What a Nice Bank Teller! (Writer's Workshop)

It's so easy to make a mistake in my checkbook. I do online banking now and both our checks are automatically deposited so I do not go to the bank every week like I used to. When I got a nice cash Christmas/Birthday gift from one of my bosses, I went to the bank to deposit it in my checking.

First off, I gave the teller my deposit slip but forgot to give her my money . . . oops. She was very nice and simply asked if I had the money. I quickly pulled it out of my coat pocket and gave it to her, thanking her for being so nice and not saying, "Give me the money you dumb woman." Then she mentioned that I had two overdrafts on my account. I was shocked! She was very nice, again not calling me stupid or anything and told me which checks were overdrawn, both I had written. She said she'd waive the fees which were $35 each for a total of $70!

Good thing I had some cash to deposit so I had to go to the bank. (I got a bank notice about it which didn't come in the mail until the next week or so.)

I couldn't get back to the office fast enough to reconcile my checkbook. It was longer than I thought that I had done this (time goes so fast) and I found not one, but two numbers that I simply copied down wrong. One was the balance when I carried it forward to the next page which was a $100 error and the other was an incorrect amount for my phone bill which resulted in a $32 error.

I was so grateful to her for waiving the fees and took her a little gift the next day to show my appreciation-an autographed book of "My Funny Dad, Harry," a decorative Christmas boot with some chocolate covered pretzels and a little card with my PNN blog URL letting her know where she could read about what a nice teller she is.

Although I made stupid mistakes, which happen, because of them, I received a blessing and in turn can be a blessing to someone else. Little acts of kindness can really make someone's day. How about this for a New Year's Resolution: Be kind to someone each day and try not to do so many stupid things!

This was revised from an earlier post on another blog in response to the Mama Kat's Workshop prompt to tell about a time when a stranger helped you out. Go visit her to participate or see other posts.

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What's Missing?

Do you see what's missing in this picture of our tree this year? Yes, lights, but that is not what I'm going for here. There's something else.

Here is a hint:

Spunky just loved laying on that tree skirt so much that I didn't have the heart to take it from under her and decided in the spirit of Christmas to just let her have it. No one sees it anyway when the packages are all on top of it.

Speaking of the spirit of Christmas, take a look at the Blog, Bid, Hope auction items over at Mama's Losin' it today. All proceeds will benefit The Liz Logelin Foundation and Anissa Mayhew, a blogging mother of three who collapsed after a massive stroke. You can read more about her at Blog, Bid, Hope. Bids start at $10, auction ends December 11 at 5 p.m.

Spunky's Post about this: Here Is Proof That I Still Rule

We Wish You A Merry SITSmas!

This year, thanks to Mountain Woman at Red Pine Mountain, I discovered the fabulous Sisterhood of the blogosphere at The Secret's In The Sauce. Gerard and I wish you all a Merry SITSmas!

Especially since I decided not to spend hours just making Entrecard drops, I have listed the following great blogs I found at SITS to my blogroll:

Greedy Girls Guide relating to fitness.

Mama's Losin' It written by Mama Kat who hosts Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop and gives several prompts for posts each Wednesday.

Shell In Your Pocket written by a mom who has some great traditions and ideas pertaining to family.

Controlling My Chaos written by a control freak.

I'm Living Proof that God Has a Sense of Humor written by a very funny mom of two sets of twins. (My Favorite new blog)

Yaya Stuff written by a lover of orange with a great sense of humor who is trying to adopt and shares her experiences.

Infertile Myrtle whose blog is filled with a variety of interesting topics and beautiful pictures.

Looking For Something Deeper written by a minister's wife on a variety of topics.

A Spiritual Connection
written by a therapist who loves to encourage women by sharing tips on being a good wife.

I appreciate all the SITStas who have visited my blog and had hoped to have 100 followers by the end of this year. Maybe if you are not yet a follower, you would consider it and help make my wish come true!

SITS is all about supporting other bloggers with positive comments--click here to read more SITSmas cards in this holiday lovefest with comments galore!

The Best Use For Shorthand

This time of year always reminds me of how we would go through the Christmas catalogs marking the things we'd like for Christmas and my mom making up her shopping list--in shorthand, leaving it on the table in plain sight to tease us! I found secret codes fascinating. (I still have my code book, Codes and Secret Writing by Herbert S. Zim.) Shorthand is a great type of secret writing because not too many people know it anymore and it's very difficult to figure out if not impossible. Here is a sample of it--can you read it?



Try as I might, I could not break that code--could you? It just looked like scribbling to me. I don't think it's even taught in schools anymore since most dictation in offices is done on tape with a transcription machine. This way is more efficient because the secretary isn't waiting for her boss to think what he wants to say. I do use shorthand sometimes for phone messages or transcribing voice mail messages or for a short, quick letter now and then. It will always be good for secret shopping lists!

When I took shorthand in school, I wondered why this way of writing wasn't taught to everyone instead of cursive because it was faster and made more sense. Strokes represent sounds so the word "know" and "no" would look the same. There are no useless letters in words either such as a silent "k" in the word "knife." The only bit of confusion is that some strokes can represent different things such as a dot can be the word "a" or "an" or the ing suffix at the end of a word. Phrases is another characteristic of shorthand that provides more speed--kind of like our URL's today. Common phrases like "Thank you for the" would be written all together like "thankyouforthe." Shorthand is definitely easier to write than to read later because of these little quirks, but after awhile, you get to recognize the phrases as well.

Learning shorthand is similar to learning a foreign language. My mom used to be at the top of her class, able to take dictation for 3 minutes at 150 (or it might have been 180, I'm not sure now) words per minute! I never came close to that because it takes a lot of practice and I just didn't want to put that much time into it. Yes, I was lazy and I HATED homework. I hated homework so much that I used to just turn in class dictation as my homework and always got credit for it.

I'm glad that I learned shorthand because I still think it's cool! Oh, the shorthand translation pictured above is here: "This is a post about why I decided to learn shorthand. Can you read this?"

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3 Things I Learned This Week--Part 48

Chicago Cats Need Home

UPDATED 12/4/09: I just discovered an urgent need for a couple of Chicago cats at Can You Help Some Buddies In Need over at Daisy, the Curly Cat. The owner is moving and cannot bring the cats because they are moving in where someone is allergic. I know how hard it is to try to find a good home for cats that you wish you could keep but can't because I went through it when looking for a home for my dad's cats after he died. If you are in the Chicago area, please check out this link for more details. UPDATED: In the comments, JD said these cats have found a good home!

Shopping

After losing out on a good deal on Black Friday sticking to my "don't buy things on impulse" rule, I learned that if you see something you like and it's on sale, buy it right then. Check out my shopping Trip post that taught me this.

Fake Hallmark E-cards

Please be aware of fake E-cards being sent from Hallmark! The link in the card directs you to a malicious site. The easiest way to tell the difference between a real hallmark E-card and fake is, E-cards sent from Hallmark will have the correct email address of the sender, it will not be from Hallmark and the senders name will be in the body of the message.

Mr. Linky

I thought I'd try using Mr. Linky on these posts, we'll see if it works.

I'm trying out the Mcklinky on here for the first time. Just thought it would be nice if you shared what you learned during the week too. You could post any day during the week and link up here. What did you learn this week?



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