today i am grateful that we do all our banking with usaa. we ordered new checks in february but never got them. we called them back in march and they explained that they had received them back for some reason so the representative reordered them for us and had them sent to us free, two day rush delivery. when they got to us however, part of our address was wrong and we noticed that she had charged us for the shipping. this morning i called and chatted with a nice lady named stacy who reordered the checks for us, read me the address to verify it was correct a few times AND she refunded us the original cost of the checks since they had messed up twice. She also reversed the charge that we had had for the shipping the last time, and she made sure not to charge us for the shipping this time. in two business days (or quite possibly tomorrow, since USAA rocks) we will have our new FREE checks that have a byu logo on them! it's been a pain not having the new checks since our old checks are really just chris's old checks so they only have his name on them which makes it a little hard for me to pay some of the bills/rent/tithing etc. it will be nice to have these checks with my name on them too!

today i'm grateful for costco. without costco i wouldn't have access to the beauty of tillamook cheese. and lets confess, i LOVE tillamook cheese. it reminds me of home. it makes me miss tillamook yogurt though.

today i'm grateful for the awesome benefits from chris's job. i went to the dentist to get caught up on some work that i've probably needed ever since i left for college. and i barely had to pay anything! i'm so grateful for insurance so that we can save money instead of spending all of it on fillings and cleanings and stuff like that!

right before we left provo as we were sorting through everything we owned we had a huge stack full of things to shred. since chris worked for the math department and their office had a shredder we went up there one night and shredded all of the papers. since then we've been collecting another huge stack. a few weeks ago we did a little research and went to costco to pick up a shredder. today i finally pulled it out of the box. i LOVE it. i am so glad we got a shredder. i was able to get rid of a huge stack of papers without having to worry about it at all!

today i am grateful for air. fresh air specifically. yesterday i started feeling kind of sick right before dinnertime. this morning i kind of just lounged around for a while until a friend asked if i could come take some of her food from her freezer because she's moving today. when i went outside and got some fresh air it really did help me to start feeling a little better. hooray for air!

i am grateful for the kitchenaid stand mixer that chris's aunts and uncles got us for our wedding. yesterday i was making cookies and while my stand mixer did all the mixing i did all the dishes and put all my ingredients away. my cookie mess was totally gone when chris got home from work and we had some excellent toffee chocolate chip cookies. i love kitchen tools that do the hard part for me and let me get other things done!

i am grateful for our airport express. it is a device made by apple that we use so that we can play music from our phones and computers and have the music come out through our surround sound system. since i am going tv free this week while chris is at work i find that i am listening to a lot of music as i work on projects and i love having the songs come out through our good surround system rather than the crappy speakers on my computer. it is awesome to be able to hear the music throughout the apartment, even as i am taking a bubble bath.

i'm grateful for visiting teachers who came early this month. seriously, the fourth of the month is a lot better than them trying to come the last day of the month. they did stay way too long, but i'm glad they came. I feel like they really let me get to know them this time, which i kind of needed since i didn't even know the name of one of them.

today i washed, dried, folded, and put away 4 batches of laundry. i'm grateful for my washer and dryer. i don't need quarters to do my laundry anymore. i can wash a batch once and it actually gets clean. my dryer can sense if the clothes are still wet or damp and will add time to the drying time if need be. i can turn the noise off on it so if i throw a batch in right before i go to bed the dryer won't make a sound when it's done-that way it doesn't wake chris up.

i am grateful for 11:00 church this year. 9:00 was just too early for me. i always needed a nap after church. but now that i can sleep in a bit i don't need a nap anymore! i actually have time to eat breakfast before church now, and i also make sure to eat some sort of snack before i go since i am used to eating lunch between 11:30-12. i feel like today was just a better day at church overall, probably because i didn't feel really tired during sacrament meeting and sunday school. also since another ward meets before us now the building seems to be a little bit warmer which is another nice feature of 11:00 church.

today i'm grateful for my computer. a few weeks ago google announced that they needed beta testers for their new chrome os notebooks that they were working on-- a laptop that just has an internet browser. there aren't any programs installed on it, no office suite, no solitaire--it's just the internet. chris and i both applied for the beta testing pilot program and a little over a week later a box showed up from the ups man. with no warning i learned that i had been chosen for the pilot program. i have a free laptop that i get to use and when something goes wrong i report the problem with a simple click of my mouse and i have fulfilled my agreement to them. i love that i can use it for all of my browsing needs, including blogging.