Summertime

The living is definitely not easy around here in the summer, at least not this summer. With several deadlines looming, two of my three kids have flown the coop for a while. My younger son is off at Boy Scout camp for 10 days. My daughter just left for a summer intensive ballet training program for two weeks. In theory this leaves me with plenty of time to work on my deadlines. The only snag is a tradition that I started with my son’s first summer camp – fabric postcards! At that first camp visitor’s day, I opened my son’s foot locker and saw the big mess of things strewn about. But, there in the corner was a neat stack of the postcards I had been sending. Two things I’d learned: (1) Never bother to open the foot locker; (2) Making the postcards was time well spent.

So, this year, I am making two sets. I’ll highlight the boy scout camp cards today and do the dancing cards in a separate post.

At Tyler’s last board of review for getting his ‘life’ rank, one of the guys asked “How do you spell Boy Scouts of America?”. This is a pretty well know question from him and the all the boys have learned that the answer is: F-U-N. When we were talking about this at the dinner table, his response was a smirk and a roll of his eyes. So, of course, it had to become a postcard.

Tyler’s first camp postcard for 2013

In the heat of the summer and the dirt from the camp, swimming is always a good thing!

Swimming Postcard

Packing is key to surviving camp. Everyone knows you need bug spray and sunscreen. Experienced scouts bring the extras – beef jerky and cosmic brownies in Tyler’s case. Anything to supplement the cuisine served in the mess hall!

All of the postcards go through the U.S. mail. As long as everything is securely sewn on (and you can sew just about anything onto a postcard), it will most likely survive. It costs an extra $0.20 for the hand cancelling. I pay extra to avoid multiple stamps – which right now is a $0.66. When I attach the stamp, I first put a little glue (just plain ol’ Elmers) down first and press the stamp securely into the glue.