Gone but not Forgotten

We'll be taking just a short trip in the Retro Rocket today to tell the story of two stamps that have crossed the inky Rainbow Bridge to the Happy Stamping Ground.

Miss Moppett was carved for what I thought would be my very first postal: a ring dedicated to the works of Beatrix Potter. Unfortunately, the organizers went off the grid before the ring started, but not before I had mailed my stamp and logbook to them. Curiously, this was the 11th stamp that I carved, 2 months into my letterboxing journey. It is the first one that I carved as a positive image. The stamp might be gone, but there is a grey wad of fur sleeping on my bed named Moppett that isn't going anywhere. :)
It is my understanding that the letterboxers that this went to had, and may still be having, serious issues with illness. The people behind the trailnames are always far more precious than any hunk of rubber, no matter how much time is invested in the carving. It is my sincere hope that they will find peace and healing, whether they are able to return to letterboxing or not.
AKC Spots was carved for a young boxer to use for a school project. The hope was that after the project was complete, the donated boxes would be planted, giving the rest of us a chance to one day "find" our own boxes. I made this image before I realized that the stamp needed the extra support of a mount. The end result created a much better impression. Just for fun, I included the Hydrant HH.

More Retro Rocket later!

Cooties!

We're still in the Time Machine today, only this time it's to revisit cooties. First, I have a slight confession. My cabinet is a place where cooties go to die. Sorry. When I first started letterboxing and learned about the little buggers, I thought they were fun. I came home with one of them from my first event.
While planning on meeting with a fellow boxer during Hubby's hospital stay in Minnesota, I carved several "hospital germs" to pass along, only the meeting never happened. So they were pawed off on a local friend and I still get reports occasionally.
"Below Zero" was carved for a friend when we boxed together in the January snow a couple of years ago. It has long since gone off the grid.

All of the Chinese themed cooties were carved for SILO since there was a Chinese New Year theme. Only I spent the morning stuck in the snow in the ditch and never made it to the event, so they too were passed along later. Only one survives to my knowledge.


And then there are the "Tunes". These cooties were based on songs from the 50s that get stuck in your head. They attended a couple of events along with their matching Jukebox stamp (more as a tabletop box) and then were retired. Or repurposed, I should say. They have been featured on LTCs, sent out as Hitchhikers, and given as gifts.

After hosting a small event in my house, my feelings toward cooties changed dramatically. Those crazy people even cootied my dog. I was finding cooties for days; in my silverware, on my fridge, in the bathroom candle...

A well executed cootie would still be fun, but most of them that I have seen (including my own) aren't worth the effort of stamping them. **Gasp!** Did I just say that out loud? For the most part, they just detract from time that I could spend getting to know people or hunting "real" boxes.

Toad Hollow

We're dredging the archives today, Folks! Remember Toad Hollow? Well, here it is:

Two and a half years ago, Wassamatta_U got something started with his Boxers 'n Briefs. You can read about it here, here and here.
The short version is that Toad Hollow (a real place) was created for the purpose of encouragement. The LB community took the idea and ran with it. I'm not even sure of all of the directions that it went, but I know a Postal was created, of a sorts. The principle was simple: when someone needed encouragement, the call went out and whoever felt led to participate sent that person a note or some other bit of edification. Unbeknown to all, several of us were keeping track and when a piece of encouragement went out, a piece was also received. For my part, I carved a number of stamps straight off of the literature that Ralph Morrison sent to me and mailed them to people who took part in our campaign of encouragement.

Bear in mind that I had only been carving for about 6 months. This campfire is quite horrid.


One stamp image was sent for each of our "missions". If a person participated in the first six missions, then they could collect all of the images.
After awhile, the logistics of where to send what started creating headaches and so I stopped carving. Eventually, I mailed the toad stamp to Mr. Morrison as a thank you for sharing his idea with us. I think the rest of them are still in the cabinet.

It is entirely possible that some aspects of this concept are still active today, but I haven't heard about it in quite awhile. The LB community seems pretty good (for the most part) at looking out for each other without any formal organization. The spirit of Toad Hollow lives on.

Private Memories

My brother Eric, who could be a professional photographer with little trouble, has the philosophy that if you spend all of your time behind a camera or video lens there is a great deal that you can miss.
This plays out in our household on a regular basis. An interesting bird or animal shows up in our yard and I can choose to run for the camera or just sit and enjoy. If I go for the camera then I run the risk of the creature disappearing before I've had a chance to get a good look at it. On the other hand, if it stays then I might get a photo as a permanent memento. What a dilemma! It certainly allows me to see the advantages of Charlotte Mason's method of Nature Study~observe and draw it in your journal as soon as you can.

As the person with the super senses in our house (everyone knows that Moms hear, see and smell all), I am privy to conversations and happenings when my children are unaware that I am paying attention. This gives me the opportunity to provide guidance and correction where necessary. Perhaps what is more fun is that it also allows me to build up my own storehouse of memories that no camera could duplicate.

Yesterday, for instance, after we had finished with our history lesson on the Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire, the girls were having a conversation about why they were glad that Justinian and Theodora had rebuilt the Hagia Sophia after the rebellion had been overthrown. Not only did the discussion tell me that they remembered the lesson well enough not to even need the test (which they got anyway), but it made me smile inside to hear my 7yo throw around terms like Hagia Sophia with such dispatch and talk about how she felt about an event that happened 1500 years ago.
This morning J came into my room holding a 9 inch blue ball under her chin and asked me if I thought she looked like a Frigate bird. Yes, I laughed. And then proceeded to hug her until she pretended she was choking. No photograph could possibly convey the context of that experience.

I'm sure that every mother has in her mind and heart page after page of such memories for which there can be no picture to do it justice.
I pray that nothing every happens to that scrapbook.

Philosophy of Scrapbooking, part 2

When our youngest came along, we were lucky to remember to use the camera, much less get each photo magnificently mounted. I started using lots more stickers and scraps of paper for accents, reserving the time intensive punched pages for the front covers of the albums and a few select pages inside.
J has two newborn albums. This is the first page of the one she has not been allowed to see because of the graphic nature of many of her NICU photos. Someday, when we're both ready, we'll make a pilgrimage to OSF and I will show it to her.

Her other album starts on the day she came home from the hospital, much like every other baby album. This is her one year picture on the first page.

This is my all time favorite picture of J. The far off, thoughtful look with the smirk gives me no amount of joy when I see it to this day.

We don't celebrate Halloween, but occasionally participate in a Fall Festival/Harvest Party event. When she was two, she was a pile of leaves.


One final punched page was created for her 2nd baby dedication. Her first was in the NICU.

As the speed of life surpasses the speed of sound, scrapbooking has taken another drastic turn in our household. It has ceased to exist. We have, instead, opted for photo albums. You know, the kind where you take the packet from Walgreens and just slide the pictures into the plastic slots? Yep. That's it.
But I like it. Now when my girls look through the pictures of field trips, vacations and holidays, they talk to each other. They laugh and share "remember when" moments that I didn't bother to journal about. They ask the adults (aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc) to explain what they are looking at. That's something I never saw with the "fancy" albums.