Five Reasons to Celebrate

Five holidays in one 24 hour period?! I hope you're ready for this...

1- Dear Diary Day
     I couldn't find a whole lot of info on this day, but I did find enough on it to say it is a real day. Also it's mentioned on Oprah's site so...legit. Oprah said so. I highly recommend journaling and here's two good reasons why: Firstly, it can be very therapeutic. It helps to organize your thoughts, get 'em off your chest and rationalize. [psych major moment of the day] Secondly, it's just plain hilarious to read your old journals later. I go back and read old diaries all the time. You want a good laugh? Reminisce on life through the eyes of a freshman girl at college. Bah ha!

2- Elephant Appreciation Day

Did you know that elephants are pregnant for two years before they give birth? And baby elephants weight between 220-240 lbs at birth? And they live for 50-70 years? Whoa. Any animal that gives birth to something the size of a full grown man gets my appreciation.








3- American Business Women's Day
     Since the dawn of time women have been in the kitchen makin' our men sammiches. But in America women in the workplace has been a process. Women having jobs outside the home existed before the 1920s but it really only become common then. During the depression, when jobs and money were few and far between, working women increased by about 25%. Then during WWII in the 40s, 6 million women entered the workforce, taking jobs women had never seen before, including many factory and heavy labor jobs. Many of them quit their jobs at the end of the war, making room for returning veterans. But not as many as predicted. In 1964 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created, though it didn't begin to see female discrimination cases until 1970. On September 22, 1949 the American Business Women's Association was formed, and in 1986 Reagan issued a proclamation that September 22 would be the annual ABW day.

4- Ice Cream Cone Day

The invention of the ice cream cone is a little uncertain. There's three stories, one of which may (or may not...) explain the real birth of the cone. One story goes that in 1903 an Italian ice cream vendor invented the cone as a way of cutting costs (apparently cones are cheaper than paper cups.) But there is another story that an English man received a patent in 1902 for a machine that made edible biscuit cups. You decide if that sounds like a cone. My favorite story was of two venders at the World Fair in St. Louis in 1904. One was selling waffles, one was selling ice cream. The ice cream vender ran out of cups so the waffle vender rolled up some waffles to give to the ice cream vender. Voila! The waffle cone was born.

Whichever story floats your fancy, you should all watch this adorable little video of this adorable little cat eating an adorable little ice cream cone. It's adorable.

           5- Hobbit Day

Hobbit day is in honor of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, of the Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Rings opens with Bilbo and Frodo celebrating their shared birthday, the 22nd of September. Now I'm as big a fan of the Rings as the next guy, and I'm all about celebrating Hobbit Day by watching the Fellowship, barefoot, while stuffing my face with a ton of food...but I'll bet you probably didn't know there was controversy with this holiday, huh? Yep. People actually fight over whether Hobbit Day should be celebrated on September 22nd (the day mentioned in the book) or September 14th, due to discrepancies between the Shire Calendar and the Gregorian calendar. I wish I could make this stuff up...