Feeling accomplished!

I’m officially graduated from training at work and am a Blue Cross Blue Shield claims processor. The pay raise was nice and now I’m just waiting for my very own desk! I’ve graduated upstairs to the processing department and I’ve been working at absent employee’s desks until they can get me one that has all the programs on the computers that I need to do my work. Hopefully Monday that will happen. Until that happens I’m carrying all the items from my old training desk in a huge book bag. It’s port-a-desk! Heavy and giving me back trouble is more like it. It’s ok though I know that three people left my team on Friday to go to the adjustments department so I know of at least three available desks. (ha, ha!) I told everyone I would let you all know when I graduated out to the real world of claims, and I’ve finally done it!

Life at home is going great! My son had his first week of perfect behavior at school since it started. We were so stoked, we took him to Chuck E Cheese Friday night to celebrate. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to Chuck E Cheese (and I’m 31). It was pretty fun. The pizza was greasy, the dessert was fattening and the games were cheesy! Where a kid can be a kid. (And an adult can make herself look like a fool when she wins tickets….)

Today was wasted sleeping and doing nothing. At least I got the dishes done, that’s about it. I think that I’ve had enough of lounging for my week though. Tomorrow it’s laundry and chore day so I should enjoy the downtime while I have it! I worked my arse off this week trying to get claims done perfectly so I could graduate out onto the claims floor, and I did it now I’m brain dead. Time for some much needed brainless activity. WORLD OF WARCRAFT! (totally kidding, it’s definitely not brainless). I finally got my character to 34 and I’m happy. It’s been a tedious process but worth the effort.

If anything cool happens I’ll let you all know, until then: enjoy life, have fun and love with hopeless abandon! =D

No rest for the weary!

As I mentioned in my last post, I successfully survived my first week at Blue Cross and I feel pretty good about it. Tomorrow we have our first big pass or fail test. We need to score an 80% or better to pass, and those of us who fail will not be allowed to continue our employment there. It’s a scary thought, but it’s open book/notes/computer help test. So it’s hard to fail unless you have absolutely no idea where to locate the information requested. I hope I do well, I really like the idea of having a real job that pays as well as this one does.

My son had a good day at school today, he didn’t have one problem in his classroom today. It’s only Monday so I don’t get too excited about it at this point. He had a rough week last week because he just isn’t listening or using his manners when dealing with the staff at the school. He seems to think that he is the adult in that equation, that however is not the case! I saw the assistant principal when I went to pick Dakota up from after care today and we had a quick little conversation about Dakota’s blatant disrespect for teachers. It went well, and he is of the firm belief that Dakota will do well in school if we could just get him over this little bump.

We decorated our house yesterday for Christmas! Our tree is up and the window clings are appropriately stuck festively to the windows. It’s not much, but it’s what we can manage in our apartment until we get a bigger place. Soon there may actually be gifts under that tree too. I don’t get paid until the 21st of December, so it’s going to be close but that Christmas shopping is going to be done!

On a sad note I have a very dear friend of mine from high school who was diagnosed years ago with Lupus. She has battled now with the disease for about 12 years. Well I found out this weekend that she is back in the hospital and she isn’t doing well. She actually died on Friday night, but they were able to revive her. Over the years her body has gone through so much just to keep her alive that it’s only going to be a matter of time before it can’t go on anymore. She is such a beautiful person inside and out and she’s only in her late 20’s. My best friend of 18 years lives in California still so she is keeping me updated on my friend’s condition but we haven’t heard anything all weekend. I’m hoping that no news is good news, but I’m sure if something happened that the family she has left might be more concerned about other things than emailing all of us about the circumstances. I hate the fact that I’m on the East Coast and even is something did happen that I can’t do anything about it. At this rate I wouldn’t even be able to go to the funeral. This is one of the reasons why I regret moving so far away. When those who are close to me need me I can’t just be there for them. It’s rough and I’m not trying to sound selfish, but it’s true. I pray that she will be able to hang in there and pull out of this, but I’m not so sure anymore.

I find myself not having near as much free time anymore that I am used to and it makes it hard to get everything done that I want to get done. I did at least get to play World of Warcraft for a little bit yesterday to unwind after the very busy weekend. I still find myself wondering when I signed up to be the responsible adult in this lifetime, cause I don’t recall doing so. It’s all in the day of a mommy and wife and now I’ve got chores to do.

Surviving the first day at my new job!

