I brushed my teeth with Solanpas. I thought it was a tube of Crest toothpaste. It had a numbing affect. Not a great addition to my seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Which leads me to the topic of today's discussion – our lengthening daylight.

I believe I saw a weather person on TV say that, since Dec. 21, our least daylight day, that we are gaining two minutes of daylight every day, which I was happy to hear. That seemed like a satisfactory and encouraging bit of information. I was happy to accept that the Earth was once again tilting in favor of defeating darkness at 4-ish. On overcast days, our afternoon light actually could appear to lessen even earlier.

When I didn't feel that we were gaining the TV-mentioned amount of daylight that had been promised/projected, I decided to do a little research. Not, may I remind you, one of my strong suits. I am about to share some of what I was able to discover. These are sort of ballpark factoids. Please follow along. There will be a short quiz at the end of the lecture!

On Dec. 21, the sunset was at 4 o'clock. On Jan. 21, sunset was at 4:35 p.m. On Dec. 21, sunrise was at 7:10 a.m. On Jan. 21, sunrise was 7:05 a.m. On Dec. 21, the length of day was reported to be 8 hours and 54 minutes. On Jan. 21, the length of day was reported to be 9 hours and 29 minutes. You do the math.

One month of two minutes per day gain of daylight is 30 days times two minutes/day equals 60 minutes or, in terms of less severity, one hour. We should have seen one more hour of daylight. You do the math, again.

Where does the time go?

Now I realize that this is not a scientifically supported study of time. Time has been around a lot longer than I have. But somethin' ain't right. So, as we used to suggest to our children when their enthusiasm overpowered us ... “This may call for a time out. What do you think, dear ones? It will give you a little time to come up with an explanation for how the tapioca pudding got to the floor on its way to the radiator.”