08/26/09 After the party

After my retirement party at work we went to dinner at Schafley’s with Aaron, Dezina, Randy and Mom.  

Thursday we drove mom around St. Louis – The Basilica and the new City Park.  Then we took her back to Washington.  I spent the night at Theresa’s and went to Mom’s on Friday. We had bologna for lunch and went to the resale shop. In the afternoon we went garage sale-ing. On Saturday mom fixed biscuits and gravy.  Kathy came over and we went garage sale-ing again. In the afternoon I drove to Theresa’s. For dinner we had smoked pork butt and mac-and-cheese. Sunday morning we took Tomm and Theresa to the Granite City brunch.  

Monday Betsy Bernard and Lisa Eggemeyer gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and Betsy made chocolate cookies for me. Kathy Jenkins from the 2-1 Sync team gave me a box of Godiva chocolates. Vanissa Kirk brought me a chocolate-pecan Kringle from Racine, Wisconsin because she visited her family there over the weekend. And Tom Davidson bought me lunch at Triumph restaurant, which has a motorcycle museum attached to it.

Tuesday  Kathy Jenkins, Carrie Whipkey, Vanissa Kirk and Kerry Jones bought me lunch at the Pasta House. Love this team!

Yesterday afternoon I drove to Weldon Spring to say a last goodbye to some of the folks who could not make it to Clayton. That was kind of tough to do.  It’s hard to admit that I probably won’t see them again. I am going to try to keep in touch, but it’s not the same as visiting in person. Zhengyan kept crying – she is really going to miss me! But most of the folks are really, really happy for me, and a bit jealous. I think I have got several folks considering if there is an alternative to working until you are 65. That is what Bonnie Woepke did for me when she left Enterprise and started RVing, so perhaps someone else will decide to do this, or to do something else that changes their life. That would be very, very cool.

08/26/09 Retirement Party!

I go a huge retirement party from 4 - 6 in one of the big conference rooms.  Beside the wonderful folks at Enterprise, John Mills (who had left the company earlier), Aaron and Dezina Synder also came. Randy drove to Pekin on Tuesday and brought my mom back on Wednesday for the party. 

Carla gave a short speech, then my manager Becca gave a speech about some of my projects. Gifts included 2 large chocolate bars, 2 boxes of Dad’s original oatmeal cookies, and a 4 lb bag of sugar (a reference to my only cuss word: "Oh, sugar!"). 

The team got me a signed retirement photo mat and frame, and Becca and Carla gave me a Tiffany engraved plate. 

The cake was chocolate with peach icing and lots of peach roses.

So glad I got to share this with Randy and Mom!

Most of my team: Jason Luo, Ranga, Sophia Butman, Kumar Ganesan, Jim Lauman, Zhengyan, Betsy Bernard, and Lisa Eggemeyer.

Some of the guys: Pramod Gokhale, Brian Whitman, Tom Davison, Mike Pallia, Matt Walters, Chuck Pingry.

Sharon Younge, Sheri Macejak, and John Mills

Marco Henderson and Vanissa Kirk

Celeste Hunt and Sharon Duke, admin assistants extrodinare.

Carla Lambretch, in charge of us all!

Todd Werner and my dear friend Dezina Snyder

Karen Metzker, Toi'an Harris, Mike Nolan, and John Mills

My wonderful manager, Rebecca Holmes

Tian Lui, another project manager.

Dear Zhegyan, who is really going to miss me. 

08/20/09 They must be glad to see me go because they keep having parties

On 8/20 I went to a Happy Hour with Randy, Tom Davidson and Charles Duran at the Schnidhorst restaurant.

Today I attended another team lunch with my other team – the Fleet Bridge team, which includes Nanda Puthrangkottai, Kumar Ganesan, Kerry Jones, Jim Lauman, Lynn Staples, and Sofiya Butman (team member Sanjeev Thakur could not attend). I'm going to miss these people!

08/17/09

One week closer! Friday we took the RV to Lovells to get the washer/dryer fixed again.  The motor mount was worn out and the technicians said the whole washer/dryer was pretty much worn out.  But the extended warranty would not cover a new one.  That’s silly – it would cost them less in the long run to replace it instead of keep repairing it.  We worked with Lovells and ended up getting a new washer/dryer for cost and subtracting the amount that the warranty would pay for a repair, plus they took off $98 for our old washer/dryer.  So we have a new one that is 7 years newer than our old one, for $600.  It’s very expensive, but the price isn’t too bad when you consider that is less that half the retail price. This is a luxury, not a necessity, but as long as we can afford it, I intend to enjoy it.  

Saturday we rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpet again.  It is so hard to keep it clean. We spent the rest of the day generally cleaning the RV.  I cleaned windows, window sills, bathroom, kitchen, and organized some drawers. 

We are almost finished with the pile of paperwork on our table – there is a lot to organize, in order to retire.  Sunday we finished our wills and power of Attorney forms.  We have applied for health insurance, so hopefully that will be resolved soon.  Randy and I are both getting all our doctor visits caught up.  We might end up returning to St. Louis for yearly checkups, unless we find doctors in another area we are likely to spend time in, such as Arizona.

Work is still going fine.  I try not to let my upcoming retirement impact what I’m doing.  There is still a lot to do and they are still paying me to do it, so it’s business as usual.  But at the end of a hard day, I just let it roll off my shoulders now.  I’m making plans to spend my days drawing, making jewelry, taking photos, and napping.  I think I can handle that for awhile!

Spent the last week at work tying up loose ends.  I already completed the reviews for my 5 team members and for the 7 Bridge team members.  Now I’m cleaning up my desk, Outlook, and disk drives.  I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff in 15 ½ years!  

Folks here are giving me a great send-off.  On 8/12 I attended a team lunch with my development team - Lisa Eggemeyer, Zhengyan Cao, Ranga Chakka, Jason Luo,   and Betsy Bernard.  We went to a Chinese buffet called Emperors’ Palace. 

08/05/09

Moving day is getting closer!  We have cleaned up the storage compartments under the RV.  We don’t have a lot of extra space, but by now we seem to have enough space for what we need.  There are a few exceptions – I don’t have space for the big pictures we had hanging in the living room on Diamond street and we have a few big plastic boxes with papers we shouldn’t throw away yet.  Kathy has agreed to keep those for us, which is a huge help!

Randy finished the new bookcase by adding a marble top. So now we have a place to display some of our crystal, and it looks so much more like home. 

He’s keeping very busy building things for the RV.  Aaron has a complete workshop in his basement and Aaron is still off work because of his bicycle fall, so Randy wants to get everything done before we leave. He built doors for a couple of cabinets and is currently making a brace for the table. He wants to build something that we can set the computer on, with a self for the printer. Plus possible a shelf to set the Wii on, and a small step so Sugarbaby can sit next to Randy when Randy is driving.  

We saw our financial advisor on Monday and are scheduled to meet him again next Monday.  This Friday I will take all the pets to the Vet for their annual checkup and shots.  We need to get the washer/dryer checked again because it is making too much noise.  We might have found an Insurance agent in South Dakota.  Randy is talking to him this week about what we are looking for, and how much it will cost.