For my new job, I have to take classes. Classes about insurance. Yeah, it’s as riveting as it sounds. But I’m a good sport, and usually a team player. So over the next 2.5 years I will be taking classes trying to achieve an FLMI certification.

Unfortunately, it did not occur to me that this was going to be so much harder than it was when I was in college. It really is tough to teach an old lady new tricks. Not to mention, I now have four children that I am singularly responsible for five nights a week and a husband I like to pay at least a little attention to on the weekend. I never realized how easy this was for me before, because it felt hard then.

These days, when I’m reading about, say, life insurance, I find my mind drifting to laundry, baseball practice (Pitcher’s team has already started practicing for the spring, but that’s a rant for another day.), Princess’s latest boy gossip, or even the dogs (I think one of them has an infection in her eye). I find myself listening to the kids argue or play (more often the former than the latter unfortunately) instead of being completely engrossed in the difference between term life insurance and variable life insurance.

This all has me greatly stressed because my test is a week from today. And I just DO NOT fail tests. I just don’t do it. So this has led me to study well into the night. Bucket comes home, takes the books off the bed, throws some covers over me (because I am far too old to pull an all-nighter these days, but I’m in denial so I fall asleep with pen-in-hand) and kisses me on the head.

I was really good at this kind of thing, and now I’m pathetic. Sigh. Well, can’t talk, have to go study…

Monkeyboy was stricken last week with a pretty bad case of MRSA. This is a form of staph infection that is extremely difficult to get rid of. They actually talked about taking my baby into surgery to cut the infection out. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. He still isn’t completely healed, but he’s doing much better.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that this illness happened during my first week on the new job. I have a history. I started my last job straight from maternity leave. The deal I had with my then-husband was that I would get up with the baby all through my maternity leave if he would do it the first week of going back to work. Then we were to alternate. Naturally, he came down with some kind of plague the first week I went back to work, so not only did I get to get up with a baby at least twice a night, I also got to take care of a whiny sick man-child. First weeks aren’t so good for me. The second week has been better, thankfully.

I started the new job this week, and you’ll notice (maybe) that I’ve been absent from the blog ever since. It’s not for a lack of things to say since Lord knows I ALWAYS have something to say. It’s because I can’t access this site from the new job. Nor can I access my personal Email. This is a particularly painful problem since the crazykidfamily does not have a computer.

Overall though, I find the new job to be very challenging. It’s definitely a whole new world and one that will have me struggling to keep up for quite a while–maybe even years. The attitudes, the culture, the subject matter and the way I am treated so far are a complete twist from where I’ve been professionally and it is going to take me some time to adjust. For the most part, I am looking forward to tackling this. There is one, small matter I may never get past.

I have been returned to a cubicle after 4 or 5 years of having an office. I have been told that I have been spoiled with the office, but seriously, I am having serious issues with the lack of a door. And the cubicle I have doesn’t even have the illusion of privay. It is a U-shape. There is nothing to make the shape resemble anything close to a complete box as it has only three sides. The open side faces my boss’s office window. Basically, because of the set-up, it looks like my boss is staring at me if he’s looking at his computer. It’s awkward and makes me uncomfortable.