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1998 –The Children Work Too

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1998 Chores & House
In 1998 we were receiving much more mail than we do today, as the bulk of our orders and correspondence was via mail rather than today’s email/website combination. Opening all the envelopes was an important job, but not one that required a lot of skill. That meant it was perfect for Pearl!

In our family, there is no allowance. Instead, chores are simply part of being a family. In order to earn money we have all worked for Timberdoodle from a young age. Not only did that give us some freedom in how we spent our money, it also allowed us to take on additional responsibility by purchasing our own clothes, shoes, and so forth. (Read more in this reprinted article, Money As A Teaching Tool.)

One funny story from Pearl’s mail-opening career: One day Pearl heard the song Sweeter As The Days Go By. Her response? “That can’t be true! The Bible says Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever!” Since that was not a verse or topic we were studying at the time, we were curious as to why that jumped to mind. She told us she had read it on a check while sorting the mail! (She learned to read at around 3 years old.) We explained that while Jesus doesn’t change, one’s feelings can… and walked away marveling at what she had retained in such an incidental fashion.

On the home front in 1998, our own home was finally under construction. Mom and Dad decided to no longer hold out for the dream house (quickly becoming a fantasy house) and instead determined to put a mobile home over a basement. We were able to work on parts of the construction, such as spreading gravel and tarring the foundation walls. What an adventure!

About Today’s Giveaway
Whether you are into science kits or geography puzzles, Legos or curriculum kits, infants or teens, today’s prize is for you – a $50 Timberdoodle gift certificate!

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Money As a Teaching Tool

M

money-saving baby

Reprinted from a Timberdoodle Catalog
How you spend your money reveals so much about you. Do you buy what you want or what you need? Do you scrimp on others but indulge yourself? Conversely, do you buy lavishly for others and only the dregs for yourself? Do you eat out often while paying the minimum on your credit card? Do you have a plan for getting out of debt? Well, maybe these questions are too personal, but your children are silent witnesses to your spending habits.

What is the take-home message they are receiving? Larry Burkett maintains that each one of us is living on a budget, however for many people, that budget is not a thought-out planned one. For the sake of your children and grandchildren, it is imperative that you take control of your spending habits. Once you feel your own spending method is sound, your work is not over until you have taught your children how to handle their money. We recommend that when feasible you allow your children to work and earn their own money; however, not with the goal they can spend it on their own wanton pleasures. Instead, the more they earn, the more of your support you should withdraw.

In our family, here is how it works. Each child works up to 20 hours a week for the Timberdoodle. Their jobs vary from rest-room maintenance, preparing stickers, sweeping, and garbage detail, to catalog mailings, alphabetizing checks, and even some computer work. For this they are paid slightly over minimum wage. Of this amount, three quarters is allocated to a special fund, and the other quarter is theirs to budget. They are responsible for tithing, and purchasing all their own clothes, gifts, magazine subscriptions, and special interest items. We still provide room and board, and all medical costs not associated with foolishness. Even if your children do not have access to a home-based business, it is significant that they earn their own money. How about hiring them to do the extra jobs around your home? Maybe they could shampoo your carpets, chop kindling, clean the rain gutters, or do a neighbor’s weeding.

The plus to this system is that our children have become shrewd buyers. A hole in their shoe that used to cause them great concern, now is tolerated for many months. Thrift shop clothes are a blessing and hand-me-downs are prized jewels! Last year they scrimped on their clothes and invested the bulk of their year’s wages in fruit and nut trees and berry bushes. In a few years they hope to sell produce and reinvest their money. They only purchase gifts after much pondering, and gifts received are greatly appreciated.

Because it is their money, there are still the bad investments. There is the bag of peanuts that a mouse enjoyed more than they did. There is also a pretty non-returnable outfit that was bought without much thought about size. A sibling enjoyed it, and that child now pays much more attention to detail!

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1997 – Christmas Pageants & Catalog Covers

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1997 Christmas Pictures

Our Timberdoodle catalog covers have been many and varied, but this donkey pose was definitely one of the more challenging shoots. Our 2 miniature donkeys were kind and gentle, and even used to participating in our annual Christmas pageants, but I wouldn’t say they were particularly cooperative!

