The Lieslands

I am going to start a new type of blog post – endorsements. I know what you are thinking, “That’s not new. Celebrities have been endorsing products for decades.” Well, it’s new to me, all right? Here come the first two. . .

Elliot woke me up early this morning, and one of the TV stations was not broadcasting. I can’t remember the last time that happened in Cincinnati. Yesterday morning, when he also woke me up early, I noticed that during one of the early news shows, when they usually switch over to local content, I had to watch the national news anchors sit around and chat for a few minutes. I guess that the Des Moines stations don’t have their news people in that early.

There are brown squirrels in Des Moines, as opposed to the gray ones in Cincinnati. The brown ones definitely have better color.

We just got back from spending the night in Kansas City. Ian and Andrew needed(needed?) to go down for Luke’s birthday party, so we all (the Liesland’s and Ian) went down last night. It was nice to see the Connors and the boys had a great time. Mari would not talk to Casey the whole time, but did warm up to Joe by the time it was time to go. Andrew cried all the way out the door. I think he had a good time. He may also have been extremely tired.

Susan went to a La Leche League meeting yesterday and there was a woman there with a newborn, her first. Elliot threw a ball and it hit the baby right in the head, while he was sleeping. Luckily the baby was unphased, and the mom was too.

It has been a long time since I have had to deal with any issues surrounding our name change, but our recent move is stirring things up again. It came up a couple of times when we closed on our house in Cincinnati, and now US Bank wants some documentation because I have a check from Duke Energy made out to Robert Hyland.

No big deal, I just wonder when it will go away. Initially we had to deal with a lot of activity, then as things got changed over the activity slowed down, and slowed down, and slowed down. Will it ever stop?

1. It seems like traffic moves slower. The speed limits all seem a little low to me. That being said, it never takes long to get anywhere.
2. The grocery store parking lots are smaller, and I bet the grocery stores are too.
3. Speaking of grocery stores – in Des Moines, and probably all of IA, they are not required to put the cost per unit on the grocery items, which makes it a lot harder to compare prices.
4. Yesterday we were out during rush hour, shortly after dusk, and it was raining. Traffic was actually moving. Susan and I were positive that had we been on I-75 at this time, we would have been parked.
5. On all of the traffic reports they always mention that it is harvest time, so watch for slow moving farm equipment on the roads. I have not seen any yet, but I don’t leave city limits very often.

I bet there are more to come.

It looks like our 2911 Montclair mortgage is now officially paid off. That is nice. Now, to start a new one.

We received our first piece of mail in Des Moines today. It was actually just the USPS confirmation of our forward, but I guess it counts, right?

We also set up some new bank accounts.

Tomorrow is my first day at ‘work’. I need to get the new office all set up and then get down to business.

We live in Des Moines now. Currently, we have a nice one bedroom apartment in Erin & Nate’s basement. Hopefully we will be out on our own in a couple of weeks.

All done.

Fall Back + Going West = Trouble