Well I happily report that I have successfully survived my first day at Blue Cross. Today was orientation day. We had guest speakers that gave us a lot of information to digest. I actually begin my training at my training site tomorrow morning. I was really excited to start my new job, but let me tell you that I came home totally wiped out and with a slight eye fatigue headache. (Nothing a hot bath tonight couldn’t fix!)

My weekend was once again too short and I didn’t get half the things done that I wanted to get done. I wanted to decorate the house for Christmas, yeah that didn’t get done. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to get at least a little more accomplished. Now that I am working full time I’ll have to make sure that I can balance my chores as a mom and wife with some fun time so I don’t lose my sanity over the mounds of claims that I will be processing soon!

Am I the only one who cannot believe that it’s only a few more weeks until Christmas? I find myself saying, “where did this year go?” I guess it’s been a good year but it doesn’t feel like it should be December already. I feel slightly cheated out of my months of bliss. I haven’t done anything related to Christmas yet, but I know that I am not alone in that endeavor either. Luckily for me none of my shopping has to be done at a mall this year, that is enough to make this year fantastic!

Well my favorite show is coming on in just a few short minutes, so I am going to go get a cup of hot tea and curse winter for being so cold. Then I’m going to settle in on my couch for the next two hours and enjoy mindless television!

Busy life means no time to spare!

It has come to my attention that during the entire time that I was off for the Thanksgiving holiday that I never once wrote a blog post. Shame on me. Things were not all that busy last week, but I was taking the much needed time to relax and do the things I wanted to do. This week I went back to work and have been playing catch up at the office all week so far because I had three days off last week. At least this is my last week at my old job. I start my new job at Blue Cross on Monday! Excitement all around!

For Thanksgiving my husband, my son and I went to my husband’s Aunt’s house. It was a pretty long drive, but it was worth it once we got there. His Aunt and Uncle have recently moved into the new house and this is their first Thanksgiving there. I have to admit that this house is gorgeous. It’s everything I would want in a home and more. It’s almost 3600sq ft. and worth every foot. Painted in neutral warm tones with a centralized wood fireplace to heat the home it’s very Martha Stewart like without the jail time. The walk in closet off the master bedroom is so big I almost didn’t realize it was a closet. The shower in the master bath is absolutely huge and every little nuance of the house flows together and makes you feel at home. Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful and the desserts were plenty. My son had fun playing with some toys that my husband’s mother brought over for him and we got some quality time to visit with family.

Friday after Thanksgiving I played games on my computer most of the day. I wasn’t about to try to leave the house to go anywhere with it being black Friday and all. I stayed at home gleeful that I was not working retail this year.

Saturday we went to a friends house to play tabletop Dungeons and Dragons. We get together with friends once a week to play. It’s a great way  for us to forget about the real world and live outside the box for a few hours. Well Saturday’s session was about 12 hours. We got there at 11am and played until about 11pm. I haven’t done that in years and it was fun yet exhausting all at the same time. As we were all leaving we decided to do it again this week, that was a good game!

Sunday was the realization day that I had tons to do and had done nothing for days. I had to do the grocery shopping as we had no food in the house and we didn’t bring any leftovers home from turkey day. I did that and spent some more quality time playing World of Warcraft on the computer. I never thought that I would get that into a video game, but let me tell you what, I’m addicted and it’s the most fun thing that I have done online in a long time!

Now I’m getting close to the end of my work week and I find myself so nervous about Monday morning. I went this morning to the Blue Cross building and got my badge made and my packet of paperwork to fill out before my first day. It’s real, I really got the job. I’m still young enough that change is a good thing, but those nervous jitters are still there. I know I’ll be fine, but it’s something new that we’ll all have to adjust to.

My son is having a good week at school, my husband and I have agreed to try to find some more time for intimacy and I actually have some spare time to relax lately. Overall I can say that all is well. I may not feel the same by next week, but I’m definitely going to enjoy it while it’s here!

I think I woke up in the twilight zone!

Did you ever have one of those days where you look at it and say, “what the hell did I wake up in the twilight zone?” Well today is definitely one of those days for me. Nothing seemed to go right and I’m sick on top of it so I already feel like crap. Gotta love days like this.

It started off normal enough, got ready for work, got my kiddo ready for school and out the door we went a little early so I could stop and get gas. Which if you’ve been to the pumps lately, that’s a very depressing moment. Luckily it only took $40 to fill up my car, not as bad as I was anticipating. Off to school we went. Traffic was light so I didn’t have to worry about running late and making up time. I dropped him off and he was a little reluctant to get out of the car, but finally he did and into the school he went. I headed to work.

