For the Girls

I generally letterbox with boys--my husband and two sons. So, when picking boxes, I usually choose themes and places that are going to appeal to the males of the species.

They will go along with me on most boxes as long as the spot is cool and they can skip stones, climb boulders, shimmy up trees, search out fungi or generally explore. But, it's a more fun experience for everyone when they're as excited about the subject matter of the letterboxes as I am.

As soon as the clues were published, I knew there was one set of boxes I'd never get them enthused about: Dress Up Daisy, a series of boxes with a paper doll & her outfits. When mentioning it, all I got were eye rolls.

Luckily, I have a good letterboxing friend with daughters, so we hit the trail yesterday to find this delightful series by Sandibox.

The weather was fabulous (about 15 degrees cooler than it had been and no humidity), the trail was scenic & the company was top-notch. What a nice morning, and a real relief after a busy & stressful week.

Sunday, before & after

Before:

After:

Art Attack

This is one of my favorite activities of the fall. Today is the annual art show for the studio where my kids take art lessons (after school, not part of the regular curriculum). They feel like such grown-ups, with their art displayed on the walls and on blocks. There's even a reception.

I love their art teacher, an Israeli woman in her 70s who is still spry and animated and eager to share her love of art with kids and adults. She's very infectious, but she also is diligent about teaching them technique.

They get to work in all media--from clay to collage, water color to paper mache. New this year were these amazing Mondrian-like sculptures formed out of styrofoam blocks. They chiseled away at the blocks, creating 3-d sculptures with many facets. Each facet was outlined in black and then painted in bright colors. The overall effect was stunning.

This really doesn't have all that much to do with letterboxing except for the last photo below. My son's print is the top row, second from the right, the sun & moon. This brought back vivid memories of work not happily done. Do you remember carving linoleum blocks in elementary school art? I had such a hard time visualizing the final print. The tools were so foreign and each cut seemed random and not cohesive. I didn't have a sense of where I was going and I was never happy with the results. But now, thanks to all this practice work carving rubber, I think I might like the opportunity to go back and try elementary school art again.

Is it really November?

Doesn't it seem like the year has disappeared into the ether faster than normal? This fall is a blur. Above is the photo of part of the group from last month's OZ gathering.

I post it because Mother of Five and I (and the singing letterboxing baby, who is no longer a baby and only sometimes sings now) were able to go to Memorial Park yesterday and find a couple of the OZ boxes. I've been saving them, because they're near enough to my house that I can zip over and find one when I'm in need of a little letterboxing fix.

I blather on about Memorial Park, but I think we're lucky to have this little spot o' green in the middle of the 610 traffic crawl. There are times when I'm frustrated by the demands on me--volunteer, family, community, etc--and I just have to get away (but I still have to pick up kids in an hour). The jogging trail is a nice outing, but crowded with exercisers. I much prefer to be alone with my thoughts in the woods. About halfway through the yellow trail, when I can't hear traffic and haven't seen anyone for 10 minutes, there's this moment...and instead of the red in my head, I start to notice the differences from the last time I was there--a rooting armadillo, a newly fallen tree from the last storm, seasonal color on the leaves, an american beauty bush now in fruit. I hear the sounds--the tip-tapping of woodpeckers, rustling of snakes, twittering of squirrels, the whistling of wind in the treetops. And I feel my footsteps, going up and down these familiar hills (sliding some if it's rained recently), matching my own unique internal rhythm. Magically, the crowded thoughts dissipate and I feel myself relaxing, balance restored.

Anyway, there are still to-be-explored areas of this great park, and I highly recommend Bailey's Bunch's box A Texas Tornado in OZ in order to find one. It was fabulous, a great box. I love it when I'm surprised in a happy way.

Follow the Reader - Solving a Mystery

I've been meaning to get back to giving some steps for how to solve some mystery and puzzle boxes.

I'm going to use one of my own boxes as a bit of a walk-through, but we're going to solve it together. It's the box I planted for Plant-a-Mystery Box day, called Follow the Reader (click on the link to see the clues). This box has had one finder and I'm pretty sure she won't mind me giving others some hints.

To figure out where the box is, you have to solve this code

0439554934
0375826688
0439709105
0439888069
0440416795
0142401072
0064472590
0061227285
0192750976
0517189682
1557091625
0440415632
0142400890
0064403149
0440439884
0439228905
0441005489
0385732953
0590664875
0807593664

Any ideas where to start? Let's work it out together through the comments section. No idea is wrong in the beginning...in fact the more ideas you have, the more broadly you can think, the more likely you are to arrive at techniques to try. So, what do you notice when you look at this stream of numbers?

One hint: The title of the box is a definite clue. This box has a lot to do with books.

Falling into Fall

Isn't this cool? This was the sign-in banner for the Wizard of Oz gathering we did. I really like doing the banners on cloth, because you can fold them up and store them easily. Mother of Five made this one, and it turned out great with the yellow bricks.

There's not a whole lot really pressing in my letterboxing world. I've been managing to get out with Mother of Five some (and that's been great), including one day where we boxed with Sandibox & SoccerChik and ran into BootsTex & Lone Star Quilter. I love how the Terrors of Telge series has grown and I'd like to do more group projects like that--it's fun when you can be both a planter and a finder.

Not to whine, but it seems like we don't grow new planters in Houston--there's just a handful of people who have planted more than 2 boxes. We've gotten a few new ones in the last year, but others have disappeared due to other commitments & interests, with no net growth. And with TeamKing moving to England, we lost yet another good planter! I'm thinking of ways to encourage people to plant, including a series of boxes available only for those who plant during certain months.

Finally, I'm working on my holiday series & I've planted a few new boxes, including my hefe-bison, which has some of my favorite clues ever.