dripping and reconciling

this is gross but it is the truth. the credit statement i just reconciled is spotted with drippings from my...nosie. what can i do. one hand holding the clip board, the other is either holding a pencil or typing numbers. those waters of grace are too unpredictable for me to grab a tissue. anyhow, anyhoo, this credit statement took an entire day. i started it, i don't remember the exact date, before hwubby went to new york. it covers the holiday season. it has 145 transactions, most of them without receipts and a bunch of them hwubby have trouble recognizing and remembering them. so we agree on the phone we'll finish it when he returns from new york. and then the ensuing months he has been in hospital, rehab and so on and so forth. so when i pick this baby up it looks like an alien. after going through it line by line three times i'm still two dollars short. i stare at the crosses, marks, folds and tiny numbers. i sigh and start all over again. about ten transactions into it i get it. one of the no-receipt transactions should be eight dollars, not six as i tried hard to read it with a deep, frayed fold running across it. but by then it's too late. i have already erased all the checked marks. so i take a deep breath, remind myself i resolve this year to cultivate patience. what has to be done has to be done. i keep going. and i do it. yay.

thank you, my inner banker

i plan one way and it works out another way. case in point. i figure i need fifteen minutes tops to reconcile a bank statement. after all it looks short, less than half a page. i'm sailing exactly half way through when, boom, something jarring catches my eye. what's that nineteen dollar charge from the bank about? so i look into it. half an hour later, this is what i find out. some nice employee arranged, a while back, to waive monthly service fee on the account if the daily minimum balance is not less than four thousand dollars. i said, we can do that. so far it has been fine. somehow, somewhere along the line the bank's system bumped us up to another kind of account, something called 'value pack.' why? simply because the balance has been increasing and, above a certain dollar amount, the system triggers the upgrade. hwubby asks, how is this 'value pack' different from what we have right now? after mumbling something like, there are some small differences, the girl at the bank kind of whispers into hwubby's ear over the phone, well, actually, there really isn't much difference. the only big difference i can tell is this 'value pack' requires a daily minimum balance of eight thousand dollars. and for a few days in november the balance was five thousand. we don't even have to tell the girl what we want. without asking any questions she immediately changes our account back to what we had before this 'value pack' nonsense and credit us nineteen dollars.

so, there you have it. i have plans and the universe has its own plans. when it's all said and done it's an hour more than what i plan. i also realize that, with all due respect to bankers, they really count on people who have more than a full plate in their lives and don't look line by line into their statements, and even if they do, they just assume that the bank doesn't charge incorrectly. thank you, my inner banker, for giving me the strength and clarity to see what it needs to be taken of and stand up to ask the question on my mind. why is it this way? this is not what i remember how we were informed.

me and my inner self, we go places

there i am getting started to reconcile the bank statement. and...boom, i am tested. what do i mean by that? the opening balance is four grand off. the first thought that explodes in my mind says, that's impossible, it was fine when i reconciled last month. for a fleeting while i go blank. the next thing that i am aware of is the rhythmic movement of the breath. just like that i find myself watching the sky of the inner being. it is vast and open and bright and clear. sure there are dark clouds going by. they say, o no, suk wah, you screw up, you can never fix this, blah blah blah, so on and so forth, the usual stuff. but i am not buying into it. i see my entire being settling into a state of calm, confidence and focus. i clearly feel a power steadily surging up from within. supporting me. anchoring me. i feel fluid and flexible. i see the tendency to feel stuck appear. i ask myself, is this who and what i am? no. no. no. i know, from deep within, i am equal to the challenge. i swiftly deepen and lengthen the breath. after a little while i begin to regain a sense of stability. with that i hear one prompting after another from inside. take a pause from it. i follow it. i go into the kitchen, sit down and have some mango. nice, juicy, golden mango. it never ceases to amaze me how magical mango is. as i am absorbed in the nectarean nature of mango i hear the next inner prompting. reconcile the personal account and credit card statement first. i decide that's a smart move. why hold up the process because of a glitch?! i finish the last morsel of mango flesh. i feel so much better. i return to the computer and reconcile the personal account statement. it goes smoothly. no sooner than i hit the 'done' button i see this thought. check the opening and closing balance. i know exactly what it means. i'm doing july. take the june statement. compare the opening and closing balances with those on the quickbook register. if they don't match go back to may. i do that. may is off. i go back to april. still off. then it's march. bingo. the opening balances match. that's it. i pore through the march transactions. within seconds i see where it's off.

hwubby says, you're such a good investigative detective. i say, yeah, me and my inner self, we go places. my inner self says, yeah, there's a solution within every situation, you just have to stay in the present and listen.