It’s Official

What is Official?

Well, several things.

Over the last week or so in my life, a number of things have become official. Good things. My life is improving.

Not that my life was not good before, but it’s getting better!

I am Officially a Hoosier now

Yesterday, I walked up to the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) and applied for my State ID card. You may recall, weeks ago I posted about my first attempt to get an ID card here. I was denied for several reasons:

• The new “Real ID” law required a number of documents that I needed to gather.
• Part of the Real ID law means that I have to prove that I am a resident of the State, and that took a couple of months (by design)

I started gathering documents

I knew I would have to wait 2 months to apply for the ID because I had to show two consecutive months of utility bills (or some other type of mail) showing my Indiana address to show residency. So, as I started getting near to the time when I would be able to go apply, I started gathering documents. Yesterday, when I went to apply, I brought:

• My US Passport
• My Social Security Card
• My Original Birth Certificate
• Two Utility Bills
• My Lease for the house where we are living

As it turned out (and I knew this in advance), I had more documentation than I needed. I did that on purpose in case any of the documents were deemed unacceptable.

In the end, they used only these documents:

• My US Passport
• My Social Security Card
• Two Utility Bills

In the end, getting the ID was very easy!

One thing that surprised me was that when we were done, the lady handed everything back to me and said: “thank you”. I said, “don’t I need to pay still?” She said that ID is free here in Indiana! Wow. Just two years ago my wife got a State ID in another State, and they charged her $50 for that.

Officially Spring

Another thing that is official is that it is finally Spring!

The calendar tells us that it is Spring, but now the weather confirms it!

After a few “false hopes” of Spring, we are starting to have a string of continuous days with very nice temperatures. I am loving that. yesterday, we got up to about 60 degrees, and it felt so good. In fact, I went out and did a lot of walking yesterday. The weather (sunshine) felt great, and I felt good too getting back to being active again.

The Squirrels

While out walking yesterday, I saw a lot of squirrels. They don’t have squirrels in the Philippines, so I have not seen one in so many years. They were everywhere yesterday. I consider this a sign of spring. I don’t know, do squirrels come out during winter? I never saw any during the real cold weather. Seeing them yesterday, though, it just made it feel more and more like Spring.

With Spring still being very young, it does not look like Spring yet. The grass is still brown (with a slight green hue), the trees have no leaves yet. But, you can feel it in the air (and the temperature), and I am really looking forward to seeing the green, the flowers, and leaves on the trees. Also, here in Indiana, we will start seeing fields of corn and soybeans. After seeing mostly brown on the horizon, this is pretty exciting for us.

Life is good! I am enjoying it. A lot. Moving back to the USA has been a good experience.