December Letterboxing!

Blue Butterfly and I were lucky enough to get away this weekend and do some letterboxing!  We stopped by to find PRINCE JOHN first.  The clue mentioned that it might be missing, but we found it safely in it's appointed spot.  This is another amazing carving by Boots Tex.  We also stamped in to SEA MAID WAS HERE, then moved on to find BY THE BAY: QUILT BLOCK SERIES-- CREEPY CRAB by Lone Star Quilter.  We had a fun time stamping in to these.

One of the fun boxes to find was called BROWN PELICAN.  It is located inside the Visitor's Center in historic Galveston.  The clue seems a little vague, but putting all the hints together to find this one and stamp in made for an exciting, intriguing experience.  The stamp is not hand carved, but it is custom made.  We were all smiles while we stamped into this letterbox.

We arrived at the park where CRANING FOR WATER is located, but there was a crew there setting up for an event, so we left and came back on Sunday morning.  This is a great little garden and we enjoyed finding and stamping in to our last box before leaving the island.

Thanks to all who planted these for us to find!

Just Thinking and Sharing

I caught up on reading a few posts from the Texas Yahoo! list this morning and there seems to be some concern about the direction of letterboxing and the habits of Texas Letterboxers.  I thought I’d throw my $.02 in here.  :-)

Blue Butterfly and I have been letterboxing since June 2005 (Seven years…really???) and we LOVE it.  I love the adventure of following the clues, the surprise of seeing what the stamp looks like, and peering through the logbook to see who has visited before me.  I enjoy planting boxes, though carving isn’t my favorite—I’m just not good at it.  However, I love getting e-mails from fellow boxers who have discovered my box and say nice things about it.  That definitely never gets old.  I have been called a traditional letterboxer by one of my letterboxing pals.  I like doing things the old fashioned way, in what I feel is the true spirit of this wonderful hobby.

As far as having time for letterboxing, I am in the middle of a career change and my time is split between graduate school and a couple of part time jobs.  So my participation has definitely waned in the past year, but my love for the hobby has not.  TALE 10 is coming up in March and I’m looking forward to it, and desperately hoping that my schedule will work out so that I can attend. 

The Yahoo! discussion turned to the issue of getting more people into the hobby.  Boxers mentioned that they have tried to get family or friends involved, but it just didn’t work out for them.  I don’t think recruitment into the hobby has always proven to be what brings people into the hobby.  It seems to me that some of the more “die-hard” letterboxers weren’t recruited necessarily, but sort of “accidentally” discovered letterboxing.  You can hear stories like, “my brother-in-law found a book about it and mentioned it to us” or “I saw a blurb about it in a magazine”.  Our own discovery of the hobby was serendipitous. 

Some letterboxers are concerned with the quantity of active boxers in our state.  Perhaps it is our “Texas attitude” that bigger (or in this case, more) is better.  To be honest, I kind of enjoy being in a small, secret group. I enjoy being part of a unique club that includes people from different walks of life who can sit and talk for hours about nothing but their hobby.  When we are with letterboxers, that’s exactly what we are—letterboxers.  We leave our everyday labels, such as teacher, student, carpenter, flight attendant, nurse, cashier, etc. at home and we just enjoy each other as letterboxers and that is AMAZING to me.  The past few years, events have felt more and more like a family reunion to me.  The quality of the relationships among letterboxers is what has impressed me most about this hobby.

Thanks to all of the letterboxers who have planted for me to find, who have found and enjoyed my letterboxes, and who have become a part of my letterboxing family! 

Self-Care and Burnout

For those of you who don't know, I am currently in graduate school, which means my "extra-curricular" activities have slowed to a crawl. However, I feel compelled to share my reaction to something I just read in my text book.

The book for this course is entitled Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions. In the particular chapter that I am reading tonight, there is a discussion about burnout and self care. There is a short questionnaire designed to help us reflect throughout our career to see if we are on the verge of burnout. The question that got my attention (and thus the reason for this post) was this:

Do you have a passion in your life other than your work?

HA HA!! OF COURSE I DO!

Are you telling me that what I "mainly do" could be an important part of my physical, emotional, and mental health as a future helping professional? I think that 's EXACTLY what it is saying!

Now, if I can find a way to get tax deductions for this hobby of mine...

Hmmm......What would YOU take?

Imagine yourself in a situation where you need to evacuate your home. Perhaps it is due to a flood, hurricane, wildfire, or other natural disaster headed your direction and you have time to grab things. You are given the instructions....Just get what you'll mainly need.......

What I mainly need????
WHAT I MAINLY NEED????

