Winter Blahs

I am starting to wonder why we celebrate the New Year in the midst of winter.

It seems like spring, when most new year celebrations used to take place (before Julius Caesar changed it all up), is a better time. This time of year, with gloomy skies and a dull outlook just doesn't get me focused on the excitement of a new start like the new growth of spring does.

I keep reading about starting over, and giving myself the gift of doing things differently, and how this year can be so much better, etc., and all I can do is look out at the slate gray skies and think, "blah." What's so different? What has changed, and what can change?

It's difficult to get excited about new anything when my main focus is how to keep warm.


Today is:

Day to Honor Freyja -- Norse Calendar

Dimpled Chad Day

Eleventh Day of Christmas

Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1st US-born Saint)

Festival of Fufluns (Etruscan god of wine)

Flower Basket Day

Get Out Your Boxer Shorts Day

Independence Day, Burma, Myanmar

National Spaghetti Day

Pop Music Chart Day

St. Pharaildis' Day (patron against childhood illness)

"Thank God It's Monday" Day

Trivia Day

World Braille Day

World Hypnotism Day


Anniversaries Today:

Utah becomes the 45th US state, 1896


Birthdays Today:

Michael Stipe, 1960
Matt Frewer, 1958
Grace Bumbry, 1937
Dyan Cannon, 1937
Floyd Patterson, 1935
Jesse White, 1917
Jane Wyman, 1914
Sterling Holloway, 1905
Charles "Tom Thumb" Stratton, 1838
Louis Braille, 1809
Jakob Grimm, 1785


Today in History:

Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina, BC 46
Columbus leaves the "New World" on return from his first voyage, 1493
Spanish viceroy Alva banishes Zutphen City's only physician, Joost Sweiter, "because he is a Jew", 1570
Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the English monarchs, is destroyed by fire, 1698
Andre Méchain discovers M80, the globular cluster in Scorpio, 1781
Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government, 1847
4 wheeled roller skates patented by James Plimpton of NY, 1863
The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City, 1865
Sofia is emancipated from Ottoman rule, 1878
The last known sighting of an eastern cougar, in Ontario, 1884
Dr W W Grant of Iowa, performs the first appendectomy (on Mary Gartside, 22), 1885
Thomas Stevens is the first man to bicycle around the world (SF-SF); his itinerary accounts "DISTANCE ACTUALLY WHEELED, ABOUT 13,500 MILES", 1887
The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter, 1912
The first elected Jewish governor, Moses Alexander, takes office in Idaho, 1915
Sputnik 1 reenters the atmosphere and burns up, 1958