Golden

Today we celebrate J's Golden Birthday. For those of you unfamiliar with her story, when she was born, we never expected that we would have the privilege of enjoying this moment. Some days, it still feels too good to be true, and it is by God's Grace Alone.

Horse Clean Up

Only a couple more miscellaneous horse stamps and we're done. Time to clean up after the parade.

Baby's First Pony, 2" x 2 1/4"

My Little AQ Pony (I couldn't help myself), 3" x 2 3/4"

She needs a name, don't you think? Marjorie is already taken, though.

When is a Horse Not a Horse?

For the Horsin' Around event, a number of people carved different images for a series called "When is a Horse, Not a Horse?" You could look on the event page for some of the other interpretations of this theme. For mine, I carved 5 different stamps. See if you can guess what they are (no fair peeking first):

1 1/2" x 2 1/2"

2 1/4" x 2"

1 1/4" x 2"

1 7/8" x 1 1/4" (bonus points if you figure out both answers)

2" x 1 3/4"

Some of these stamps will also be up for adoption, either together or separately, after they come home from Cherry Valley.

Horses in Art

There were four stamps in the Horses in Art series for the event (Horsin' Around, in case you're jumping in mid-stream). What can I say? The fat cave pony is my favorite. This series of stamps will also be up for adoption to be planted permanently elsewhere after they come home.

Cave Art, 1 7/8" x 1 1/8"

Chinese Art, 2" x 1 1/8"

Horse Rearing, 1 3/4" x 2 1/4"

Stylized Art, 1 7/8" x 1 3/8"

Horses in Mythology

The Horses in Mythology series contained 5 stamps. Since Winnebago County is a bit...(trying to think of a nice word for anal retentive...) um, controlling, they can't remain as permanent plants in the park where the Horsin' Around event was held (which was amazing, btw. Trail Rider and Co do a fantastic job with their events.). As soon as they come home, this series of stamps will be up for adoption.

Centaur, 2 1/2" x 2"

Hippocampus, 1 7/8" diameter (I saw this exact image in embossed gold on someone's bag at the event. Very cool!)

Pegasus, 2" x 1 3/8"

Unicorn, 1 1/2" x 2 1/8"

Epona, 2 3/4" diameter (Martini Man carved the same image for the event. Talk about good taste!)

The two biggest challenges for me in carving for the event were 1) finding images that didn't all have the same look to them, and 2) finding images that remained kid-friendly--especially in the mythology series. Not sure how well I succeeded on the first, but I was pleased to be able to accomplish the second without too much headache. Epona was the hardest (No, Don't do a Google search.). Maybe that's why MM and I ended up with the same image. It was the only acceptable, carvable one we could find. Now, if this had been a pin-up event, I would have had options. :P

Stampede

Now that the Horsin' Around event is over, I'm going to start posting the stamps that I carved. It will take a few days and by the time we're done, you'll probably be as tired of horses as I was. Let the Stamp-ede begin!

Toward the end of the carving marathon, I decided to start a Horses in History series. I had at least four images picked out, but this is the only one that was finished. I found a patch for the Pony Express National Historic Trail, and since patches and letterboxers are a natural match....well, it had to be done. We had picked up an old fiction story about the Pony Express for spare change at a library sale years ago, so I turned it into an altered book to put the stamp and logbook in and it became a HIPS box. Stamp size is 2 7/8" x 2 3/4".

Now, I'm happy to report, the stamp is headed west to be planted as a traditional box on the actual historic trail of the Pony Express. The Pony Express might have been a short lived venture that left it's originators bankrupt, but the idea was and still is big on bravado and romance. You know you've dreamed about it at least once.

Log Pile

Getting ready for a letterboxing event in October. Over the weekend, I put together 20 logbooks. Paper is cut for more, but my hand was too sore to squeeze the hole punch any more, so the rest will have to wait.

