Another week, a few more things struck off the list.

I wrote my official resignation letter to the City Council on Thursday.  Our personnel office needs a formal signed letter at least two weeks prior to separation in order to properly deal with all of the separation issues:  exit interviews, separation payments, and the like.  Still, even though I have another three weeks on the job, signing a resignation letter puts a measure of finality to it that was not there before.  It has also amped up the excitement level.  The last four months of waiting since passing the FSOA have flown by, but I expect the next three weeks to drag.  It is hard to be motivated for a job that you have resigned from.  Normally there would be transition issues to deal with, but the new Council Chairman shook up the Committee assignments, and I now have little or nothing to do for the next 21 days.

We found out that flag day will be March 11th.  That means in 7 weeks we will know where we are going and when we will ship out.  I expect to be around for a few months after that for training,  but I won't know anything more until then.  In the meantime, I continued to try to get as much done as possible.  Last week, I purchased Delicious Library on the recommendation of an FSO on livelines.  It has been fantastic.  What looked originally like a really long chore has been shrunk down to something manageable.  My wife and I have a lot of books - way more than we need and way more that we would ever take with us around the world.  Getting a handle on what books we actually have looked like it would take forever.  Enter Delicious Library.  I just have to scan the bar code from the back of the books and all relevant information pops up on the screen.  You can organize the books by shelves, and it allows you to then put the books on Amazon to sell if you want.  I was able to knock out a whole bookshelf in about an hour (spread out in 5 minute increments throughout the week because I haven't had an unbroken hour of free time since Josephine was born last April.  I figure I'll be able to finish cataloguing the library by the end of this week.

I am a big list person.  I write lots of lists.  At work, these lists take the form of little yellow post it notes all over my desk and my computer that grow like kudzu.  I have resolved this year to be better about that, and I have found to sites to be helpful.  Ta Da lists is a website that allows you to write up lists and check things off as you accomplish them.  It is a lot more useful that my jumble of post it notes. Because it is a website, it easy for either Cary or me to hop on line and add something to the list whenever we think of something.  I am also a fan of David Seah's compact calendar.  It is a full calendar on one page that allows one to visually see just how much time is available to do things.  Because it is not really broken up by months, it is easier to see just how many weeks you have to work with on any given task. I expect it will be very helpful when I finally get my packet and find out where I am going.