With a cover like that, it seems appropriate to ask about your favorite Christmas traditions. One of ours has been the annual Christmas pageant that originally began as a family reenactment of the Nativity story but then grew to include members of a handful of local churches, a nursing home and even our little church on the island. The best years have been the ones with the youngest participants, most memorable mistakes, or the most people otherwise confined to a nursing home who were able to see and reflect on the Christmas story.

From 1994:

1996:

About Today’s Giveaway
Jotham’s Journey is still the best Christmas devotional we’ve ever read. The first time we read it we found it both breathtakingly scary and amazingly insightful. There is so much about the time of Jesus’ birth that we had been unfamiliar with up until then! Bartholomew’s Passage is the sequel to Jotham, and we love the way his travels intersect with Jotham’s.
We have added Make Your Own Snowman World Kit for those of you who, like us, don’t always have a white Christmas!

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1996 – A Company Picnic And A New Warehouse

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1996 Timberdoodle Pictures

1996 was a busy year for Timberdoodle, as we added an additional warehouse, giving us some much needed elbow room. Interesting fact – 14 years later this second warehouse is still referred to as the New Warehouse, long after its newness has faded!

Also in 1996, Pearl starred on the cover of the Timberdoodle catalog. She had a lot of fun with the adventure!

However, one of the special highlights for us in looking through the stack of 1996 pictures was finding the pictures of our Timberdoodle picnic. Caleb, one of the youngest picnikers there, worked this summer here at Timberdoodle as a valuable part of the team!

About Today’s Giveaway
A cross between a tightrope and a trampoline, the Gibbon Funline Slackline is a terrific way to occupy all those restless winds at your next gathering. Set it up for your church group, family reunion or even a company picnic!

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Chores

C


Reprinted from a 1990 Timberdoodle Catalog

That very word can strike terror into the hearts of both children and moms! Children would rather play than work, and moms sometimes find it easier to do the job themselves, than to plead with a child to undertake that responsibility. Here are some ideas that have worked in our family.

1. Inherent in the assigning of each job, is the need to be explicit in your desires. In our family, when a child assumes a new chore, she is instructed on how to execute it. This often means Dan or I must take enough time to walk them through the assignment, detailing not only our expectations, but also why we do what we do, dangerous aspects to the job, and even tips on how to make the job more efficient or pleasant.

2. They are next given a checklist to refer to that reiterates our expectations for that chore. Then, when they feel they have completed that task, they can check their list before they ask us for our approval. This saves a lot of “I forgot I had to…”

3. After that the two biggest criteria of maintenance will be inspection and checkpoints. Inspection is vital because we have found true the adage that when it comes to chores, children will do what you inspect, not what you expect! Checkpoints are just reliable periods in your day so that your children will know what they should have accomplished. Our checkpoints are mealtimes. For example, before our children eat, they must have performed certain tasks. This eliminates the prospect of an overwhelming amount of chores just before free time, by breaking the expected chores into manageable chunks.

4. One final thought to moms might be to examine what you are doing in a given day, and ask yourself, “Can this be delegated?” Our chief responsibility is to be a keeper of the home, which means that delegating the grunt work is vital.

To those who plead that their children need time to play, we encourage the moms to instruct their children how to work smarter (faster), and not harder. Most children who spend enormous amounts of time doing chores either lack that instruction, or are dawdling.

The moms who say it is easier or faster to do it themselves than to teach the child to do it make us uneasy. Just about everything is that way, from feeding to reading. Working in the home is an integral part of growing up, and the wise parent is one who recognizes that this short-term bother will result in the long-term benefits of a mature child.

Washing Dishes
Who Does What?
The division of labor in a family can often be a touchy topic. Here is how we have handled it:

Every month we list all our chores. Next to the jobs, we note how many minutes a day it takes to accomplish that job. The floor swept for 5 minutes, 3 times a day, totals 15 minutes.

