Bounced check

So that bounced check I mentioned... the one that was for the full balance of my account back home that they accidentally scanned twice and therefore bounced? Well, I just got my notification from my new credit union that the check I deposited bounced, so the money has been subtracted from my account and I have been charged a fee. I am so pissed. This is only $3032 which has been taken from my old account and deposited into the ether...

I don't even know who I take this up with, the new credit union or the old one. I guess I'll start with the old one.

Never mind, I'll start with neither. Credit unions aren't open on the weekends.

Gas

I set a new personal record today... $40 to fill up the car.

I'm glad we moved and don't need to use the car nearly as much as we did before.

And I think I am now convinced that it is worth it to buy myself a big variety pack of embroidery thread so I don't have to go out to the store every time I decide to do a design that needs a new color.

One other complaint

One other complaint about my new credit union.

I added Josh to my credit union account AGES ago, and then I changed his name on the account, also ages ago, and requested a new debit card for myself (new name and all), and a debit card for him. Yet, they are still sending correspondence (like the thing about the bounced check) to me only, and when I log in online it still has my name only. Also, the new debit cards haven't arrived yet (she seemed to think I was crazy for requesting new debit cards, so I'm afraid she ignored it... hello, wouldn't everybody request new debit cards when changing a name on a checking account?! Except of course no one employed by Northrop Grumman would change names... so the teller probably has no experience with this), I requested them like 2 weeks ago... I don't know how long they normally take.

Anyway, the thing that's really bothering me is that there is no evidence AT ALL that they actually have added Josh's name to my credit union account. We're going to have Josh close his account at Bank One, but I want his name to show up on my account before we do that... and I imagine he does too, though I haven't actually asked him yet, "Honey, will you hand over all your money to me so I can put it into our joint account... but actually you're just going to take my word on it that it's a joint account and you have access to it because I'm just taking the tellers word for it that your name has been added." Um, well frankly, if he asked me to do that, I'd say no.

Anyway, this is seriously bugging me. Not that it probably matters a huge amount since legally everything in the account is 50% Josh's whether his name is on it or not, he has the account number and pin for looking things up online or doing any online bill payments, and there is only one branch in the state of Illinois and it is at NG so he is unlikely to ever actually go in... but we do kind of need for him to have a debit card. Grrr....

Serenity

I was thinking about this at work the other day (perhaps because I'd been thinking about Firefly) and wanted to post it.

Back when my brother was going through a lot of troubles, by parents sent me to Al-Anon (or maybe it was Alateen?)... that experience was mostly a real flop for me because everyone else there had a loved one with a drinking problem, which felt very different to me than the drug problem my brother had. But there was one aspect of those meetings which was very moving and I have carried with me since then, the serenity prayer.

I remember, a couple meetings in, telling my mother about it and how much I liked it. I'd only heard it a few times and did not have it completely committed to memory yet, so I kind of struggled though repeating it to her, and asked her if she'd ever heard it before. She told me she had, and then pointed to the white lacy handkerchief framed in a green frame and hanging on the wall in the kitchen. I'd never looked at it closely before and discovered that it was had text embroidered onto it. There in our so very agnostic household, in the kitchen, which was the primary meeting room for family and for guests, framed and on display for all to see:

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

It's always been sort of an oddity, that prayer, or poem if you prefer, hanging in my mother's kitchen. But only sort of an oddity. Poem or prayer, it is important to remember, and important to strive for.