I can still remember well those first years when I was working and getting a tax refund. It was almost like winning the lottery (before there was a lottery here). A windfall of ?Äúfree money?Äù to use for whatever I wanted.
It didn?Äôt matter if it was $200 or $1,000 ?Äì it was ?Äúfree?Äù and ?Äúextra?Äù and mine!
I?Äôm sure I?Äôm not alone in finding several ways to spend that money each year. I would mentally commit the $200, for instance, to be used for many hundreds of dollars worth of bills or (more likely) the extra ?Äústuff?Äù I didn?Äôt want to wait any longer for.
Reality eventually set in, some. That refund check wasn?Äôt exactly ?Äúextra?Äù money.
(By the way, if you regularly get tax refunds back from the government, you need to adjust your withholding. Otherwise, you?Äôre loaning your money, without interest, and then have to work to get it back. Keep more of your money each paycheck; you earned it!)
So here we are at that time of year when we change our clocks again (FALL BACK an hour Sunday morning, Nov. 1). It?Äôs almost like we get an ?Äúextra?Äù hour, catching up on that hour we lost in the spring.
Almost.
In the past, I?Äôd probably come up with all kinds of ways to spend that hour: make a quilt, read a whole book, write a bunch of letters and thank-you notes, or maybe take a trip somewhere local.
Yes, I am exaggerating a tiny bit. (Really, only a tiny bit.)
But this hour isn?Äôt any more ?Äúextra?Äù than the tax refund check that may come in the spring.
This is an hour that was taken away last spring, and we?Äôre just now getting it back.
It doesn?Äôt even matter that the hour comes at 3 a.m.
The very best way to use that hour?
SLEEP
None of us gets enough sleep, not enough in quantity or quality.
So sweet dreams this Sunday morning. Just don?Äôt forget to set your clocks BACK an hour before you go to bed (so you?Äôre not an hour early for church ?Äì the only thing more embarassing than that is being an hour late for church in the spring, right mom?)