Once in a Blue Moon

The month of December is an exciting one this year. There have been holidays and events to celebrate including the winter solstice, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. But something else that I've been waiting all month to see—The Blue Moon!

If they say the moon is blue,

We must believe that it is true.

(an old proverb, 1528)

We've all heard the saying that a rare something happens only "once in a blue moon," but what does that really mean? According to modern popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month (this month's first one was on December 2nd). It isn't actually blue, though and I'm not sure where the color blue comes from.(I Googled it and only came up with pollution as a possible cause, but that it has nothing to do with two full moons in one month.)

As I mentioned, December 2009 is a blue moon month and the next one on New Year's Eve in the western hemisphere won't occur over here until 2028. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to wait 19 more years to see this event again at the turning of the New Year. The moon rises at 5:08 pm and I plan to be outside watching it!

What a great way to celebrate the coming of 2010!

Happy New Year!

Addition ~6 pm: We went out to look at the moon and it was beautiful coming up over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. My middle son was ticked off that the moon wasn't actually blue but otherwise it was a great event getting out of the house for 15 minutes on this cold night.

~~~~~~~~~
Neat

"Let all that you do be done in love"
1 Cor 16:14

New Year's Superstitions

It's a good thing I'm not a superstitious person. I just read a list about superstitions associated with the New Year and I think I broke just about every one of their guidelines. I was wondering about such traditions surrounding the New Year, like why kissing at midnight is so important and whether or not it was okay to eat leftover turkey soup today for lunch (I had heard somewhere that to do so would be bad luck). So I did some Google searching and fell upon one of my favorite websites, the place to go to find out if something is true or a load of hogwash: Snopes.com.

According to the article on the website, "New Year's Superstitions," it is important to kiss those dearest to us at midnight to make sure that the affection and closeness you feel together lasts throughout the next twelve months. If you don't kiss your loved one at midnight, a year of coldness will be your fate. 

I didn't kiss my significant other at midnight.  Didn't give him a kiss for at least 12 hours afterwards.

Good ol' Snopes.com did have a mention about eating turkey on the first day of the year, believe it or not. The article says that you must not eat chicken or turkey on the first day of the year or else you'll end up scratching in the dirt for food like the birds in question.

I didn't have the leftover turkey noodle soup for lunch today, but my significant other did. The bummer thing is, I did have some turkey cubes in my salad.

And what about the annoying tradition of making a heck of a lot of noise on New Year's? This is so that you can scare away evil spirits because, after all, evil spirits hate loud noises.  

Well, I hate loud noises, too, and so did not make any kind of ruckus last night.

Other Superstitions:

• Pay off debt: Nope, didn't do that. We're still in debt.
  
• Nothing goes out of the house: Nope, didn't follow that one, either. Took out a lot of holiday ornaments and trash today.
  
• Food: Nope, didn't eat the lucky food today. I don't like lentils or black-eyed peas and I definitely don't like sauerkraut.
• Work: Do something successful related to my work? Nope, didn't do anything educational at all today.
• Laundry: Don't do laundry on the first day of the New Year or else a member of the family will be 'washed away' in the upcoming months.  Oh, I sure hope this doesn't come true since I did two loads today.
• Clothing: Wear something new on the first day of the year? No, didn't do that. I'm in my old blue t-shirt and jeans.
• Breakage: Oops, we broke an ornament from the tree when taking it apart today. Now wreckage will be part of my year.

For many other hilarious and interesting superstitions, read the article yourself. I'm just a bit miffed that I didn't read the article yesterday so that I could have given myself a chance.

Hope you have a happier year than I'm obviously going to have!

~~~~~~~~~
Neat