Today is a “bonus” day!
Yes, that’s right every four years we are given a “bonus” day on February 29th! Every four years instead of 365 days, we get 366! Every four years we get a full extra 24 hours! Today is that extra day.
In an “average” lifetime you only get 20 “bonus days”…that’s right just 20 days! This is my 13th bonus day so I don’t want to “waste it a way”. As I lay here in bed watching the rain pound with vengeance against the windows I am pondering just what I want to do (or not to do) with my “bonus” day.
How about you? What will you do today with your bonus day?
How about all those things that you have been putting off until you have “more” time?
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Reading or finishing that book that you heard was so fabulous
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Making that long overdue doctor or dentist appointment
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Cleaning or organizing that “junk drawer”, spare bedroom or garage
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Organizing those photos, making a dent in that scrapbooking project or completing some journaling
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Sitting down and planning your yearly calendar to include meaningful family traditions that you keep wanting to do but never seem to get going on them
Or maybe you could use your bonus day to do something positive for other people and your community?
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Volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen
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Grab a trash bag and go pick up all the trash on your street
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Visit the elderly, sick or shut ins
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Call a stressed out Mom of toddlers and take her kids to the park or mall playground for a couple hours
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Help a single Mom or widow with the yard work, house or car maintenance
Or what about spending the day enriching your relationships?
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Spend time really playing with your kids on their level (even if that means getting down on the floor and playing cards or dressing up as a pirate or Maid Marian)
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Call your spouse just to say I love you & appreciate you (and husbands – bring home flowers for no special reason) – go out on a special date night
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Ask your loved ones what would be their “perfect day” and then make it happen for them
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Call that long lost friend from the past just to say hi and catch up
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Invite that family you have been wanting to get to know over for dinner
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Take your neighbors some yummy fresh baked cookies
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Sit on the couch with your family and read a book together (and turn OFF the TV!)
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Write notes of love, support and appreciation to all those important people in your life
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Mend a broken relationship – say you are sorry, ask for forgiveness – forgive and forget
Or maybe you just need a complete day “off” to rest, relax and be renewed and refreshed so that you can continue to live a life all year of meaning and purpose.
Just some thoughts for you on this – February 29, 2012 – now you decide how you will spend your “bonus day”. Will it just be “the same ole, same ole” or will you make it truly a special bonus day?
P.S. – The photo above was taken 4 years ago on my “bonus day”…you can read about it here.
Inspire Ministries 
you asked so here it is… i got done with work at 1am in the bonus morning, it was about 2 by the time i got home, didn’t make it to bed until 5, woke up around noon, i got about 3 bonus hours before i have to start getting ready for my bonus shift, another night grinder that will go till past midnight on something the call Bonus Beer Night at work (not really what they call it, thought i’d substitute your word for the profanity they actually use… and yeah, i SHOULD look for a more wholesome work environment, i try to, it’s extremely difficult in my line of work, maybe in a few years when things settle down a bit JECHS will be looking for a speech therapist and a home-ec. teacher and the wife and i will have it made 😉 ), and though i’m i’m tempted to just go back to bed tired and grumpy and get some bonus sleep, here’s what i’m gonna’ do, i’ll put on my Beth Borden-Lambdin Bonus boots (also not what they’re normally called, there’s a lot of profanities in the modern vernacular… i think the new name fits, you’re like 40 😉 and boogie-boarding in February, how hardcore is that? and yeah, the allitteration is deliberate, your bonus from me today 🙂 ) and hike through the rain and go get a haircut and some quarters to do some bonus laundry and show up so fresh n’ so clean and so positive that it just kills people and try to look on the bright side, it’s an extra chance to sandbag some money to get out of Baltimore and move to Texas and hang out with my family, and that will be happening in about 3 short months…
every day is a bonus day for my dad, and he’s the first one to point that out to everyone and he truly respects the blessing he is given just in waking up in the morning, often horribly ill from the chemo that he’s been on and off of and is about to go back on, and embraces the day that the Lord has made…
i guess this post makes you the second one, thanks for the reminder that it’s not only a day we should be thankful for, it’s a Bonus Day… an optimist says the glass is half full, a pessimist says it’s half-empty, i think YOU’D say whatever He put in the glass is more than enough, you’re lucky to have the glass in the first place, try being thankful for that and see if it isn’t all of a sudden just overflowing… hang ten, dude! (lol, surfing in February, you bum 😛 and yeah, the photo is from LAST Bonus Day but there you are, at the beach on Bonus Day again, bet the weather is super today, huh? you can probably see a boogie-board from where you’re sitting reading this, are you really NOT going to go again? not only are you gonna’ boogie-board today, but you’re going to have someone take a photo to make into a side-by-side montage with the other picture and a banner that says Beth’s Boogie-Boarding Bonus Days!) { }