After all the jobs and the appropriate times are noted, we add up the total minutes necessary, and divide by four. For our family this works out to approximately 100 minutes each. The girls are accountable for a full share, while Abel, Dan, and I divide the final share. (All right, this may not sound fair, but Dan and I do a lot of “behind-the-scenes” chores!)

Next, each child, in turn, picks a job until they have accumulated at least 100 minutes. Those chores left over are for the parents.

The strength in this system is that the girls have a lot of control over what chores they do, and see that they are not burdened with an unlimited amount of jobs. This works for us; will it for you?

Note from 1994:
Four years later, this method still works well for us. We evaluate it a couple times a year because jobs that used to take 20 minutes have, with experience, been trimmed down to 10. With Abel now able to assume a full share of the workload, there is virtually nothing that Dan or myself need to do. However we do participate in a token way to remind ourselves that being a family is not a spectator sport.

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1995 – Lily, The Smiling Horse Who Ran

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1995 With Lily

We had always wanted a horse, and in 1995 we were finally able to purchase the perfect mare. Lily was our first of many Haflingers, a gorgeous mare who had enough experience to make up for our complete newbie status!

Looking back now, our lodging set-up for Lily was far from ideal. We carefully set up a round pen within a few feet of the warehouse as her home while we fenced our fields and built run-in sheds. Since all the Timberdoodle offices, inventory and shipping department were contained in the warehouse it could have been a very different scenario if our coworkers had been any less gracious. Thankfully everyone was very understanding!

One funny story about Lily; when we first brought her home we ignorantly fed her pure alfalfa. While that is awesome for some horses, Haflingers are very easy keepers, and Lily did not need the extra rich food. So it is not surprising that after some time on the alfalfa she was really eager to run whenever we rode her. One particular day I was having a hard time controlling her (I was too scared to ride fast) and Dad was convinced I was doing it wrong so jumped on to show me how. He no sooner got seated then Lily lost all semblance of restraint and took off. Knowing that he needed to get her under control, Dad picked out a bush and determined to rein her around that. He had forgotten that she had once been used as a competition barrel racer! Lily whipped around each bush with as much skill as speed until Dad finally lost his seat and fell to the ground. Lily skidded to a stop and waited for him, and it wasn’t until they started back to the pen that Dad realized he’d lost his glasses. As he searched for them he heard the 4 big hooves following him and feared the next thing he’d hear would be the shattering of lenses. Thankfully he found them without incident, right with the wallet he hadn’t realized he’d lost!

Lily was a great sport when after watching Mr. Ed we tried to get her to make faces. She loved food of any sort but what really made her smile was the smell of baby-wipes! These pictures would eventually become another catalog cover and a fun memory!

About Today’s Giveaway
We are combining The Wonderful Art Of Drawing Horses with a gigantic 132-piece set of Prismacolor Pencils! It is the only giant set left in our warehouse, and has a tremendous retail value of $226.05, making the combined prize worth $239.05! Not sure why you would need pencils this expensive? Check out the reviews here, or watch the informative video below.

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1994 – Road Trip To California, Boxes For James

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1994 Timberdoodle Pictures
An important trade show was held in California in 1994. To get our family of seven there, we rented an RV and drove down. We’ve not done this before or since, but I still remember the excitement when Dad drove the RV down the driveway, and the novelty of having a bathroom on board. We had primarily traveled in a Volkswagen van before this, so we felt amazingly high up. Narrow, winding roads provided more of a thrill for the driver than for the blissfully unaware passengers; what an adventure!

Also in 1994, a relatively new employee, James Dale, injured his knee while playing football in the mud. The Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) tear caused his knee to dislocate, his knee cap to chip, and all the ligaments to tear off. His surgery was followed by physical therapy, and since he was the one primarily responsible for cutting down cardboard boxes and preparing them for recycling, we grew quite the stack while waiting for his return! It was about that time that one of us found a live mouse while working on the boxes, which drastically impacted the girls’ involvement in that project! 16 years later James still works here, but as our website manager, he rarely gets an opportunity to break down boxes!

