As a school district employee, my salary earned for a ten month employment contract is paid out in twelve monthly installments. This means my paychecks (and benefits) continue through the summer. It’s actually been a nice way to ease into full-on retirement.

Today’s mail brought the first of two expected COBRA notices. Everything except for health insurance coverage is provided by the local school districts. I got the school district’s COBRA notice today. The unexpected bonus was learning that my dental plan is eligible for COBRA continuation coverage at the same reasonable employee rates. Is it necessary? No, but it will definitely be nice to have with my upcoming dental work.

Here’s hoping the switch to COBRA for the health insurance side goes as smoothly. That notice is expected sometime in August – but I’ve already been in contact with them to advise I wish to keep the coverage for both of us.

If you are changing jobs or retiring, be sure to take full advantage of all benefits available to you before you leave. We made sure to get our wills and estate documents updated using my legal coverage benefit before it runs out at the end of July. Don’t forget to rollover any 401(k) and 403(b) accounts either.

Today, two of our local school districts announced mandatory masks for all faculty, staff and visitors to their facilities. One wasn’t a surprise; however for the largest school district in Georgia to suddenly issue a mask mandate for employees and visitors did come as a bit of a surprise. If I were a teacher in Gwinnett County, I would be absolutely livid right now. What good is masking faculty & staff going to do to “limit the spread” when the 3,000 teenagers also in the building aren’t wearing masks? This makes absolutely no sense to me. However, I’m not surprised given the ones currently at the helm.

No word if Cobb is going to follow suit, but I somehow doubt it in this case. I can definitely see a masks strongly encouraged campaign coming, though. This would mean local principals could further restrict visitors to individual schools. This could potentially impact our efforts to get the school-based READ program with Sadie launched later this fall. I’ll mask up if necessary, but hope it doesn’t happen.

A resurgence in COVID also means greater staff absenteeism and the certainty that every available staff member will be pulled to substitute again this year. That was a miserable experience. Yet another sign, I made the right decision to retire! 🙂

These are my current “big” projects – Homebody quilt, Great Granny Squared QAL and Metamorphosis memory quilt. I also have a couple of smaller charity quilt projects in process that I pull out when I want something to sew that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. Add in technical editing, future class planning, private lessons, volunteering and travel – yes, I’ve been busy since I left the day job. This week has been one of forced hibernation thanks to an unexpected souvenir from last week’s quilt camp (COVID), but we’re hopefully through the worst of it now. I actually feel up to basting the Homebody quilt this afternoon in lieu of taking a nap! Be well and stay safe out there!