Week 41 -Last Working Day!

I was going to title this post Fall Garden Chores because I spent a lot of time working outside this week but that pales in comparison to this week containing my last paid day of UNL employment.

It was up to me to figure out the day I would run out of pay between using my vacation and floating holidays. The problem is that while on vacation, I was continuing to accrue vacation, which needed to be prorated. I didn't know that SAP would show my October accruals on October 1st but then remove them if I didn't work for the whole month. When this was pointed out to me, I panicked and started doing math. The day I was doing it ended up being my last day of pay - Tuesday, October 8th. Wow! Talk about end of an era. I'd get my insured benefits for the whole month but my last paycheck would be about a 1/4 of normal. Let the budgeting begin!

I worked with the HR person in the business center to get my paperwork done, which entailed separating me and then rehiring me as an hourly on-call employee. The separation nuked most of my system security so I had to do paperwork to get it back. There were also benefits forms to do, which I did on Wednesday when I was on campus for lunch with Dodie. Of course I thrifted while I was in Lincoln. As always.

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On the garden front, I finally finished breaking up the last of the brush pile, which filled the empty spot between the cherry tree and my compost bins. I ran out of boxes so started filling paper grocery bags and then ran out of them. There's a small pile of stick parts that I'll use at the base of my compost when I start autumn clean up and I have the makings of many nice fires when the cool weather arrives, which is taking its time this year. Anyway, with that done, I spread woodchips between the 1st raised bed and the garage. All that'll be left is between my raised beds and the neighbor's fence. There's a temporary compost pile there and some branches that need to go to the burn pile so spreading woodchips there will wait a bit. I also sifted some compost and mixed it with potting soil for future potting up, filled the bird feeders and did some hose mending. I'll call that a good lot of gardening crossed off the list. There's always more to do though.

On the knitting front, I finished my obligation knitting - my cousin's birthday socks and all the projects I made for Cindy's Justice in Action sale - on Thursday. That done, I cast on a pair of Halloween socks and spent most of Friday morning knitting. I then ran errands in town before picking Andrea up for a Friday Fremont run. I've always loved getting errands done on Friday so I have the weekend free and being retired hasn't changed that. It was the Estate Dispersal Store weekend and going on Friday meant we were able to hit Thriftology, which isn't open on Saturdays anymore, before the usual Restore, Goodwill and Aldi. I found some treasures, including a fold up sewing table for the machine that's been in my front room on a chair for years but never used, a double decker bus piece of original art, a Corelle (not Pyrex) pie plate, which I've never seen before, and a fun vintage tablecloth. Books were $.29 at Goodwill so I bought a few for my retirement goal of reading actual books during daylight.

With my errands done on Friday, I had a nice relaxing weekend of chatting with friends and puttering. With a frost in the forecast, I put together the cold frame I bought years ago at Aldi to cover my 2 eggplant plants, both of which have a small eggplant I hope will continue to grow, and took cuttings from 4 different colors of impatiens to root for next years baskets. So more gardening ('tis the season) to end the week. A banner week that marked the end of my UNL career. Happy retirement to me!