A Fabulous Day of Zoo Boxing Part 1

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

12-19-08

12-20-08

12-21-08

12-22-08

12-23-08

12-24-08

Keeping Busy While Snowed In

Here are three of the LTC's I made while snowed in. If you would like one, let me know via AQ mail :)
This one is called "The Pirates of Teddy Bear Cove". The stamp, along with two others, was a gift to a good friend in Washington. The matching teddy bear is destined to become an LTC later today if this snow continues. Getting the twine on the sides for the frame was the most difficult. I tried 3 different attachment methods and finally had to call Marmalade for advice. Every LTCer should have a Marmalde. She is my "technical advisor". What that basically means is that when I'm banging my head against the wall trying to do something, she will tell me what I need to do, and does it without making me feel like a moron. She's a great person and my LTC's wouldn't be half as creative without her encouragement and advice. Thank you Marmalade!


This is my Nightmare Before Xmas card. The background is hand drawn. It seemed like such a simple idea, but I'll tell you what, by the time I got done making 15 of them, my hands hurt and I was DONE! The image of Jack is embossed. This stamp is destined to be a HH in its very own screaming coffin container. Look for it in a letterbox near you.

This card was made *just* before being snowed in. I made it with the ornament stamps that I put in the ornaments for the ornament exchange. The stamps should be on a letterboxer's tree somewhere :)

And that is that! Looking out my window and seeing the heavy snowfall, I'm sure there's more to come!

Arctic Blast

Monday, December 15, 2008
Hooray!
It's a snow day. As everyone knows, or should know if they just thought about it for a second, teachers love snow days. The only thing better than a snow day is a snow day just before the holiday break. An entire day to myself. I think I'll do some laundry and then make some LTC's. What a perfect day, a cup of tea and a good book. Oh the possiblities! Maybe I'll carve a new stamp or go out and play in the snow with the children. Maybe I'll add some more letterboxes to my tree, or do some baking. (Did you see that people, big ole fat hint, the 12 Days of Christmas boxes are on my Xmas tree, along with 8 other boxes.) What kind of cookies should I make? I've got everything I need to make peanut butter cookies, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, or gingerbread.

December 16th, 2008
Tuesday
Wow! Another snow day. What a gift from above. Today I'm going to get some great photos of the dog and kids outside in the snow. I'm going to make hot chocolate from scratch. Maybe I'll clean the kitchen before I start baking. Oh no, I'm low on sugar. I have brown sugar, but no white sugar. What can I bake today that does not use white sugar? I'm sure there's still plenty of things I can make. But I want to make fudge. It will be fine, so fudge, but I have a full day off to do with as I please. But, I really want to make fudge. No sweat, I'll go through my cookbooks to find the perfect recipe, maybe try something new. Oh look, peanut butter fudge, molasses cookies, vanilla fudge, dog biscuits, double chocolate fudge, rice krispie treats, peppermint fudge. It's a conspiracy! ACKKKKK. Breathe Melanie, breathe. It will be fine. You are snowed in and there is no way you can go and get anything. Find something else to do, it will be fine.

December 17th 2008
Wednesday
Stupid snow days. I've got presents to buy, I'm out of sugar, flour, and milk. There's nothing to bake and I want to see people. I'm done with this stupid ice and I'm sick of hearing ridicilous reporters talk about things they don't understand. Someone rescue me!

December 18th, 2008
Thursday
I'm going out and I don't care what it looks like. Woo hoo! Look at me, I'm shopping, I'm driving, I'm OUTSIDE! I think I'll deliver the Christmas presents that I should have been giving out today at school. A shopping we will go, a shopping we will go, hi ho the dairy oh, a shopping we will go!
Oh heck, more snow!

December 19th, 2008
Friday
Darn snow. I'm going back to bed.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is one of the greatest holidays. I love to take the children out trick or treating and just people watch. It fascinates me to see the different costumes, the age range of trick or treaters and to see if I can discern what trends correlate to other trends.

For example, this year there were twice as many people out trick or treating than I've seen in the 7 years we've lived in this house. I identified several variables, some of which were:

• the economy


• the weather
  
• new housing built in the area


• word of mouth advertising of the quality of hand outs in the area
  

Of these, I think the weather had the largest impact. This is the first year that it has not rained or been so cold that you couldn't see the costumes due to jackets, scarves, and gloves.

There was a huge variety in costumes, from your typical fairies and angels...

to penguins...

to Greek Goddesses. Can you name this Greek Goddess? If so, let Lady Macbeth know and she has a special stamp for you :)

I hope your Halloween was as much fun as ours!

How Time Flies

Boy does time fly when you're having fun! Back to school and my poor blog goes by the wayside. Thank goodness I have great friends like Pupp to point out to me that I'm a big slacker butt.

So what have I been up to? Work, work, and more work of course! We just finished up our weather unit in the classroom so of course we topped it off with a field trip to the pumpkin patch and the water treatment plant. We went to the COOLEST pumpkin patch in the entire world!

The first thing they showed us was how they make apple cider. It involves 14 types of apples, a giant apple bath, and a really big pressing thing. It squeezes out all of the juice and leaves what they call "apple pizza". Apple pizza is apple without any juice left. They feed it to the animals, which I think is the only thing that it is fit for.


I loved these hay bales. They were painted like various creatures and each one brought a smile to my face!

Is that a Dork peeking out from the corn? You have to watch out at pumpkin patches, you just never know what is lurking out there.

This particular pumpkin patch also have beautiful potted plants.

Living and Breathing Letterboxing

2 years ago, Bookworm came up with a brilliant name for the letterboxing event of the decade. She subtitled it "Celebrating a Decade of Obsession" and I don't think any name could have been better.

Letterboxing truly is an obsession, and I am truly thankful for the things it has brought to my life. This amazing weekend brought together all of the aspects of boxing that I love.

1. Getting Together with Old Friends






2. Meeting New Friends





3. Going Places and Seeing Things I Would Never See if it Weren't For Boxing






4. Doing Crazy Ass Things With Others As Crazy As I Am!






And when it all comes down to it, we all know that the answer to which way is north, is not found on a compass, but can be found only in our hearts!