I've been carving like mad too, but I can't exactly show you the stamps yet, now can I? None of the boxes can remain permanently, so I will be able to post pictures later. I will tell you this: I probably will not be carving any more horses for a very long time. :)

A Birthday

Recently, we celebrated M's 8th birthday. She has now reached the milestone of no longer needing a booster seat in the car. She is also growing up (too quickly) in other areas as well.
We like to take the girls out to dinner at a restaurant of their choice as part of our celebrations. M requested Red Lobster. However, this year, we used our parental veto powers and decided that she needed to experience the next level in dining out. We took her to Key Wester instead. It's still a pretty casual place, but the atmosphere and food quality are a significant step above Red Lobster. We had a wonderful time. If you go on Friday or Saturday night, they have someone playing the piano in the Reef Room or on the deck, and he sang Over the Rainbow for her, and then Happy Birthday a little later. That took her by surprise and made her feel self conscious and a little silly. The food was excellent too. Of course, this is a dangerous game that we played as well, since there is now no going back.

M had requested a nightstand for her birthday, along with an alarm clock and lamp to go with it. I watched for the right opportunity and was able to find a matching dresser as well, and saved 40% in the process. After opening her presents, she asked her Papa if he could help her "install" the alarm and lamp.

We created a homemade Wizard of Oz theme, and surprised her with it. Poppy plates, lollipops, Rainbow cake and all (Thanks, Aunt Miranda!) I asked everyone to wrap her gifts in green paper, and we built the Emerald City with them. Of course, having furniture to wrap really helped the effect.
Just in case you wonder how I did the cake, here are the instructions:

Mix up a white cake (you can use a mix, but I used the Betty Crocker Silver White cake recipe). Divide into six bowls (for me, each portion weighed about 7.5 ounces). Here are your color recipes:

• Red-18 drops red food coloring
• Orange-12 drops yellow, 4 red
• Yellow-12 drops yellow
• Green-12 drops green
• Blue-12 drops blue
• Purple-9 drops red, 6 blue

 I spread three layers in each of two 9 inch round pans. You could also use a 9x13, or make cupcakes. How particular you are about the evenness of the layers is up to you. I used a simple white buttercream for the frosting. In retrospect, the silver white cake might not be the best recipe to use with this type of cake. It tasted delicious, but mixing in all the colors caused the fluffy egg white part to get not so fluffy. The result was a yummy, but very dense and flat cake.

Happy Birthday, Daughter!

Uneventful Event

This last weekend Chad and I attended the Boxacon event in Waukesha, WI. Aimlesst put together a great gathering with lots of science fiction themed boxes, tons of great food, a fantastic turn out and weather that cooperated for the most part. I got to see several "old" friends and meet lots of new people as well. Everyone was friendly and gracious to my DH, as I knew they would be. And unless I just haven't found them yet, I didn't come home with a single cootie. In spite of my knee, I managed to walk a short trail and find a few boxes with the help of Shorty, Pitties, and Atomic Beans (thanks for allowing the slack boxing guys!).
All in all, it was fairly ordinary. Don't read that as boring though. I just mean that nobody got set on fire, or arrested, or any such nonsense.

I purposefully left the file size of this photo huge so that you can click on it to enlarge the picture. I thought about trying to identify everyone, but quickly gave that up as too daunting a task for this early in the morning.

I only carved one new stamp for the event. M has been bugging me to carve Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver for months and I finally gave in. It isn't any light saber, but if I had to choose one to have "for real", I'd pick the sonic screwdriver in a double heart beat. There isn't much that little gizmo can't do.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at the Chicken Basket, one of Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive ins, and Dives. It has been on our list since February. Yes, the fried chicken and mac n cheese were as good as we expected. Maybe the guy does know what he's talking about after all.



Of course, this begs the question: Could a person, theoretically, put together a road trip that combines the best of both the letterboxing and the foodie worlds and convince said person's family to actually take such a hypothetical journey?

Patches and People in a Pub

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting with a handful of letterboxers at O'Leary's in Woodstock, IL. Some of them were first time introductions and others were "old friends". Of course, in the letterboxing community a one time exchange does an old friend make.

