I Never Did Like Hash!

I had lunch with my beautiful friends, Bella and Renee the other day. Bella commented that I hadn't written on my blog for a few days. She said she checks it everyday, which was encouraging. She also told me that it didn't always have to be tied to the retiring thing; that my friends would be happy to get my general stream-of-consciousness. I've been thinking about that quite a bit since, and one of my thoughts has been that maybe I need to start worrying more about my friends! But, mostly I've been debating the whole thing in my mind. Should I keep it entirely about retiring? On the one hand, going rogue on it would be very freeing, easier, and maybe more real. On the other hand, part of why I wanted to do this blog was to get some focus and discipline to my writing. I definitely have fallen down in the discipline area, and while I still think about and talk about retirement every day, do you really want to hear me hash it over and over? For now, the little six-person (that's all I could fit) jury inside my brain is still hashing it out.

The Underwear Connection

I must confess that tonight when I was walking Elvis I had the thought that maybe I should work another year after this. The economy is soooooo scary right now. Later I was driving in my car and there was a segment on NPR about how improvement in the economy could be predicted based on the sales of men's underwear, and that since sales are going up, the economy must be improving. I guess I'll just keep an eye on men's underwear from now on so I'll know when it is a good time to retire. I wonder if teen-aged boys'underwear counts. I see lots of that at school everyday!

Shattered dreams

I just read that my last post was on November 1! I must have been out of the blogosphere . . . While I was out there I was awakened on night last week by an idea that suddenly (or so it seemed) flew into my head--"I should retire in December, instead of waiting until June." I decided that I should go into work and ask the Principal if he would hire me back full-time in January if I retired in December. I got really excited about the idea of getting both my annuity and my salary for five months. It would be like working two years at part-time. It sounded like a good plan. The human resources office had told me I would be able to come back right away, since I wouldn't be retiring from the Teacher Retirement. First I would need to check with the state retirement system to see how, if at all, it would affect my monthly annuity.

But, when I called the state office the next morning, my dreams were shattered. Apparently I would have to wait thirty days before going back to work, even though it was two different retirement systems. I'm not sure I could convince my Principal to do it if I had to be out a month. So, I'm back to June. I guess it was a nice dream while it lasted.

Anything for a day off!

I don't have to work tomorrow! Do you know how exciting that is? Especially since it is a school day. I don't have to go in because I am having a little "procedure" done. You know, the one that requires I not eat ALL DAY today. That's the bad part. And now I am drinking liquids like they are going out of style. However, it is scheduled for very early in the morning, so as soon as I am out of there we are going to Mimi's Cafe. Then I don't have to work the rest of the day!

There seems to be no limit to what I will do to get out of work. Next month I'm getting a gum graft--now that one won't be so pleasant. I guess I better get retired before I have them yanking out vital organs just so I can get a day off.