Of course...after I threw a random combination of clothes into a suitcase and put the cats in their carriers, I grabbed what I MAINLY NEED for what I MAINLY DO. :-)

*For those of you who are wondering, we had to evacuate our home for a while on Tuesday, but we were able to return on Tuesday evening. Lucky for us, no damage was done to the property.

Tomato Fest 2011

I was able to attend the Tomato Fest Event this year in Jacksonville, TX. It was hosted by Barefoot Lucy. We had to earn the clues to the boxes by completing a list of tasks at the event. The boxes were hidden in other parts of Jacksonville......a fun time was had by all!

Lucy Locket getting Boogie Butt's autograph

Four and a half Tomatoes! Winners of BEST TEAM NAME award.
Lucy Locket, Pink Cookie, Beach Bum, Mother's Love, Blue Butterfly

Beach Bum, the hat guy, and Lucy Locket

Slowing down....

It seems my letterboxing activities have slowed down a bit as of late. I have taken on a new responsibility, which means I have less time for "what I mainly do". I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth....I CERTAINLY haven't given up letterboxing....it has just taken a back seat to a few other things. It's in my blood and I have been missing it.....perhaps soon......

Phone Directory

If someone ever steals my phone........what would they think of my contact list?
I would guess that I have about 50% given names and the other half are trail names.....hmmm...

I only have three in the "P" category.....

Pacifickle
Padawan
Puddle Splasher

I love my letterboxing friends!

Saturday Adventure!

Last Saturday morning, I arrived at Blue Butterfly's house. We had plans to go to Stinky Monkey's basketball game, then spend the afternoon letterboxing. When I got to her house, she said, "After we go to Tyler, how about if we go out to Mexia?"

So I said, "Let's go!"

We enjoyed watching our little monkey play a game of basketball, then we headed to Tyler to nab the BOX OF THE MONTH. The January stamp is a beautifully carved stamp by Celestini.
After replacing the box, we ate lunch, then headed to Mexia.

We finally made it to Fort Parker State Park and the first thing on our list was to check out the shelters, since that's where we will be staying next month for TALE. We were very pleased with our findings, but then it was down to the business of finding a few letterboxes.

We made our way to the designated area, hiked across the bridge, and began following the trail. Unfortunately, we didn't read the first set of instructions very carefully and ended up hiking across to the other side of the trail. (DUH...read all of the directions before tromping through the woods!) This turned out to be ok, though, we just found the boxes by going backwards on the trail. Lucky for us, we found all that we were looking for. The bonus was...no one else was on the trail that day! We had it all to ourselves!



Boxes We Found Today:

January BOM in Tyler
Cynthia Ann Parker
AZ Armadillo
Sitting Pretty

January Weekend-Sunday

Sunday morning came, and we had an agenda....TO LETTERBOX!

First, we headed to Glenwood Cemetery. I had driven through Houston in October and managed to stop here to catch a couple of boxes, but there were several more than I hadn't gotten. Blue Butterfly still needed some of these, too. We found some Boots Tex, Lone Star Quilter, and Silver Eagle boxes in Glenwood, then we headed over to Forest Park Cemetery.



Forest Park is a HUGE cemetery. Luckily, the planters gave great directions for us to get around this place. We had the honor of visiting Sam Hopkins' grave, where admirers leave guitar picks in tribute to him. We also found two other great tribute boxes by Silver Eagle and Dewberry.



Leaving here, we ate a snack in the car on the way back to Memorial Park. Now, before I tell you that we visited a few boxes, keep in mind that we live 3-4 hours from Memorial Park. Blue Butterfly, PS Guru, and I had stopped here on a Sunday afternoon in October. PS Guru rode his bicycle on the paved trails while BB and I boxed. We passed a distinctive trio of hikers on that day.....and really thought nothing of it. On this particular day, we ran into that SAME trio of hikers AGAIN!! BB looked at me, and I said, "We come to Memorial Park way too often, if we are running into the same people on the trail!" Her response was, " I was thinking the same thing!"

We managed to find three boxes at Memorial Park that afternoon, but it was finally time for us to head out. One of us had to work on Monday morning. (ME!) All in all, I'd say we had a pretty good weekend!

Boxes Stamped Into Today:

The Post Man
Risk Game-Cannon Card
Red Adair
Angel Band (Blue Butterfly only)
Band Stand
Sam Hopkins
King of the Wildcatters
LB Capitol
Bones
GTT (Blue Butterfly only)

January Weekend-Saturday

As previously mentioned, Blue Butterfly and I really konked out on Friday night after we got back to the hotel. I think I slept for about 11 or so hours. We had plans to meet the Boxhounds in Edna, in order to attend the Texas Circus. The train had rolled in that morning, so we were meeting them around 11:30 to join the fun. We relaxed at the hotel, then left around 10 to head west. We made it to Edna in time to meet up with the Boxhounds and see some of the sights of the Texas Circus. We were amazed by a dancing horse, jugglers, and their newest act, A SIX FOOT MAN EATING CHICKEN! That giant was the scariest of all.