On the way up to Woodstock, I took a little detour and picked up one box near Elgin. Too late the discovery was made that someone had removed the bug spray from the car (with the exception of one small hand wipe that I scrounged from the back seat). The box was at a marsh, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

A number of the people in the group have been participating in this hobby for a very long time, and it is always a privilege to talk with them and get their perspective. I came away with much to think about. What is and what isn't letterboxing? And how do I want to shape my involvement in this obsession for the foreseeable future? There are definitely lines drawn in the sand, but is it possible to walk both sides? More about that later.
One of the highlights of the evening came when Der Mad Stamper put up the display of every single patch on the planet relating to letterboxing that has ever been made.

The most astonishing thing, however, was that I didn't come home with a single cootie in spite of leaving my hat in plain view on the table for the whole evening. Life is good.

PS-it just occured to me that I didn't take a picture of Wisconsin Hiker and Martini Man, who set up the event! Ack!

Nitrocat's California Adventure

For my birthday, my parents gave me a plane ticket to Sacramento to see one of my brothers. Of course, Mom went with me and we had a wonderful time. I won't bore you with all the family stuff, but know that it included teaching my nephew to fake cough, lots of story reading, an introductory lesson on Fountain Pens, and some therapeutic gardening. It also included a letterboxing meet n greet and a day out with new found friends.

Amber Gillespie, of Gillespie Tribe fame, arranged a get together at Straw Hat Pizza. (Sorry, but you're going to have to look at my mug alot in this post.)

We were honored with a surprise visit from time-traveling enigma, OB Juan

Grumpy Grinch is actually two people, but you knew that, right?

Team BearCat made it all the way from Tennessee. It's so much fun to meet people that I have been exchanging postals and LTCs with for so long.

The day after the event, I hooked up with Doublesaj & Old Blue, and Princess Lea (below) for some Nor Cal letterboxing.

In the National Archives we got a Sesquicentennial stamp that has nothing to do with letterboxing! Have you ever heard of such a thing?!

Free Range Chickens running all over Fair Oaks, Ca. How fun is that?

And Ant Eaters in people's front yards. Illinois is so boring by comparison.

Fabulous day. Fantastic trip. But...it's good to be home. We are so getting chickens though.

CROP Walk LTCs

The Walk is over and the cards are in the mail. If you are expecting these, you might not want to peek!

The four of us participated in the Community Interfaith CROP Hunger Walk in Southern Dekalb County (IL) yesterday. The girls walked one mile with Papa and I walked 5 miles. What started off as slightly drizzly turned into a spectacular Fall day and it was a lot of fun being part of something that will make a big difference in other people's lives. The group we walked with had 167 walkers from a number of different churches in the area and we raised over $18,000! And that doesn't include some of the online donations (not all of them had been verified yet) or any of the matching funds that were pledged. While this was the first year that our church took part, many in the group had been doing this for 15 years or better! I am already looking forward to next year.

The more trading cards I post, the more I am realizing how difficult it is to get accurate pictures of the little buggers. :) The first card, for the silver level donations, is embossed. I discovered some new embossing powder designed for detailed images. I love it! The grains are much finer than what I was using previously and it really made a huge difference.
The Gold Level card is a stamp layered over a printed computer graphic. I bought a T-shirt that looks just like it!
The Platinum level card is the one I had the most fun with. I'm a Farmer's Wife....why hadn't I carved corn yet??? The picture above is deceiving because the paper is textured. I bought it because it reminded me of corn husks. I plan on using this stamp lots!

By the way, everyone who donated received all three cards. I appreciate everyone who helped out with this more than I can say. I am continually floored by the generosity of the letterboxing community at large. Most of the people who sent money are ones that I only have a "virtual" relationship with, meaning that we have never met face to face. But I consider each and everyone of you true friends. Thank you so much!!!

