Jeremy, Grade 9

Found while re-organizing some files and moving furniture to prepare for Baby Powell... Jeremy's 9th grade English class journal.

Entry: 9/9/1994

"It is the second day of school and I'm already tired of homework. It takes time away from fishing. I have a half pint of chubs in my bait bucket and they will die if I don't use them for fishing soon. I'm glad its a Friday, because then I will be able to fish all weekend long..."

Entry: 9/13/1994

"It is Tuesday and I've only gone fishing since the last time I wrote. The chubs are still amazingly alive..."

22 Weeks and Growing

Hi friends and family! I'm Baby Powell...

My mom had an ultrasound today and the doctors took these awesome pictures of me... I weigh 1lb 1oz and I love to kick, squirm and turn somersaults, especially before meals!

Here's another picture of my profile. My dad thinks I inherited my mom's chin... she thinks I inherited his long second toe. But we'll see!

I officially have 8 cousins as of last Saturday. My new cousin Lois Mae Powell was born on 9-10-11 at 5:00 pm. I can't to meet her and my other cousin, Delancey Baby #4, who will be born just a few weeks after me!

I'm going to be the first Powell baby born outside of Massachusetts and the first grandbaby and great-grandbaby in the Sweitzer family.

Here's a kinda weird picture of my face. I was squirming and bobbing around while the doctor was trying to take my picture, so I look a little smudgy and pudgy.

That's my hand moving toward my mouth there...

I'm pretty sure my Auntie Meredith and Auntie Jenna have already purchased 90% of my wardrobe for my first month of life, so I'm going to be very cute!

Well, that's all for now... see you around January 17th!

A Bit of Disarray

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Irene caused a little problem at our condo complex... the little creek that trickles around our building swelled with rain water and rushed into the units adjoining ours on the backside.

We've been living with wet walls, puddles of water creeping out under the stove, and mysterious wet spots percolating up from under the carpet ever since. 

Here you can see the wet carpet padding and water stains. Trust me, it doesn't smell very good. Thick musty odor.

Fortunately, the water damage specialists came yesterday and did some demolition. Not sure how long this disarray will last, but for now, this is our kitchen and dining area:

The large dehumidifier and three drying fans seen above must be kept running 24-7---and they're pretty dang loud---so we've been pretty much living in our back bedroom with the doors shut. 

But, if I were to play the "Glad Game" (Pollyanna), I am very thankful that our landlord is very responsive and most importantly, that her insurance covers the damage, so we don't have to pay anything except the electric bill for running the equipment.

Thank you God for providing for us!

Bird No. 6

Readers of our blog know that Jeremy and I recently purchased a matte board cutter to frame our own art pieces. We love picking up unique and antique prints on our journeys---and we love giving them as gifts.

For my younger sis Jenna Mae's 21st birthday, we ordered this original, signed print called Bird No. 6 from one of her favorite watercolor artists, Geninne.

The print traveled all the way from Mexico and finally arrived this weekend.

Jeremy and I went to Michaels to buy matte board. We couldn't find anything on the shelves that made the image "pop" (and really, Michaels has an extremely limited selection of matte board outside of their frame shop), so we decided to ask the frame shop if they would sell us anything out of their backroom.

Sure, they said.

We were able to flip through the frame shop's sample pieces and found a beautiful, textured, rust-colored matte board that we loved. The frame shop sold us a LARGE piece for just $13.99.

If you want do the mental math, a comparable custom framing job for one piece at Michaels would cost about $75.

Instead, we got an abundance of matte board that we can use for at least two more projects ($13.99) + two frames (on sale two for $20) + the print for ($30).

In other words, we doubled our ouput for about $10 less.

What do you think of the finished product?