Papergirl, what a strange turn of events

Remember the video game Paperboy? I loved that game and I was pretty good at it. On one of the games you can even play as a Papergirl!

As Seen on YouTube:

*Random example found, this is not me playing nor is it my video.

John has been turning in applications left and right trying to find a job. It's getting even harder now that he started school last week.

For about 6 months or so I've been curious about trying a paper route. I thought it would be a great home-schooling/responsibility adventure to involve the kids in. I've seen the ads in the paper and kept thinking maybe I should call. But I didn't.... until a few weeks ago.

And then I kind of forgot about it until I got a call back. I was told about the paper route and that the job was available immediately. I was sick at the time.. got the call on a Wednesday, returned the call on Thursday. She wanted me to start Friday. That was my youngest daughter's birthday and Saturday was her party. I asked if I could come in on Monday.  She agreed.

I had asked my husband before if he would help me with a paper route. He said no, he'd leave me hanging, or something to that effect. But he's a kidder and said yes of course he'd help me. So I took him in with me last Monday. It was kind of weird, I mean, no intereview process or anything. I wasn't even asked if I had a valid Driver's License on the phone, just if I had insurance. Well that was that... we started last Monday and I was still sick, but I knew that this was not a job where you could call in sick. (without a sub to take your place)

How weird that my husband is capable of a million jobs with no one calling him and here I get a paper route. (But I am the one who called and it goes to show how EASY it is to get one.. so if you or anyone you know needs a job or extra money, I would suggest looking into a route)

I have not had a "job" since my oldest son was 1 and he'll be 15 in March. I was more excited than nervous and it's been really fun. Well until we did our first Sunday delivery. First of all, you have to prepare the papers with inserts and all that. Well on Sunday you have the comics, classifieds, ads, etc. We got those altogether which took awhile since we had about 600 papers to prepare. Then we had to wait for the papers to be delivered so we could put the inserts in the actual newspaper. The truck was late! Then we were told it would be another 45 minutes. We have until 6:00 AM on weekdays to deliver and until 7:00 AM on Sundays. By the time the papers got there and we still had to add the inserts, fold and bag, etc. it was between 6:00-7:00 already. We did not get done until after 10:00 AM. We were exhausted. We had only gotten a few hours of sleep Saturday night, needing to go in super early to prep. I was soooo overwhelmed. I thought "What did we get into?" And we weren't even doing our whole route yet.

Overall though, I really like it. It's perfect for me, really. I'm more of a night owl anyway. I hate people watching over me. We have a good amount of freedom in the route and when we come in as long as the papers are delivered on time. I have a hard time getting up in the morning, but somehow I'm able to get up in the middle of the night and be alert. Yes, I have to go back to bed for awhile after and feel a bit zombified, but I think it's getting better. Another perk is that when you're up that early, you can get your grocery shopping done when the store is CLEAN and the clerks are still smiling and there are NO lines.

It's been really cool to "work" with my husband. We actually worked together in high school at Nickelcade. Fun times! We really make a good team. I read the directions, grab the next paper and he drives. If the house is on his side, he'll throw the paper, if it's on mine, I'll throw. Same with porching the paper. We are getting good at cutting our time down.

Our kids have come along for the ride, and our girls love it! Jessica especially loves to come along and loves to be the one to put the paper on the porch. She actually cried because she couldn't help us on Sunday. It would have been way too much for her, plus there were so many papers in the van, there wouldn't have been room for her. Jeremy gets bored with it. We will pay the kids for helping as soon as we get paid, but that's not even enough incentive for him. Maybe because he wants the money NOW.