Thursday, December 4, 2008

Newspaper Route

About 3.5 weeks ago our family started a new job...all 5 of us! We are doing a paper route here in our small town. When we first started our alarm was going off at 2:30 a.m. and we did not get back home until 7:00 a.m. . We were soooo slow at it. Finding all of the house numbers in the dark and looking at a map doesn't make for quick progress. :-) We are now getting up at 4:00 and getting back home by 6:00 a.m. . Much better!! Six days a week we deliver around 125 papers. On Sunday we deliver 160. Most of these are delivered by us running up to a person's porch and tossing it by their door. Some people have us put them in newspaper tubes by their mailbox. We have had so many, many laughs doing this all together. Imagine with me for a moment...it is 4:15 in the morning, quite cold, everyone has froggy voices and puffy eyes that make you not want to smile since you know you look like a big puff, we are all munching away on a small snack for energy to do the route, and we are as stiff as can be. After a few minutes have passed we are pulling up to our first houses. As we each in turn get out to run up to the house, our bodies protest and we look like hobbling elderly people trying to run as fast as we can but our bodies just do not obey our commands to 'RUN FAST'. It is hilarious!! Almost every day we have to laugh at ourselves and at/with each other. Papa likes to make squeaky noises as we all run and that of course just makes us laugh harder. Thankfully our joints and muscles do warm up after a bit and we are moving like normal people. We also have spent quite a bit of time singing in the car as we are trying to soothe Beloved. He loves singing and almost always goes back to sleep if we will just sing to him. Here is Papa this morning picking up our 125 papers. This is the drop location and where we pick up our papers each day.
Here are the troops ready to go in the car. Vision is munching on a snack of nuts and fruit.
Each paper has to be rolled and rubberbanded. That is what Papa is doing here. We all do parts of the rolling and dh and I take turns driving. On days that there is rain in the forcast we have to put all of the papers in plastic bags too.
Here is Vision sprinting back from putting the paper on someone's porch. He does such a great job and wears a headlamp around his head so that he can see in the dark. Sunshine uses our flashlight. We are so proud of our children and their hard work to help get the job done. We are really glad that we are doing this as we can see the benefit of teaching us all responsibility and hard work. Thank you children for such diligence and for being so cheerful while doing the job. We are making memories as a family that we will be able to talk and laugh about for years to come.

4 comments:

Joyful_Momma said...

Sounds like you all are having lots of fun and making some money to boot! Wonderful!

Betsy Nickel Photography said...

2 questions....
Does anyone ever think you're trying to break in the houses, since you're running around in the middle of the night by the houses? Yikes! :0)
Also....When on earth do you sleep??
That sounds like a tough job! I certainly would not want to do it! I'm glad you make the best of it though and enjoy being together!:)

Betsy Nickel Photography said...

Hey Andrea! I could tell you haven't changed much with babies and pregnancy!:) We are excited too. It was such a surprise, but a very good surprise! I am about 9 weeks now and I'm still in the "not feeling that great" stage. I'm starting to not feel nauseous all the time though, so that is good! I just wrote a new post on my blog of all the very nutritious food I've been eating! Hopefully I'll get back on track soon! :0) I'll keep ya posted on the pregnancy details! Thanks for your comments! Have a Merry Christmas!

Anonymous said...

Oh my! We used to do a paper route with Christopher but he was only the sub. Ours was a tiny town so we didn't have to get up quite as early as you but I still remember feeling like I had sand in my eyes! What memories! ☺