At Home

• An extended electrical outage doesn't phase you! You just trot out to the garden shed and bring in the camp stove and fuel, dig out the instant coffee and camp coffee pot from the camp kitchen, and have the kids find the Coleman lanterns - then sit on the porch in the evening and watch the lightning bugs and stars come out, instead of another dumb TV show!
• You wonder who would be good at designing signs we could all post in our yards saying, "A Green Neck Lives Here" or "A Blue Neck Lives Here"
• You set up a solar stove and a box oven for cooking at home in summer
• You ask your husband to build a storage cupboard three shortbread boxes wide and a caramel delight deep, and with a tall section on the side for flags, and he knows exactly what you mean, and he does it, and it's too small before it is finished
• You have the sharpest knife in the deer camp because you taught 25 Girl Scouts how to sharpen it in a knife safety session at day camp
• All your garage sale items are packed in cookie boxes
• Your yard equipment has been used more at camp than on your yard
• You go to the hall closet and 15 sit-upons fall on your head
• Have a house full of things because folk insist that *you* are the one who knows where these things will be useful or to which charity to send them
• Your husbands brings home the old copier from work, fixes it up, and gives it to you so that you don't have to keep running to the store every week to make copies of newsletters, forms, articles, etc.
• Your husband comes home from work early every Tuesday so that he can watch your 4 year old daughter while your at your troop meeting
• You scrutinize the council financial statements and fund balances and have them committed to memory but couldn't guess what your checking account balance is at any one point in time
• You turn your favorite hang out spot (the garage) into a girl scout storage area
• You go through camping withdrawal syndrome and pitch a tent in the back yard and camp out with the kids
• After the hurricane knocks out your power you are happy as a clam cooking for the neighbors with your vagabond stove and cardboard box oven
• You buy a storage shed just to have enough room to keep troop supplies
• When attending college you roast mini marshmallows on a paper clip over a candle to make mini S'mores in your dorm room while singing "Rise up o flame"
• Your tape player in your car has the tape.."Still Singing After All These Years" still in it.
• You can't use your front entrance because the entryway is filled from floor to ceiling with craft materials, some new, some remnants of other crafts...
• You design and build a key hole fire place in your back yard. ...for the troop! ...just to practice! ...ok, for yourself :).
• The troop photos are all nicely pasted in albums, and the family pictures are in shoeboxes!
• In looking for a new home, you try to find one that has an extra room to store your GS stuff in!!
• You have your council's phone number on speed dial.
• The last 20 times you have gotten a babysitter it was so that you could attend Girl Scout meetings and events and not once for a night out with your hubby!
• Your dog has puppies and you agree to let your daughter keep one AND name her "Daisy" after Daisy Girl Scouts!!
• You have at least one saucepan that is a little black round the outside, despite hours of scrubbing?
• Most of your cutlery has the remnants of nail-varnished initials from last year's camp?
• Troop equipment lives in your car (van/truck)