After departing the Boxhounds, we ate a local lunch, then headed out to the local state park to go after a couple of boxes. When we got to the trail head, we saw the Boxhounds who said they were unable to find the two boxes on that trail. We decided to go ahead and try anyway. We got to the area of the first box, and came up empty handed. We decided not to try the second box since the 'hounds had been unsuccessful, too.

Can I take him home? I promise I will feed him and play with him every day!

Heading back towards Houston on 59, we stopped in several cities to find a box or two. We played hangman, found a HUGE dinosaur, tromped along trails, and took a trip to Bountiful. We had a great day of letterboxing and FUN!


Boxes we found on this day:

Hangman 5
Hangman 4
Pearl of the Prairie
The Trip to Bountiful

Blue Butterfly and Lucy Locket in El Campo

January Weekend-Friday

Blue Butterfly and I didn't get to take our Christmas time letterboxing trip this year, so we took it last weekend instead. Yes, the time was delayed, but that meant more daylight for us! Blue Butterfly met me around 7:30 at my place, then we headed south toward Houston. We finally made it to the Houston Arboretum and got to work!

First, I wanted to check on my Mario box. This was one of the games boxes that I'd planted at Dewberry's GAMES event in November 2009. Unfortunately, we came up empty handed. BOO! We were off again to find one of Silver Eagle's Risk Game characters. I'd found this one previously, but Blue Butterfly needed to stamp in. She stamped in, we added a few dry note cards, then we were on our way!

We stopped by one more old favorite, then we headed over to the mountain bike trails. There was a sign posted that the mountain bike trails were closed, and after zero consideration, we forged ahead. After all, these boxes must be found!!! We found several boxes that afternoon and especially enjoyed the STRATEGO series.

After a long day of boxing and traveling, it was time for us to head to the hotel and crash out. And we really did. :-)

Blue Butterfly stamping in!

Stamps we attempted or found on Friday:

Mario-MISSING
Batter's Box
Risk Game-Horseman Card
Bugs In a Box
Stratego Series: Flag, Spy, Lieutenant, Logo (4 out of 5 boxes were still available....one missing)
Risk Game-Soldier Card ( Blue Butterfly only)

Oh, I should mention that for the first time, I accidentally left my signature stamp at a box. When I looked for it at the next box, I couldn't find it. Luckily, we were able to go back to the previous box and Blue Butterfly spotted my sig stamp in the area where we'd sat to stamp in! YAY!!

Last Day of Christmas Break....

On January 2, I left Blue Butterfly's house and took a detour through Tyler to find a couple of letterboxes. I started off at Oakwood Cemetery where I found a box by JB Kokopelli and one of Boots Tex's Governor Series.

After leaving the cemetery, I ventured over to the Rose Garden where I found STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES by Lone Star Quilter. I had a wonderful afternoon and enjoyed my last day of Christmas break!!!

New Year's Day Letterboxing

I always enjoy letterboxing on New Year's Day when possible. There is usually very little traffic and few people on the trails on this day. We went after two boxes: DISCOVERY WELL in Joinerville (this would be a new stamp for me) and GRANDMA'S COKE FLOAT in Henderson. We had a great time at both places! Afterwards, we went to a park where the boys could ride bikes and roller skate while Baby Sister played on the playground.

Stinky Monkey, Baby Sister, and Roarin' Lion at the Discovery Well monument.

The crew at GRANDMA'S COKE FLOAT

Exchanges on New Year's Eve

The junior letterboxers wanted to have each others' stamps in their own books. So, I decided to have a mini-exchange party with them on New Year's eve.

Wednesday Afternoon Drive-By

Wednesday afternoon, it was time for my junior boxing buddies to go back to their home. However, I knew of a quick drive by and when I asked if they wanted to find another stamp, the answer was YES!

We stopped by the location of the B & B CAFE letterbox. It was cold and the wind was blowing, so we used the car as a shelter. We had a great three days of fun!

Tuesday Letterboxing

After spending the morning watching Cinderella and The Polar Express, it was warm enough for us to get outside! We went first to find a local GOVERNER SERIES box. After replacing that box, we found a local WOM box.

After finishing up with these two boxes, we played at the park for about an hour, then headed back to my house for lunch.

