Best Laid Plans...

Well, I wasn't planning on my last week at the job monopolizing my blog this week but it's turning out that way.  In fact, not much this week is turning out as I planned.

I figured by now I'd have all my loose ends wrapped up and turned over to my replacement, and I'd be just coasting to Friday.  Spending my days dismantling my office, maybe reminiscing a little here and there. 

No such luck.  Every time I start to show him another "routine" task, something very "unroutine" pops up that I have to take care of. After all, I can't just dump everything on the guy.  So I've gone from "just three more days" to "OMG, I've only got three days!"

And people are starting to drop by to say good-bye.  Mostly volunteers who aren't in every day, so they won't be there on Friday.  They want to know what I'm going to do after this week.  In detail.  Day by day itinerary.  I guess it doesn't occur to anyone that I still have work to finish during my last three days.  Well, why would it?  It didn't occur to me.

I would just work late, get things finished in the evening.  But every night this week is filled with a Christmas play or band concert or choir concert.  (What made me think that two weeks before Christmas was the ideal time to retire?)

The only saving note at this point is...it will be over in three days.  Finished or unfinished, ready or not.  Here it comes.

Countdown to retirement and writing full time: 3 work days to go.

I'm currently enjoying: The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters (Got to get this finished this week.  It belongs to someone at work.)

Groaner of the Day: A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain, where he is named Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins, sweetheart! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

Pulling Out Roots

A few years ago, whenever I returned from a vacation, I immediately checked in with the office.  It wasn't that I thought they couldn't get along without me for a week (although I certainly didn't want them to know that); but this was my other home, my other family, and I needed to know what was going on.  When the word "retirment" began creeping into conversations, I couldn't imagine it.  This was what I did, a large part of who I was.  How could I just stop doing it?

Fast forward to last spring.  Budget cuts. Decision time. And I decided it was in everyone's best interest to step up and take early retirement. After all, I was trying to get seriously back into my writing so maybe this was the opportunity I'd been waiting for.  We agreed I'd stay into December and that was that.  But what would it be like?  Leaving the job, the department I'd headed for fifteen years (been part of for twenty), all my friends and coworkers...would it be like ripping out a tree by its roots?  Was it going to hurt?

Homestretch time now.  Under a month to go.  I realized last night that I'm doing what I used to do whenever we had to move (another thing I don't do well).  I'm slowly breaking off the roots, a couple here, a couple there, so when the time comes the tree will be already loosened and easy to pull out.  I'm working through my lunch hour instead of joining others, opting out of conference calls on upcoming changes, deferring decisions to my successor, and taking home personal items from my office, one or two a day.  I declined the usual retirement party. 

Instead I'm spending more time on this - blogging, networking with writers and others, learning, and writing.  Focusing on what's ahead, not what I'm leaving behind.  For the most part it's working.  I've started thinking about my job as interfering with my writing and I'm looking forward to being able to write full time. 

But what will it be like on that last day?  When my office is stripped bare of my things and I've turned in my keys?  When all the good-byes have been said?  When I walk out the back door on that last Friday?  How much will it hurt?

How about you?  How do you prepare for big changes in your life?  Does it work?


Countdown to retirement and writing full time: 16 work days to go.

I'm currently enjoying: LAST TO DIE by Kate Brady.

Groaner of the Day: There were three Indian squaws. One slept on a deer skin, one slept on an elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant. The first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin had twin boys. This just goes to prove that... the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

(Aw, come on - you know you missed them.)

Ouch...Is That Me?

Back in July, when I learned I would be retiring this December (courtesy of budget cuts) and finally able to try writing full time, I decided to jump in with both feet and start a web page and a blog.  The web page, as it turned out, required quite a bit of time to set up but has remained pretty static.  The blog was easier to get started (I used the templates) but takes a lots more work.  In hindsight, I may have been a bit premature.  It might have been better to wait until I had actually retired to start this so I wouldn't have the time crunch problem; but then again, I wouldn't have met all the great people I've met through their blogs.

Anyway, just after I got my blog started, I received an e-mail from Mutual of Ohama, of all places, saying they had seen my blog and I seemed a likely candidate to film an Aha Moment video.  They just happened to be coming through our town the following week.  I had no idea what an Aha Moment was and figured it was some sort of a scam, but I checked it out and it was legit so...what the heck.

They made the video, posted it on the Mutual of Omaha Aha Moment website and sent me the link.  Not having anything else to do with it, I stuck it on my blog (upper left hand side) and that was pretty much that.  I felt a little self-conscious about the whole thing so I didn't try to call it to anyone's attention and, to be honest, no one has ever mentioned viewing it - so either they haven't or it's so bad, they're keeping kindly quiet.  But since I'm coming down the homestretch now and the retirement I talk about in the video is almost at hand, I guess it's time.  I invite you to, please, check out my Aha Moment video and let me know what you think.

And - without benefit of cameras rolling - do you have an aha moment, about anything at all, that you can share?  Was it a big life changer or just something small?

Countdown to retirement and writing full time: 22 work days to go.

I'm currently enjoying: INDULGENCE IN DEATH by JD Robb  (Broke my own rule and put THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE aside in mid-read to "indulge" in the latest Dallas.)

Groaner of the Day: An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."  (Feel free to start a comment petition to ban these.)