I found 'em

So, Sunday night (provided the weather isn't bad, though it looks now like it will be a lot better than what was predicted earlier this week), it's "Family Christmas" (also known as Jesus' Birthday Party) at church. I am doing Round II of the turkey meatballs (a fresh batch; the few that are left from last night sat out for more than 2 hours and so I don't think I'll keep them).

The bell choir is playing. The director kept suggesting we "dress festive" (which was partly why I was looking for an "ugly Christmas sweater" or a sweatshirt made to look like such a couple weeks back - didn't find one though). I do have my Hello Kitty shirt but if it's cold it will be too cold to wear, and also it is a wee bit tight on me and...yeah, sometimes I get a little self-conscious in it (and wearing a sweater over it isn't so great with having to have arm-movement).

But then I remembered I had bout a pair of reindeer antlers on a headband years ago and hadn't worn them in forever, and I thought, "If I can find them, I could wear those" (I also have a Christmas patchwork vest I could wear over a turtleneck)

I dug around a bit in my bedroom (and maybe my evening task for today is to clean that room and put stuff away, and also my floors need to be swept again). But I found them:

And they're biologically correct: I've read that in northern hemisphere winter, only the female reindeer keep their antlers. (And yes, they have 'em in the first place, apparently. And yeah, some wags have suggested that means Santa's reindeer - including Rudolph - are all girls. Though also castrated male reindeer keep their antlers in the winter (oh no, Rudolph))

I also found an accounting error I made in my favor: back in mid-November when we got the "pay bump to make up for the COLAs you missed in past years and to reimburse for some of the dungshow of 2016," there were actually TWO - I got the bigger one recorded but overlooked the smaller one (like, I didn't even see it in the list, because it was two separate "paycheck advices" on the same day. (And at the time, I thought, Huh, my pay bump is smaller than I was thinking, but I just assumed, okay, they are right and I was wrong).

(And yeah, I think this shows the generally-good ethics of our current uni president: when our finances got a good bit better, instead of hiring another admin or prettying up some part of campus or pouring it into Athletics, he said, "I know many of the faculty suffered through the reverses of 2016 and stayed the course; let's reward them for their loyalty")

Well, I rectified my checkbook today (I am a dinosaur who doesn't do online banking). And I saw a THIRD deposit entry there (other than regular pay and the pay bump I knew about). So I went back and checked the website - yup, turns out I am richer by about $1000 than I thought.

(Yes, I recognize the level of privilege here; I have a sufficient cushion in my checking account to cover most things without approaching overdraft, and I have savings for real emergencies).

So, I don't know. My initial thought was, what do I buy for myself with this? With another thought right on its heels: no, better to put it into savings or take out a CD so you have that money in the future when you might really need it. And yet another thought: No, make a larger donation somewhere, this is not money you were counting on and you don't need it.

Probably the best answer is to do a smaller version of each: make a donation somewhere (I will have to think where would be best - maybe the local Ministerial Alliance, which provides emergency aid to cover heating bills for people in need, or they provide traveler's aid to people who get stranded. They do good work and seem to use the vast majority of what comes in to actually help people). And put some in savings. And, I don't know what it is I might especially want to purchase for myself, but maybe I hold that in reserve in case I either find something up at my parents' (and pay for it with credit card) or consider getting something in January after the holidays are over.