Vacation Planning

• Today, I got the forms all filled out and ready to send. That will make my retiement official. I'm grateful that I'm on the old Medavie/Blue Cross plan so that my Health benefits will continue as before.
• I found out that we will get most of our bonus money for a good year last year. Not good enough to get 100% and not good enough to avoid the layoffs which hurt a lot of my friends..... but great for me.
• Today we pack for Florida and leave Jill to run the house. I'm sure she will love that. We are driving with Ruth and John and staying with Aunt Muriel, so it's a low budget vacation. We might even get to see Eric's mom and her husband who live a couple of hours south of Tampa.
• The temperature in Tampa is 24 and here it is -8 celsius.

Retirement

1. This was certainly a day to be grateful. It was my last day at work and I am now officially retired. Although some people were disappointed and afraid of the layoffs at work, I was delighted to accept a package.
2. I had a great time packing up, sending out the "I'm Gone" messages and generally walking around the office saying goodbye. It's a bitter-sweet thing because I'll miss my friends at the office and the fun stuff we worked on, but it's time for a new adventure. I can't wait.
3. We celebrated with Dinner at "the Dip" . It was yummy, but I ate too much.

It's a Snowstorm out there.

1. It's a snowstorm outside and I don't have to go anyplace. The meeting at the church is cancelled, the gym at the middleschool is probably closed and it's warm in here, so that's where I will stay.
2. We still have some Ferrero Rondnoir chocolates that we got for Christmas . THey won't last long at the rate I am eating them.....Hmmmm maybe I should call the gym just to check.
3. This was Cindy's last day at work before she has a baby. I helped her carry some boxes to her car. I'm very grateful I am not expecting.

It's a Saturday

1. I'm thankful that Fred fixed my other old snow blower. He just unscrewed the bowl on the carburator and adjusted the float by a turn and a half. After dumping some gas right into the cylinder , it took off and worked like new. He said I should keep it as a spare in case mine ever quit.
2. Hey, my basketball team , the UNB Varsity Reds won a game against MUN. Well, at least the guys won. They were ahead the whole game , at one point up by 20 points, but MUN fought back to within 3 points with only 2 minutes to play. The girls didn't do so well and blew a big lead, but Hooray...It's the first time I have seen the guys win since 2007. They are a young team and I hope they do well this year.
3. I'm glad that Doris likes to wallpaper . I don't have the patience and skill to scrape off all the little bits and get the new stuff on straight. Hopefully by fixing the foundation under the garage the walls won't crack aagain.

Back to the Gym

• I went to the gym and did 18 laps or so around the track. That's about 3 Km or 2 miles.
• I'm thankful that the US had an election with a clear and popular winner this time. Uncertainty like we have in Canada is not good.
• I'm grateful that I don't have to come up with 3 things every time I add to this list.
• Uncle Lloyd . 86 years old and just as active as ever. I can't convince him to not climb the ladders up to the tin roof to scrape off the snow.

Getting Started

I just read that it is always good to document the things that you are grateful for. However, the study said that if you try to do it every day , it might get to be a bit of a burden, so I will try to do this on a random basis throughout 2009. Here goes with what I am grateful for so far this year.

• 1. I still have a job
  2. I don't need to wake anyone up inthe morning
  3. Fred fixed my snow blower for free
  4. I worked from home last week
  5. The storm yesterday was not bad and it’s not snowing on Jan 10
  6. The doctor pronounced me healthy on Jan 8
• And today, today I am grateful for spellcheckers