Last Thursday we started back to co-op. It was also Timothy's
fourth birthday. I'm teaching ballet for the first and second hour, and
it's going really well. I had eight girls in my first class (grades 3-5)
and 7 in the second glass (grades 1-2). Rachel is in the younger class,
too, even though she's only in Kindergarten. The kids are allowed to go
up or down a level if something interests them, although the kids in
that group get first priority.
For Tim's birthday we had been
planning on going up to the Children's Musuem, and then we decided to
expand that a bit and go up and visit our parents, too. Since it was so
close to Labor Day we made a mini-vacation out of it. We drove up Monday
and spent Labor Day with my family, who always has a party, and then
spent the night there. We went to Erick's parents' on Tuesday, and then
on Wednesday we went to the Children's Museum and made it home in time
to fix up a meal and bring it to the fellowship dinner at church.
I got to see my newest niece at my parents' house--that's my brother's
baby. She's so cute! She sleeps all the time. My sister and her husband
and baby had just moved up to Chicago to go to Officer Training School
for the Salvation Army, so they weren't there. I won't get to see her
until Christmas.
My dad's book binding business is really
taking off. My dad has been working hard the last year to expand his
business. He's sold or given away almost all of his books. He's down to
about 3,000 now. With all of his extra space he's built extra presses
and more workbenches. Two of my sisters and one of my brothers work part
time for him now, 20-30 hours a week, and he pays them minimum wage at
this point. Eventually he wants to bring them all on full time and pay
them a decent wage. To begin with he was paying them just a few dollars a
week for the experience, but they are all really good at what they do
now. One of my sisters exhibited some of her work at the 4-H fair this
year and won grand champion.
My mom worked really hard last
year promoting the business, and their orders have increased five-fold.
Dad actually had her stop the advertising because they were getting too
much business, but the orders have still been increasing. He has about a
hundred book in line waiting to be bound, but with my siblings all
working the business they have been able to decrease the waiting time
from 8 weeks to 6 weeks. Most bookbinders have a wait time of about 1-2
years!
The History Channel called them because they needed a
book bound, and they said, "We assume you're the best, because your ads
are all over the internet!" Dad told them he didn't know if they were
the best or not, but that he was their best bet for getting the book
done within their deadline (a month and a half).
I'm really
proud of my parents for building this business up and making it work.
They've always been entreprenuers. This is the fourth business they've
owned that's been successful. They've tried a couple of other things
that haven't worked, but they keep thinking and keep working. My parents
haven't had a "real" job since I was probably 5 or 6.
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