I arrived at the office and realized that it was pretty empty, which isn’t unusual for being that early in the morning. I went ahead and started a pot of coffee for my coworkers (I drink hot tea), and got lights turned on in the back part of the office. I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. Now let me tell you something about my computer, it’s the biggest piece of poo that I have ever worked on in my life. It’s so outdated, I think it runs on a hamster in a wheel and slow doesn’t even begin to describe it’s speed. Every time I use that machine I think of those two turtles in the Comcast high speed commercial. I started booting it up at 7:50 and it was 8:10 before I got to the screen where I could start to open programs. I’ve told them what I need to have done with it before, but I’m just a temp so why should they bother making sure I have a system that I can actually do my work on in a timely manner?

After cussing the machine out thoroughly for being such a disappointment I finally got started on my daily work. Then my co-worker called and said she wasn’t going to make it in due to a knee injury and a doctor appointment that afternoon. Ok no problem, I can hold down the education and training fort while she’s out. I had plenty to do today anyways seeing as how tomorrow is the 15th and my reports are due out. Then the receptionist buzzed me to let me know that she was going to be out from about 9:15 to about noon. (there is a whole different story to tell you about that woman, I don’t think I have enough space to type all that…..lol) Ok so now I get to answer the phones while she’s out. Goody! I try to be optimistic as I go to the kitchen for that first cup of hot tea, but I already don’t want to be here now I’m doing the job of two other people today, could anything else happen?

Yes, yes it could. I no more than get back to my desk, steaming cup of tea in my hand than the receptionist buzzes me again and says that she has to leave immediately because he daughter called and ran out of gas. Ok I get the phones right now, no big deal I can do this. I check my work emails and get my in-box work done so I can finally start on my reports. Luckily for me the phones are pretty quiet and I don’t get many interruptions. It takes about 2 hours to run the reports and I am done shortly before lunch. At this point my throat is still killing me and I still want to crawl back into bed and not come out until Spring.

Lunch comes and goes quickly with nothing bad happening. I spend the rest of the afternoon at work stuffing envelopes with the reports that I just printed out and making sure that they are ready to be postmarked tomorrow morning. Then I get a phone call from a client. He told me what he needed and it was an easy task to complete, but then he kept me on the phone for almost 15 more minutes just chatting. Normally I wouldn’t have minded talking, I love to talk to people. At this point I had to really concentrate hard to not let my scratchy voice get the best of me and end up sounding like a man during this conversation. He just kept rambling on and I just kept thinking, “Don’t you ever shut up?” Finally I was able to get off the phone with him and resume the rest of my days activities with 20 minutes left of work.

Naturally those 20 minutes crept by at a snails pace because I wanted to get home. I left work and headed to the school to pick up my son. He came out to the car bawling. I asked him what was wrong and he said he’d been bad at school. Oh oh. I checked in his backpack and sure enough he had come home on red behavior. There is a story behind this too, let me elaborate.

My 5 year old son started kindergarten this year and was also diagnosed with ADHD. Now I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical with that diagnosis, thinking that ADHD wasn’t really an affliction but a lack of parenting. Well let me tell you what, it’s real and it has nothing to do with your skills as a parent. My sweet loving son that I’ve taken such care in raising all his life, went to kindergarten and turned into Damien from the Omen movies. He was violent and disrespectful and absolutely a horror to have in class. My mantra the entire time to his teacher was, “I don’t know what to say, he’s not like this at home.” Which he isn’t like that at home cause he knows better. I finally took him to see a psychologist and a psychiatrist and got him put on a medication regiment. He takes Ritalin and Clonidine. The medications work together to make sure he’s not too stimulated but that he’s not too lethargic either. It’s a great mix thus far and his behavior has gotten so much better in my opinion. However today was not a good day.

The teacher called me after school to say that he just wasn’t able to be in control of himself today. He wasn’t following directions, he didn’t do his classwork, he was rude and disrespectful to her most of the time during the day. Once again I was left saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why he’s behaving this way.” She said that she was really hoping that the medication would change his behaviors more than what they have and that she felt let down by his lack of change. I didn’t know what to say to that at all. I think he’s doing wonderfully (most of the time that is). He’s learning more, he’s reading simple books now, doing basic math and spelling and doing very good in Spanish. I don’t see how she can say that he’s not making progress. Sure he’s not perfect every day but what child at that age is? What more does she want out of him? This conversation left me feeling very disillusioned about everything.

