A Bonus Day!

Leap year. It comes but every four years. One bonus day tucked into a regularly scheduled year. We get 366 days for the price of 365!

One extra day every four years. If you live to age 80, that is twenty bonus days that you don't have to add to your age. Almost a month. For free!!

If you get paid by the hour ... bonus! You just got a bonus of one day tacked onto your annual pay cheque. Sorry, if you are a salary wage earner ...you just had to work an extra day for free. It isn't all sunshine and roses.

Which means there is an inevitable downside to the bonus day as well. One extra day of wages to pay your employees. One more day of utility usage to pay for. Yada, yada, yada.

There is always a flip side. To every positive, there is a negative. But we do have a choice on which side of the coin to focus on. I choose positive!

According to my budget, I really needed to work yesterday. But I didn't get called in. Did I have control over that situation? No. If it had been a regular 28 day month of February, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work. So I took my bonus day and made the most of it.

I happened to be sitting at the computer when a second paper officially took me on as a columnist for their weekly paper. Since I knew they were sitting at their computer, I picked up the phone and called. We had a most excellent conversation and I feel that there is a possibility that a few more doors may open because of that conversation. A conversation that I wouldn't have had, if I had not been home enjoying my Leap Year Holiday.

A slight bit of elation snuck into my day at that point. I had the day off of work and I was floating on air. Where do I most want to be when I'm having that kind of day? At the dance studio!

I called before they opened and left a message. I wondered if perhaps I could squeeze in a lesson yesterday ... but if not, that was okay. I would still get to talk with them when I booked a lesson for any other time.

Luck was with me. I got to book a dance lesson at 1:30 yesterday afternoon. When I asked myself the question, "When something wonderful happens in your life, who do you want to share the news with?" I knew my answer. I wanted to share my news with my dance instructor and dance with joy.

I talked with a few friends. I went out for a celebratory supper. I came home and came up with a third column for the first paper that hired me.

It was a day full of bonuses. Little things that would have happened March 1st, if this year wasn't a leap year. But because yesterday was a day that comes but once every four years, it truly felt like the gift that it was.

Happy Leap Year!! If you didn't celebrate your extra day yesterday, do it any time throughout 2012. You have all  year to take advantage of this once-every-four-year offer!