I have been asked why I’m making the Girl Scout swaps instead of the girls. Well. . . .

The first batch of rice bowl swaps the girls made got thrown in a ziploc and forgotten until the next meeting. I pulled them out and they were solid mold. Apparently the glue wasn’t fully dry when they went in they bag. So the girls made another batch.

I brought them home and immediately laid them all out to dry (on my good cookie sheet). They took over our kitchen table for a week because I wanted to be certain they were dry. At the end of the week I picked them up to inspect them. The girls hadn’t mixed enough glue with the rice and the little glue-rice patties slid right out of the bottle caps. So. . .

I have spent the past week desperately trying to make these things and going overboard with the glue and dry time on each every one. We need to have 75-100 of these things made before Thinking Day and I have other things to do to get ready for Thinking Day. This is our troop’s first event with other troops, so it will be their first time exchanging swaps. My girls don’t have enough swaps and I am trying to get a couple of different swaps made for each of them so they will be able to trade. Add to that the science fair type 3-sided poster board that our troop is supposed to have prepared. The country our troop is doing is Korea. I know diddly-squat about Korea. So I need to get all these swaps done and concentrate on printing Korea information for the board. There will be two traditional Korean outfits at our booth because the girls say they are “too hot and itchy” to wear. I have no idea how to display them.

But wait, there’s more. We are supposed to have a food for everyone to sample from our chosen country. Now, I think that the two girls in my troop who are from Korea are going to bring a vegetable dish and I just need to bring small spoons and dixie cups. However, since the parents speak zero English I am taking the word of 10-year-old girls that this is going to happen.

I am supposed to have a game or craft for all of the girls who visit our display to do but I haven’t even begun to figure that out. I also need a small rubber stamp that somehow symbolizes our chosen country to stamp the Girl Scout “passports” as they come to our table.

In the midst of all this is the Girl Scout cookie sale that we are in the middle of doing. None of the other parents had time to be cookie mom so I am in charge of the paperwork, organizing, ordering, picking up, delivering, etc. etc.

So, that is why I spend my evenings with scissors, glue, rice, bottle caps and fun foam spread out all over my bed.