End of the Month Thoughts

Today is the final work day of the month of January. I also received notice in the mail that my initial pension payments (January and February) will be deposited in the bank and be available to us come Monday morning, February 1. The System Works!!!

I have begun two volunteer undertakings in this first month of retirement.

The first is with the John Heinz Western Pennsylvania History Museum. Eventually, I will be conducting tours of the Museum for school groups. I think that it will be something fun to do, but all I am doing right now is taking a series of online training modules so I will know of what I speak while conducting such tours for the school age urchins. It will probably me mid-March until I am unleashed on the Heinz Museum patrons.

Marilyn and I are also in the middle of a somewhat intense training program to become volunteers at The Highmark Caring Place. As an employee, I was always aware of the work of The Caring Place, and was quite proud to be associated with a company that offered such a wonderful service to the community, so this was something with which I wanted to become involved. If you are unaware of The Caring Place, it is a facility that offers support to grieving children after they have experienced a loss of a family member. (See www.highmarkcaringplace.com for more information.) It does wonderful things for the kids and families who use it, and I know that it will be very rewarding. However, the training for this has been intense, and emotionally draining. We both hope that we have what it takes to do the work involved, and to have a positive effect on the lives of those who come to The Caring Place.

Our 27+ hours of training will conclude on Monday evening, and new groups of families are scheduled to rotate into The Caring Place beginning next month.

I'll keep you all posted on how things evolve.