Queen of Swords

1. The hard drive on my old computer is broken. Hopefully _storyteller_ and strandsofchaos will still be able to recover the data.

2. I'm pissed at an eBay seller who wrote me today to tell me that he didn't actually have the item I ordered -- and paid for! -- in stock, but before he refunded my money he wanted me to submit an agreement to "mutually cancel transaction" -- or else he would subtract his seller fees from my refund! Then he had the nerve to tell me that in the future I should order directly from his website, to be sure he had the merchandise in stock. I sent him a scathing letter in reply, but clicked the Agreement because I really don't want to waste my time fighting with him and eBay to the tune of $184.

3. The good news is that I was finally able to locate the abovementioned item -- a statue of Snow White and Bigby (aka "Big Bad") Wolf from the comic series Fables -- at a local comic shop, and my mom did me the favor of picking it up for me this afternoon since I wouldn't be able to get there after work. As it happens, it's exactly where Hob recommended I go in the first place, back before the statue was released. *sigh

4. I'm feeling on the edge of overwhelmed at work. My boss is a great guy, but he seems to have a hard time staying on a single track. He is constantly making travel plans and then changing them, and changing meeting times. I believe he's getting a lot of pressure from above, but it makes it tough on the rest of us. Meanwhile, I'm also trying to do my project management work and keep up with all the routine requests for assistance from the teams I support. There simply isn't enough time in the day.

5. I opened an investment account today outside of my 401K at work. I now have a Roth IRA, four mutual funds, and two stocks. This is where the bulk of the money from the house buy-out is going, minus the new furniture, the new computer, and a cash reserve in my savings account.

6. My spiritual practice still isn't as consistent as I'd like to be from the perspective of routine, repeated "practices" -- but there is a richness there that I've not experienced in ages, especially in my relationships with the deities. I keep meaning to make a major post about that, but I'm so busy living it that I'm not making the time to write about it.

( Here's my new statue of Bigby and Snow after the Battle of the Wooden Soldiers -- the best thing that's happened to me all day. )

For once, the transaction register on my Palm and the online listing for my bank are exactly in accord on what I've done with my money lately. There's nothing on my Palm that doesn't show as cleared on my account, nothing on my account that isn't listed in my Palm. I just balanced my account, and have been doing so religiously for the past several months.

So why is there a $50+ discrepancy (in my favor) in the two accounts? My bank balance shows that I have more money than I think I do, with nothing outstanding.

Should I adjust the balance in my Palm register? $50 is a significant amount of money: a couple of credit card payments or fill-ups of my gas tank, or an evening out with my daughter. Or do I leave the discrepancy and use it as a buffer?

Or give it a few more days to see if things stay in synch?