Since August 19, I’ve been subsumed on a whirlwind – if you’ll permit me to egregiously mix phenomena there – of insurance. Background: Laurie, my boss, wanted me to become a licensed life & disability insurance producer for my job with Kaizen Financial Advisors. She has a license, so Kaizen can offer insurance to clients already, but this way I can take care of all the insurance-related business, if necessary. I was willing – knew nothing about insurance, but hey, if it willmake me a more useful employee, why not?

Here’s why not. Although it’s not particularly difficult, the requirements for becoming licensed are a bit onerous for a stay-at-home mom who regularly works 4 to 6 hours a week: four consecutive 10-hour days of mandatory training (baby care planning began months in advance), plus a 200-question multiple-choice test in Everett or Tukwila. Most of the people in my training class took the test the day after the class finished, to maximize amount of knowledge retained and minimize amount of time to forget information. Also, to just get it done.

I didn’t have the luxury of childcare that day, since I didn’t realize day-after testing was common, so I arranged childcare for Thursday, August 29 and then scheduled my test for that morning. Unfortunately, that meant I actually had to study, because I’d started forgetting stuff right away. Ian actually took Wednesday off and watched Benji all day so I could spend the entire day studying – and I did.

More than 10.5 hours later, my eyes were bugging out and my brain felt like the stepsister’s foot in a glass slipper. I barely slept that night, although I didn’t feel particularly anxious; maybe my brain was too full?

The upshot was that when I took the test, it only took a couple hours total, and I didn’t agonize about much of it. Which worked out just fine: I passed both the law and the insurance sections easily.

So yippie! I’ve got a new license and am a bit more knowledgeable than I was two weeks ago. Now I’m going to take a few days off, spend some time with Benji, and not think too much.