Pushing the Button

Today at work I submitted my official retirement notice effective May 31 which is 60 days from now.    There is a pension plan database that has a retirement notice page that you fill in the information and the effective date and then click on YES to submit the retirement notice.   Everyone at work talking about retirement  refers to this as "pushing the button."    I heard of some people who  had the screen open on their computer for several hours with the mouse pointer hovering back and forth over the YES button before finally pushing it.   For me it was not a major issue since I had decided some time ago and planned to give my notice on March  31  which is 60 days before the official May 31 date.  With vacation days and other days off to use before retirement I only have about 30 actual working days to go .... 

Getting Ready to Travel

Elaine and I applied for our passports yesterday.  Neither of us had one before since the last time we traveled to the US they were not a requirement yet.  Applying is a pretty simple process now since there are no lineups like some people faced when passports first became a requirement to go to the US.  We had our forms, pictures, and ID all ready, paid our $87 each and were in and out of the passport office in about 10 minutes.   They will be processed and mailed by April 8 so we should have them the following week, in plenty of time for our trip at the end of May.  We are planning to travel to see Darlene, Steve and Lisa (and Tessie their dog) leaving on the May long weekend.  My official retirement date is May 31 but my actual last day is Thursday May 19 using up vacation days at the end.   We are overdue for a trip down to visit them near St. Louis so we are looking forward to that. 

First Day of Spring

Elaine doing some shoveling out front on the first day of Spring. 

    View of the snow in our back yard from our bedroom window.

High, low and median temperatures for winter 2010/2011

According to the calendar today March 20 is the first day of spring, which has been termed the vernal equinox and now usually just called the March equinox.  Basically we have "turned the corner" with equal day and night and we start to lengthen the days.   But we have not seen many signs of spring yet.  We had another layer of snow today on the record snowfall we had this winter.  With the amount of snow we have it is just  as well if it does not melt too quickly.  The temperatures have been slowly trending upward in  March after some large swings close to 0C or above and then down to below -30C in January and February.  But spring is on the way and we are very ready for it ...

Retirement Planning

I took the day off today and then tomorrow Elaine and I are going to an all day retirement planning seminar put on by my work.   It will have presentations on the pension plan and the various benefit plans such as health plan and life insurance as well as financial planning.    I am in a defined benefit plan which is referred to as the "old plan" since it is only for people starting before 1978.  The pension is based on years of service and there are options depending on how much you take before 65 versus after 65, and what percentage your survivor will receive.   Those that know me are probably not surprised I have already done all the spreadsheets and bar charts comparing all the pension plan options.  On Monday the 28th Elaine and I have an appointment with a financial planner to review the pension options and overall financial plan.    My plan is to submit my official retirement notice by the end of March for retirement date May 31 and my actual last day of work May 19 using vacation days.   May 31 is coming soon -  73 days by my retirement counter ...

Still Praying For Kaia

In December I posted about praying for Kaia, the little girl with glasses and pink pants in this picture from NB summer camp.  She still very much needs our prayers.  I want to see her again this summer running around playing with the other children ...