So here I sit, blogging about the day. It’s almost 5pm I still have dinner to make and I don’t feel like doing it at all. There are no leftovers to scrounge from so I have to cook tonight. We’ve been going out to eat a lot lately because I haven’t been in the mood to cook. We really can’t spend anymore money on fast food. It’s just so hard to be motivated to do what I need to do when this day has been a complete drain on me. Work sucked, my kid got busted at school, and my husband woke me up at 3am this morning because he couldn’t sleep. If anyone ever needed a vacation I think I would qualify. I love my family don’t get me wrong but sometimes I get really sick and tired of being mom. I know that things will get better, but right now I need chocolate and take out…..=D

New Job Excitement!

Recently I applied for a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield and I have to say that I am excited about their interest in me. I have had two interviews and am waiting to hear back from them to see whether or not I have the job. The job that I qualified for was as a claims adjuster, which is something that I have past experience doing. I passed all my tests for this position and I believe that I did well in both interviews. I should hear something next week at the latest but I have to say that I am just a little scared about all the sudden changes that are going to have to take place if I get this new job.

First let me explain what situation that I am in now. I am currently working for a temporary agency as a temp. I have been with the agency for almost two years. For those of you who have experience with temp agencies you know that this is not a career choice, but a quick job when things are looking bleak. The assignment that I have with the agency I’ve had for over one year now. I work as an administrative assistant in the education and training department of a local power association. This job was pitched to me as a very short term assignment that would eventually be phased out completely. Over one year later and I’m still there, so much for phasing me out! When I first started working there I was full time 5 days a week. Then the workload started to dwindle and I was forced to go to part time hours. Now everyone knows that a person who works part time for any length of time gets spoiled. I have to admit that the few days recently that I’ve had to put in a few extra hours due to increased workload, have totally worn me out! It’s so sad.

This new job is going to be great because it’s more money, better hours, benefits and has room for promotions. My current job does not have any of these perks. I will never get a pay raise, I won’t ever be hired with the company as their employee, and I cannot get benefits because I am only a part time employee now. For the past few months that hasn’t been a big issue, but now it’s starting to get a little worrisome. My husband makes great money in the computer business so it’s not like we’re broke, but there isn’t a lot of money left over to put into savings for the things that we would like to do in the future (buy a house, go on vacation etc etc). Despite his valiant effort to be the breadwinner for our family, our needs have grown and I need to step up to the plate to take some of the burden off of his shoulders. I have no issue doing this but I barely have enough hours in the day to get the stuff done that I need to do now, how in the world am I going to have time to do things is I’m working full time?

This is my current workday schedule. I leave home at 7:20am every morning to get my little man to school and get myself to work by 8am. I work from 8am to 2:30pm with a half hour lunch. I then head over to the school, wait for school to let out, then eagerly await my little man to come to the car. We head home to do homework which is never an easy thing to get a hyperactive five year old to do. At 4pm I head to the gym to get my workout. I am back home by 5:30pm. Then I do dinner, dishes and get my son ready for bed by 8pm. I get him tucked in and read him a chapter out of his favorite book and finally have time for myself at about 8:30pm. It’s not a bad day and it flows very well from one task to the next.

However if I begin this new job my daily schedule will alter significantly. I have some of it figured out, and it’s not very convenient. I’d have to leave the house at 7am to get my son to school age child care before school by 7:30am (taking into consideration traffic situations). I then drive over to my new job and begin working at 8am. I work until 4:45pm, then have to go to the campus and pick up my son from aftercare. We head home in rush hour traffic and I am figuring on getting home around 5:45pm or so. Then I have to make dinner, do homework, bathtime and have him tucked into bed by 8pm. Reading the story will take until about 8:15pm that then gives me 15 minutes to go to the bathroom and change into my workout clothes. At 8:30pm I will head to the gym (Tuesdays-Thursdays) to work out for an hour, which will put me back home at around 9:45pm or so. I take a quick shower cause I’ll be sweaty after my workout and I might be ready to wind down around 10pm. This makes for a much longer day, that’s for sure. Is the new job worth it you might be asking? Well let’s just say is this way right now I make about $800/month give or take. If I get the new job I’ll make $1600/month give or take. I’ll easily double my salary. Plus the benefits will more than likely be better priced than what my husband pays so we can get insurance through my work, and not have to use his benefit package anymore. We will be able to save money and get old debts paid off quicker so our credit can continue the repairing process. I can’t think of a negative about switching jobs, except for not having a whole lot of time for downtime.

I will definitely let everyone know what the response is from Blue Cross when I get it, but until then I am going to enjoy what little spare time I have left before reality catches up with me. I still want to know when I signed the contract that said I was the responsible adult in this equation?