If you haven’t been keeping up with my blog, I got married back in November. After being married for three weeks my new husband and I signed the closing papers on our new house and we could finally live together. I absolutely LOVE our house. The only problem with it was that my commute to work was 50 minutes in good weather. We won’t even discuss how long it was when the lake effect snows were blowing.

I started looking for a job closer to home. With my husband and I working different hours I had barely ten minutes with him in the morning, and then barely an hour with him at night when he was on ten hour shifts. People roll their eyes and mumble either, “newlyweds!” or “rookies” when we mention how much we love spending time with each other and how it makes us miserable to not be able to see each other. I was coming home miserable from work, and then being miserable for the first hour after I got home… in time to send my husband off to work. It really shows how much he loves me that he was able to put up with me during that time.

Luckily I found a job just a short 15 minute drive from home. It’s not the same type of job that I did for the last eight years, but it was somewhat familiar to me and I knew that I could learn how to do it. I needed a change. I could feel the depression taking hold and I drove to work each day hoping that I would get fired. I couldn’t afford to quit, but if I got fired then it wouldn’t have been a decision that I made. Right? Somehow I could justify that, and that’s also how I knew that it was time to get out.

This is my fourth week of work at the new place and I’m still enjoying myself. The best thing about it, though, is that Jay has mentioned how much happier I am now. The fact that he has mentioned that a few times goes to show just how miserable I must have really been before. At the new job I don’t have to do journal entries… I don’t have to worry about month end closing… I am busy ALL DAY so I don’t have to pretend to work… my coworkers are nice… the meetings are chock full of actual business-related info and very little gossip or vapid chit-chatting.

I’ll admit that the first day was a bit of a struggle. At my previous job I was the one in my department who everybody went to when they had questions. I was the one with all of the answers… I knew just about everything related to my department and people respected me for my knowledge and experience. I am not a stupid person, not by far, but at the end of my first day I felt like the dumbest person in the galaxy. I had worked with components in my previous job, but it was all on paper. Now I’m actually expected to know what they look like, what they do, and certain info regarding how they work and how they go together. I wasn’t allowed to go out on the floor and study the processes at my old job because they needed me at my desk. They could send my incompetent coworker and my boss out to inventory training in Colorado, but I wasn’t allowed to spend a week in one of our own facilities to watch how we assembled and manufactured our own products. I could have used some of that information for my new job!

Again, my husband is so wonderful and good to me. When I started to tear up after my first day at work he gave me a hug and told me that I wasn’t stupid, but that there was definitely going to be a learning curve. He pointed out that my new employers had obviously seen my intelligence and potential since they hired me with the up-front knowledge that I had never done that kind of work before. I really love my husband. He is so good to me and for me!

After three full weeks I am starting to feel more comfortable in my job. I’m still learning, but I feel like I’m not contributing to the department instead of being yet another task that my coworker has to take care of among everything else she’s doing. I really like my new boss. He’s very down-to-earth and no-nonsense. There is not even a HINT of bobble-headedness about him!

The best thing? It only takes me about 15 minutes to get home at night to see my husband. Tonight as I was driving home I was reveling in my happiness. Before I married my husband I lived only 15 minutes from my old job, but I never looked forward to actually going home to my house. I didn’t like my house. There were lots of negative feelings that I had towards that place. Now, though, I look forward to going home to my husband AND the house! Life is definitely good! I am very blessed. 🙂