. If you were a member in 2023 and haven’t renewed yet for 2024, this is your reminder to do so. Membership is valid from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. We are looking forward to seeing you visit us soon!
Preble County Council on Aging is located at 800 East St. Clair Street, Eaton.
(937) 456-4947 or 1-800-238-5146 – Fax (937) 456-6565 [email protected]
