It's not quite letterboxing...

but geocaching is pretty fun and, in some ways, easier.

I love letterboxing, and often describe it as treasure hunting with no treasure. Well, geocaching has the treasure. Well, at least it does if you consider small toys and trinkets treasure. Whatever. It is just as good.

Geocaching uses GPS coordinates instead of written clues, and is much more widespread. For example, there are 10-20 letterboxes in my metro area. There are more than 200 geocaches. I will never find them all. Which is a good thing.

The only real requirement is a GPS unit you can plug coordinates into and a computer with which to obtain those ingredients. The best site is the official geocaching site, www.geocaching.com. It is a free membership and there are thousands and thousands of caches everywhere.

I have added my GPS to my letterboxing kit and plan to look for them wherever I go. I recommend you do the same. :)

The first snow of the year

It started snowing last night. And continued all day. And is supposed to continue all night again. So far we have 6 inches. :)

I know, I know, I shouldn't be happy, since I have already seen one accident and 2 people going all squirrelly on the city streets, but I can't help but think of how pretty it is. I plan to spend the evening curled up on my couch in front of the lovely fire (pellet stove) and drink something warm and read my book.

I hope you enjoy the snow!

Christmas Projects

Yet again I have high hopes for craft projects for this Christmas. There are several things I want to make for gifts, for friends, and for snacking.

I am going to make a set of salt-dough ornaments, for myself, and probably for a lot of other people. I am not sure I even did this when I was little, but I have an urge to use my cookie cutters, even if I don't make cookies with them. The pack of cutters came with a clay recipe on the bottom. I hope they turn out well, then I can give them out to my family and they will have something made by me on their trees.

Another gift to make for my friends is a set of lotion bars. I found this idea on the linked blog and love it. The are a solid bar and rubbing it with your hand melts is enough to spread on your skin. They can, of course be customized. I have a couple of friends coming over to help and we will make a bunch of them for gifts (and for ourselves). I will post pictures of the process.

Cookies. I don't know what types yet, but I love baking cookies and I want to come up with a few that people aren't used to. I think I have talked the girls at work into doing a cookie exchange for Christmas, so I will hopefully have several really great kinds without have to bake such a huge variety myself. If anyone has a great recipe or just a favorite, please share it. :)

Finally I have a couple of crochet projects that I need to finish up. These aren't really for Christmas, but I need to get them done. A few months ago (read: lots of months ago) I promised some friends a "craft it forward" gift. I have finished one and have two more almost done (including yours, Laura) but there is one that I have not even started and I am not sure what it is going to be.

That is a lot to accomplish in the next month, but I think it will be fun. I will try to be good and post lots of pictures of all of these things as they happen.

Fall is here...with a vengeance.

Fall showed up a couple of weeks ago. It sort of crept on, sneaking in cooler weather and tinted leaves. Fall is always beautiful. Golden leaves on my sycamores, falling to create a pretty carpet on the lawn. Red trees, yellow trees, and green trees, all blended in a fall painting.

I would love to show you pictures of even more gold. However, yesterday, fall invited it's dear friend the wind to visit us. With a high wind warning and gusts of 50 miles per hour knocking out power around the state (although thankfully not mine) I have no leaves left. There are a fair number of them piled in my yard, but almost none left in the trees.

Bare trees leave me ready for winter. The cold wind continues tonight and makes it feel as though it could snow at any time. I know many across the northern parts of the country have snow already, but I will be happy to wait until after all of our travelling next week.

Just a side note, I somehow got my camera to take this picture right after the other. I don't know what I did, but it is sort of neat. Enjoy your fall.