Stinky Monkey, Baby Sister, and Roarin' Lion

Monday Afternoon

I was able to pick up Roarin' Lion, Stinky Monkey, and Baby Sister to take them with me for a few days. On the way to Navarro County, we stopped in Athens at the East TX Arboretum. There is a Children's Story Series here, and I thought it would be the perfect place to spend an afternoon.

Roarin' Lion, Baby Sister, and Stinky Monkey at the first box of the day!

We found the appropriate trail entry, and made our way to THIS LITTLE PIGGY. This was the perfect stamp for Baby Sister's first find! Her favorite color is pink, and the pink piggy delighted her! The boys enjoyed stamping in, then standing on the bridge and seeing what was in the water. After stamping in, we continued along the trail to find LITTLE MISS MUFFET, HUSH-A-BYE BABY, and BIG BAD WOLF.

After the fourth box, I decided it was time for us to pack it up and head back to the car. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that we were on an inner loop at that time instead of the main loop. We went all the way around an extra loop before getting back to the main trail, then the trail head. Luckily, we were no worse for the wear and have an interesting story to tell!

I spotted this little fairy princess in the woods....

Monday Morning

Monday morning was the official first day of my winter break! I woke up from Blue Butterfly's house and headed out to letterbox. I have a new logbook and it's high time I added some images to it!

I'd recently seen that the Texas Pioneers are in the process of placing their HOLIDAY TRAIL OF LIGHTS Series and there is one in Kilgore. This was my first stop. After following the instructions, I easily found this delightful box...and I was the first finder!

After leaving the cemetery, I headed over to the World's Richest Acre. I came up empty handed on this one, but I enjoyed learning about the history of this park and the oil boom that happened in Kilgore.

The World's Richest Acre. These derricks are decorated with lights at Christmas time.

I headed back to Henderson, and went to The Depot Museum. There are three letterboxes on this property, but I only had time to find two of them. I stamped into THE DEPOT MUSEUM and SYRUP FESTIVAL. By the time I stamped into those two boxes, it was time for me to head out to pick up Roarin' Lion, Stinky Monkey, and Baby Sister. I couldn't keep them waiting!!

A look inside the outhouse. The corn cobs add a nice touch to the display.

My Secret Santa is Better Than Yours....

For the first time ever, I participated in the Secret Santa exchange at my school. I decided that it might be fun to try and sneak around to leave a present for a colleague...you know...in and out without being noticed....? We filled out a questionnaire concerning our hobbies and favorite things.

Favorite Color: Purple
Animals: one cat
Scents you enjoy: Vanilla, Cinnamon
Hobbies: hiking & camping (You can't expect me to put letterboxing...these people already think I'm nuts.)
The last question was : Magazines you enjoy reading

Well, I'm not really a periodical kind of person. I get most of what I need from watching the news and reading articles on the internet. So, on a whim, my answer was--- April 1998 Smithsonian. If you can find this, you will be my hero.

For the first four days, I got very nice gifts. I even managed to deliver my gifts without being caught by the receiver. Thursday afternoon was the big reveal.

We all met together for the reveal. Unfortunately, my Santa wasn't there due to a death in her family. Luckily, she made arrangements for my gift to be delivered to me at the party. I opened the gift....and there it was.....a magazine....hmmm? It was upside down. I had no clue what this was. I turned it over and saw the word SMITHSONIAN across the top. WHAT?? I looked for the date...April 1998 ....WHAT? Yep. My wonderful Secret Santa had found the magazine that I've been wanting for....how many years?? Not only that, but she knows about my letterboxing activities and she guessed that the article I was after was the THEY LIVE AND BREATHE article.....she had a sticky tab on the page. I was able to turn right to it. Talk about a happy camper!!! I was just sitting there at my table in the reveal party....about to burst.

Thank you, secret Santa!!!! Now, I need to take you out and let you go on an adventure with me!

I will cherish this magazine for a VERY LONG time.

Maybe it's time I get a safe deposit box......

This is me with my April 1998 issue of Smithsonian Magazine :-D

THANKSGIVING DAY LETTERBOXING!

On Thanksgiving Day, after the dust had settled around the kitchen, Blue Butterfly and I packed our things and headed out to find some boxes! It was close to 4:00 p.m. by the time we got on the road, so we knew we didn't have a lot of daylight left. We headed out to Faulkner Park and found 3 boxes in the Hobo Trail series there. We were so thrilled to be letterboxing on Thanksgiving, it didn't bother us (too much) that we were FREEZING. Unfortunately, we didn't get the entire series, so we will be back!