A dilettante's dither

Last Sunday morning, we had an unhappy surprise:  we discovered we were out of checks. Using up the last of our checks is not a bad thing, considering we moved back in May.  (We only write one, maybe two checks a week, so it took a while to whittle down the last of the old ones.  But somehow I missed the important REORDER NOW reminder when I snagged the last batch.  Oops.

Checks are fast becoming a throwback to the good old days.  Our adult children have checks, but they almost never have to write one.  Everything is swipe-and-go these days.  Except writing one on Sunday morning, and the occasional check to a friend for something-or-other.

But I still like checks - I always have.  At least I like picking out checks. Before it was de rigueur to personalize every. stinkin. thing. you own, your personal checks were one way to express something unique about you.  We have never had plain blue security checks.   I've always tried to take into consideration that Mr. Official has to use the checks, too and pick out something that was expressive but not too girly. Pre-internet I would hold onto the glossy Sunday newspaper inserts and pore over them until I found the "right" design for the next order - that was back in the day when I actually had to write a half-dozen checks each month to pay our bills.

The internet has made it simultaneously easier and more difficult to choose a design; there are dozens of places to order from, and they all have a plethora of designs to choose from.

This time, I vacillated between some gender-neutral graphic design, a landscape scene, or just a monogram.  But in my heart I really wanted something more "me."  Like Twitter-page swirly branches.  Or owls.  Yes....owls.  But Mr. Official is not a lover of swirly branches or graphical owls.

And then I had an epiphany.  We have a joint account, but where is it written we have to have just one kind of check? Move over, "his 'n hers" checks.  Make room for "his checks." and "her checks."

I  can't believe it took me this long to reach that conclusion but it certainly opened up a whole world of wonderful possibilities. And so I dug around and found these checks:

Referee checks from checksadvantage.com

But after looking at the 2nd and 3rd checks, I knew were really too European and/or Canadian football-looking.

So I chose these instead for him:

Collegiate checks from currentcatalogchecks.com

And for me, I chose these:

challis and roos design from bradfordexchange.com

So no more dithering. The checks are in the mail and hopefully one set or the other will arrive by Saturday!

Happy self-expressions,