CROP Walk

Long ago, the money that I spend in the grocery store ceased to shock me. Now I don't even bat an eye when I drop $100 in the till at Wal-Mart. Anything more than that only gets a sigh of resignation. Equally ridiculous is how I have had my head buried in the sand about the conditions that millions of other people live in everyday around the world.
This year, our family has decided to partipate, along with ours and other local churches in the Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty, or CROP Walk; specifically the walk that is taking place near us on October 5th. You can find more information here or here.

DH and the girls will be walking 1 mile and I plan to walk the 5 mile route. We will be obtaining sponsors to raise money for our walk. If you would like to sponsor one or all of us, you can visit the C Christian family team page.
When donating, you can specify, from an approved list, which international hunger-fighting agency you want your donation to be designated to. This is a cooperative effort, not just one organization.

For all of you LTC fanatics, I will be creating 3 special trading cards for those who sponsor me at the $5, $15, or $25 levels. $5 will get you the first card, $15=2 cards, $25=all three cards. I may also have the girls design and make their own trading cards as a thank you to those who sponsor them. I fully and completely acknowledge that this is shameless self-promotion, but also hope that you will overlook that minor detail in light of the fact that it is for a worthy cause.

On top of that, I plan to donate all of the proceeds from my etsy store for the month of September to CROP Walk.

Updates, and pictures to follow!

BeaverCreek Mini Surprise (and pizza recipe)

My brother and his wife had their first child on New Year's Eve and over this last weekend my Mom and I drove out so that Aunt Stacy could meet her new nephew. And he is a gem!

"Conveniently", our visit just happened to be the same weekend as the BeaverCreek Mini Meet in the Dayton area. So while the baby napped, and Grammy got her fix, I snuck off and surprised Hale s Angel at the meet.
I had actually signed up for the event under the alias profile of MumstheWord, so the RSVP would be accurate. How fun it was to introduce myself! Diana and I have been doing postals together for about a year and a half and it was wonderful to get to meet her in person! There were plenty of other people there that I got to exchange with and about a million other stamps to ink. I think I could have stamped until midnight and still missed some of the boxes.
I have a special LTC, called Incognitro, that I created just for the event. I have some extras, so if you want to see my sig "in disguise", email for a trade.

I'm spoiled though. I live near Chicago, and we have some of the nation's best pizza here. My brother warned me that I wouldn't like Marion's. It wasn't that bad, though. And who has time to eat at an event anyway? But for all you Ohio people, here is my recipe:

Nitrocat's Homemade Pizza
Crust (bread machine)
1 c. warm water
1 t. sugar
1 t. salt
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. Italian seasoning
2 1/2 c. flour (I use whole wheat)
2 1/4 t. dry yeast

Sauce
1 1/2 T olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
28 oz. can tomatoes, drained
8 oz tomato sauce
1/2 t. oregano
1/4 t. fresh cracked pepper
1/2 t. sea salt
1 /2 t. sugar
1 bay leaf

Saute onion in oil until tender. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 45-1 hour, or until desired thickness, stirring more frequently as sauce thickens to prevent sticking. If you want a smooth sauce, puree in blender. This recipe is enough for two 16" pizzas. *see note at bottom

Assembly
Roll out crust on a floured surface and transfer to a greased and floured pan (I use olive oil spray and corn meal). Spread with half of tomato sauce. Top with favorite toppings. A big key is getting a good fresh Italian sausage. For the cheese, I use a mixture of 2 parts mozzarella to one part other cheeses. I combine colby, monterey jack, and munster. Sprinkle a few fennel seeds, some Italian seasoning and fresh Asiago or Parm on top. A light sprinkle of salt is optional.

Bake at 400-425 until golden.

*note
This tomato sauce is a beautiful thing. After you blend it and remove half for the pizza, add some milk to the carafe and blend it again for a wonderful tomato soup. Or add a bit of garlic and basil as it's cooking and cut the simmer time down to about 15 minutes and it makes a great spaghetti sauce. I could go on.