Christmas Cookie Letterbox

Christmas Cookie Contest

Poor Sugarcane Suzie…she is a wash-out at the annual neighborhood Christmas Cookie-off. Every year, she diligently baked her offering, only to come in LAST place every time. She’s tried recipes for ginger snap, snickerdoodle, lebkuchen, brown butter spritz, spingerle, divinity, snowballs, Florentines, peanut butter cup, biscotti, ansac, pfeffernuesse and thumbprints—what she now calls the unlucky baker’s dozen.

This year, she was determined to do better—in fact her dream was to beat Perfect Polly, so she got a little help from a local establishment dedicated to the culinary arts. So determined was our Suzie, that she entered cookies in every category – all 19 of them! Luckily for Suzie (and everyone’s tastebuds), she had better luck this year, finishing in the following ways:

Cookie (Placement)

Pepparakor 10

Mexican Wedding 4

Gingerbread 4

Shortbread 2

Zimsterne 5

Snowball 1

Pinwheels 2

Checkerboards 12

Oatmeal 5

Linzer Cookies 1

Macaroon 2

Rum Raisin Balls 1

Meringue Kisses 6

Hermits 2

Lemon Bars 3

Tuiles 2

Chocolate Chip 6

Stained Glass 2

Blondies 6

She didn’t beat Perfect Polly in every category, but Suzie was greatly pleased with the results…and we hope you will be too.

Notes:

• This is a limited time box. Probably to be pulled mid-January.
• This is an urban box. As such, it requires you to be sneaky and aware of your surroundings. Your prize is under a large piece of concrete. I suggest that you return to your car to stamp in (you will probably want to park in the far west parking space). This is not a great one to do with a large group. If looking confident while retrieving the box is not something you’re comfortable with, I’d suggest selecting a different box to attempt.

Organizing Stamps

I need major help to organize my stamps. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I carve way more than I can plant in the wild. I use the stamps for postals, LTCs and making cards for friends and family. Above is a sampling of just a few of the stamps sitting on my dresser--most of these have been carved fairly recently. I think I have hundreds more stamps I've carved. I have a small space to work with, as our house isn't that big. Any thoughts? When I need to find something, I have to go through a huge jumble (actually several huge jumbles). I'd like to reduce that wasted time and be able to put my hands on something quickly and relatively easily. I freely admit that I am organizationally-challenged.

cold snap

Not been writing on my letterboxing blog as much as my non-letterboxing blog, mainly because we haven't been out letterboxing.

I'm carving a series of Santas that I'd wanted to get out by St. Nicholas' Day, but I'm pretty sure I won't make it as that's today. Since the creative block broke, I've been actively carving for LTCs, postals and traditional boxes. I even got two boxes planted, but we just haven't had much time for finding. I had a stack of clues for Austin, but somehow we didn't get to go out (mainly family obligations).

This morning is our first really cold morning (lets hope it zaps all the mosquitos). This is the conversation with my 7 year old:

"Mom, you said it's 37 degrees out and we need actual coats."
"That's right."
"I think that's too cold. We shouldn't have to go to school today."
"It's not snowing or icing. And did you know that kids in Michigan even have to go to school when it's below zero?"
"Below zero? Really? I'm never living in Michigan."

It's been a sudden drop in temperatures. On Wednesday, December 2nd, everyone wore shorts to school. Today, hats and mittens were required.