3 more to go

I'm beginning to get emotional about retiring. My work has defined me for so many years, I'm wondering if I will feel empty when I don't have the familiar routines to follow. Locking up this afternoon before going home, I started to get a bit teary-eyed. Everything I do now has that feeling of "this is the last time I will do this." And of course, my students have to pick this time to be absolutely wonderful. I think I've hugged or been hugged about a million times in the last week, and I cannot count the number of times I've had my picture taken.

In addition to all this, I've been having trouble sleeping and I've done some really stupid things the last few days--stress? Yesterday, as I was getting onto the interstate, I managed to bump the emergency flasher button. Now, ordinarily this would not have been an earth-shattering occurrence, but the car I'm driving is new and I'm still trying to familiarize myself with where everything is on the dash. I must have pushed, pulled, and hit everything I could touch on the steering wheel, steering column, and control levers. No luck. The flashing continued. I began to worry that I'd have a cop pull me over, or I wouldn't be able to go into work because the flashers were still flashing and I'd run down my battery. Panic! I pulled off the interstate and into a closed gas station and called my darling husband (DH). He reminded me that the flashers are activated by a fairly large red button and suddenly there it was right in front of me. Whew! Back on the interstate and I even managed to get to work on time.