The Lieslands

• We had our bathroom re-done. We didn’t get many before shots, but the after is much better. Andrew and Mari used to think that our bathroom was disgusting, and they were right. It is much nicer now. We still have a little to do, but the major parts are taken care of.
• Next up we are going to be ripping the closet out of our dining room
• It has been cold here, mostly in the twenties. There was snow on the ground for a while, then most of it melted, and the rest refroze, so now it is just and icy mess. I am requesting either more snow or warmer temperatures, neither of which is forecasted
• I was able to get out for a nice little bike ride today. I rode down to a local natural foods shop to get some ear oil for Elliot.
• Did I mention that Elliot has been crazy? Last night was the first night this year that he did not throw up, but he was still up in the middle of the night. We are not sure what his problem is. He has been great during the day. He has also has a cough. We are now putting Vicks Vaporub on his feet before bed and also giving him his ear drops.
• There has been a request to get up some pictures of our bathroom. They will be coming eventually.
• We still have our Christmas tree up. I guess we can take it down now.
• We have a lot of painting to do. When we bought our last house we were a lot more patient with our home improvement projects. Now we just want to get everything done.

We decorated our Christmas tree tonight, and had a fire in the fireplace. We did not have any marshmallows to roast, so Andrew roasted cheese. He got a slice of cheese (medium cheddar), put it in a skillet, and I held it over the fire until it was melted. He ate most of it, and shared a little with Mari, who was a little out of her head.

In other cool news, Susan went to a cookie exchange today, and brought home a bunch of cool cookies.

Also, I am enjoying cooking on a gas stove.

Also, we found a weird hole in our basement floor, about 18″ x 24″, that appears to be full of ash. Weird. I will have to ask someone who knows something about old homes. It does look like there used to be a gas line that ran to it. It had always had this huge wooden shelf over it, which is why we did not know it was there.

I am not sure why this is blog-worthy, but we bought a new dishwasher today. Ours stinks and while we were out looking for new bathroom fixtures we remembered how cheap dishwashers are, so we bought one. It is in Mimi & Papa’s (Susan’s parents) garage right now, waiting for me to come pick it up so I can install it this weekend. That should be an adventure.

• We also plan on putting up our Christmas tree this weekend, and taking care of a number of other things around the house.
• Tomorrow we are beginning our bathroom renovation and also reworking the archways on the main level of our house.
• It is cold, and snowy.
• I want to set up the stereo, but I am short a speaker. The good news is that I have my work PC hooked up to my Aunt Harriet’s old stereo from the 60’s, so I can get some good sounds there.
• Elliot is talking a lot lately.
• Andrew is getting up too early, but is still always a joy.
• Mari has been hitting a lot. We know it is just a phase, but we hope that it passes quickly.
• We still have a lot of boxes to go through. Most important is the box with our winter gear in it, and the stereo speaker.
• I set up a room in the basement as my office. It used to be a tuck-under garage, that was sealed off. It is cold, but I like it.
• Susan thinks that the skull hanging in the corner “does numbers for my office.” I agree.
• I also found an old, fake, electric fireplace for my office. It has nice lights, but puts off no heat. Andrew thinks it is really cool. I think it is cool.
• We are trying to get our hands on some firewood.
• The hot and cold are reversed on our washer. I suppose I should fix that.

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?