Thoughts of a Grasshopper

We went right from piano to pick up a cake and then on to church to set up for the Blue & Gold.  I finished setting up the games right just before people started arriving and didn't have the opportunity to take pictures.  I have to use what my son took to share this event. I started off my morning making several batches of popcorn.  You can see in this first picture a quart jar of popcorn below the balloons.  I don't recall the flavor of Jell-O I used just that it was berry and it would have been blue jello.  I used a recipe from Our Best Bites for the berry popcorn.  I didn't have time to dig through my book for my friend Sharon's recipe.  I had to make extra caramel popcorn because that is a favorite for one of my girls and she wanted to be sure there would be some for her.   Two jars went on each table. The jail and trading post on the wall took an insane amount of time to make between sketching the buildings, drawing the letters a...

About 10 years ago I attended a training either at a Pow Wow or a University of Scouting.  I've attended and taught at many of these over the years and have files of handouts. I had one of my handouts out before the move to generate some ideas for a Roundtable meeting.  I never put the papers back in my file but they moved with my office.  All is good, right?  It was until we got a puppy.  My papers fell off a pile I needed to take to another room and it ended up wrecked by the puppy.  I saved it and just typed it up so I can still reference it in the future.  I am not the author of this document, nor do I recall who taught the class.  I have verified the links and omitted things that were applicable to the area I was living in at the time.  Still a lot of good information for you. You can access the file HERE . Good thing she is cute! (The day we brought her home.)

I'm really pleased with how these awards turned out and the boys were jazzed to receive them.  Some knew I had name plates engraved but I didn't tell them much other than there was an arrow, which there always is at an Arrow of Light ceremony. The blue on the arrows above are post-it notes with the boys names on them.  Just in case they got separated when transporting, it would be quick to identify who it belonged to. My husband went to the store to buy the wood to save me limping (I'm on the mend).  He bought wood that had knots in it.  I have to say I wasn't jazzed at the time because I thought he went cheap and I wanted these to be nice but I have to say once they are stained, it adds character and looks good.  Down side to knots in the wood is if they are on the edge when you are routing, there is a good chance you are going to need to fill the area with wood putty. These boards are 24 inches long from the center.  I used a cereal bowl as ...