You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round

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Every time, yep. Mercury Retrograde becomes the antagonist of my life, whether I try to avoid it (ha!), ignore it (impossible!), deny it (so delusional), or fight it (futile). 

And yet, it seems to land me facing the right direction, after sending me on wild goose chases, snafu chains, and break downs.

Here's the latest, and I'm almost ready to laugh about it. Almost. You may have an easier time. Laughing, that is.

Checks due to be received by me are late. That means, of course, that bills are going to be paid late. Except, oops, for those which were set for automatic withdrawal, and those will bounce. So, I decided to try to remedy the situation as fast as I could.

We moved from Ohio to Maryland at the beginning of this month, and our usual bank, which we used for the past 16 years, does not have a branch office in Maryland. We figured we could cope for a while by doing electronic banking and using bank machines. 

So, I took money out of my paypal account, (cash), for fast access, and went to deposit it into my checking account at an ATM. Hmm. This ATM doesn't offer a deposit option. Weird. I drove to another ATM. And then a third. Same problem.

I called my bank. The customer service person said that it's not possible to deposit a check at an ATM of a bank in a state that doesn't host this bank. I can take money out, but I can't put money in.  But, wait, I have an app that lets me scan a check. I just needed to get this cash into a check (and by the way, it had to be done within the hour or it wouldn't count for this business day's deposit). I asked if a money order would do. The guy said yes, that should work. Funny how that was my brilliant idea, not one suggested by the person who WORKS AT THE BANK. Whatever. Mkay. 

After visiting two gas stations that don't sell money orders, I proceed to a CVS, and miraculously have the exact amount of money in my wallet that's needed to purchase a money order. I do so. 

In my car now, I try to scan the money order into my phone's bank check deposit app. It can't get a good picture. After trying about six times, I go home. It's still 30 minutes from deadline. 

At home, I put the money order on my table and take a picture of it again. Every detail is clear. The app doesn't agree. After another half dozen tries, I call the bank. The tech support customer service person seems perplexed. I remind her of the time deadline and offer to read her every number, text or email a picture of the money order, or anything else. She says no to these options. I ask if the fact that the amount on the money order was printed in purple dot-matrix might be an issue. She says maybe. I offer to color it in with a pencil or pen. She says sure, try that. Again, my idea. 

I try that. It doesn't work. It also doesn't work for me to manually add a decimal. I kept the customer service person on the line through all of this, and now it's past seven o'clock. I still have the money that needs to go into my account, and this problem isn't solved. 

I also haven't made dinner yet.

She transfers me to someone else. That person tells me that, by the way, there are app deposit limits which happen to be less than my husband's upcoming paycheck. So that means that he won't be able, in any way other than US Mail, to deposit his check into our checking account in two days.

By now, the Universe has sent a very clear message that it's time to change to a local bank.  

The customer service person on the line suggests that I move funds from savings accounts into the checking account to cover the upcoming payments. Turns out that in some tiny little accounts I had started when my kids were babies, there was just enough to cover the payments that were being withdrawn. So I moved the funds. It only took another half hour of being on hold and shuffled around.

The money order is now put aside for deposit into a new checking account at a new bank.

So, as annoying as this process was, I consider it to be a good thing for these reasons:

• I found out about the deposit limits before we actually tried to deposit my husband's paycheck on Friday.
• I had enough money to cover the amount going out, once it was moved around.
• I now have a money order for starting a new account at a different bank.
• I got a VERY CLEAR SIGNAL from the Universe that it's time to put down roots here, and that includes income.

But that's not the end of the story, though it would be nice if it was. 

We went online last night to set up a new local checking account, since my husband is working all this week. It seemed to be smooth (why don't we learn that during Mercury Retrograde this is only an illusion?). I took my printed confirmation paper printout thingie to the local branch today, expecting to hand it over and get the two temporary debit cards for our new joint account, as well as deposit this money order into it. 

Not so easy.

We were told that we both need to go personally into a branch office. They need to do more identity verification there, before we get our new cards. And, until my husband does this too, we can't have a joint account. Wah. 

At lunch, my husband asked Siri (yeah, he asked an electronic device to guide him to a place during Mercury Retrograde. Yeah.) to take him to the nearest branch of this particular bank. Siri decided to give him an unwelcome and untimely tour of random sites in Washington, DC instead. 

So the new plan is for him to leave work as early as he can, and meet me at the local branch that's near our house. We'll do this thing together in person, and have a new account to use.

Yesterday, I did a Reiki exchange with my new friend David Gleekel, owner of The Reiki Center of Greater Washington. He told me during my session that I haven't put down roots yet. He could feel my energetic roots all curled up at the base of my feet. After the session, he checked them again and said they are uncurled. They're ready to accept that I live here.

In the end, we're getting the message. This is where we live now. This is where we make money, spend money (oh yes), and need our money to be. The flow of money is part of overall abundance. If we want to live and work here, our roots need to be here - money and abundance-wise too. 

So, with a centrifugal whirl by our friend (or not) Mercury Retrograde, we're being set on our feet again, right where we are now, and hopefully taking healthy root in this new place where we've been planted. 

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By the way, I'm now available for appointments at Feja's Hair Design and Wellness Spa in Gaithersburg, MD (call for an appointment), and I have a Practical Reiki 1 & 2 Training coming up Nov. 9-10 at The Viva Center in Washington DC (Dupot Circle area) - registration is open.