About Today’s Giveaways
Traveling can either be a time of wonderful family fellowship or listless boredom and peevish crankiness. Of course you must address heart issues, but it is also wise to plan for success. For our family, that means something good to listen to in the car. Be it an audiobook or a family read-aloud, (not a good choice for our family, as we are too prone to carsickness!) having an engaging story going makes the time go much faster.

So today we are giving away an Original Lightwedge for night-time reading at home or on the road, and one copy each of Epic Adventures and Tales of Friendship Audiobook collections – a total of 8 audiobooks!

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1993 – It’s A Girl! Pearl Mercy

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Baby Pearl

“As you can see by the photo, the Timberdoodle has added another reason for home education. Pearl Mercy Joined us December 23, 1993, weighing a healthy 9 pounds, 10 ounces. There are no words adequate to describe the thrill of having a baby in our home again. Even 3 months later there are moments when I am amazed by the wonder that we are now a family of seven. Pearl quickly picked up on the family’s response to her arrival and began smiling when she was only 4 days old! Of course, if you were able to eat when you wanted, as much as you wanted, and sleep when you wanted, as much as you wanted, and if the pudgier you go, the cuter people thought you were, well, wouldn’t you smile too?”
-from the Timberdoodle catalog in early 1994.

About Today’s Giveaway
Two great giveways!

Every baby girl needs her own doll, and what could be sweeter than this soft, sweet and washable baby doll. Small enough for baby to hold, this Nicki baby (in your choice of colors) makes a terrific gift for your own baby or a friend’s!

Packed with educational value, the Sassy Baby’s First Toys Gift Set offers fourteen of the highest quality colorful toys that encourage the development of motor skills, thinking skills, communication skills, and interacting skills. And if your family has outgrown the need for baby toys, consider Baby’s First Toys Gift Set as a wonderful assortment of package toppers for baby showers.

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1992 – Our New House & Future Office

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1992 Pictures

By putting in a mobile home we met an immediate need for housing, as we had been renting from my next-door aunt up until then and she was returning from an overseas mission. Even though the new house was only 1200 square feet, it felt huge to us, coming from a 1,000-square-foot home. Of course, by the time we moved in 6 people (soon to be 7, but we didn’t know that yet), an overflowing office and 2 dogs, packed was an understatement! This mobile was destined to become our office as soon as our ‘real home’ was ready!

Also in 1992 Mom wrote a series of 3 articles that would wind up being among Timberdoodle‘s most popular ever:
How Do You Do It All? Home Education
How Do You Do It All? Housework
How Do You Do It All? Home Business

About Today’s Giveaway
Timberdoodle has always had an ever-expanding collection of construction kits. So what made Jawbones stand out to us? Vibrant translucent colors were the first thing to catch our eye, but once we picked up a few pieces to fiddle with we were instantly impressed by the quality of each piece and the novelty of the connections made. Today we are giving away the large 215-piece Jawbones set, which comes with its own rugged storage jar.

http://www.timberdoodle.com/Jaw_Bones_p/336-215.htm
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How Do You Do It All? Home Business

H

Originally published in a 1992 Timberdoodle catalog.

How does a home teaching mom also find time to participate in a home business? More importantly, why?! Let me answer the why first.

We do it not only to give our children real life skills, and to bolster confidence, but also to develop character. Our experience has shown that if our children are spending 2-3 hours a day in required schoolwork and 1-3 hours a day in required household chores, then apart from meals and other family times, our children would have anywhere from 5-8 hours of free time. While I won’t argue the educational merits of free play, I will say that we have noticed over time that too much liberty leads to a self indulgent attitude. It particularly grieves us to see teens with idle time. What a hazard in these end times! If our children are given an extended dose of free play, we see that when they are asked to do something out of the norm, they balk about giving up what they consider their rightfully earned liberty. They also tend to be more selfish in their play, more given to inappropriate behavior, and certainly more quarrelsome.

Does all this iniquity suddenly disappear with a home business? Of course not! However, by minimizing the unlimited time to cater to one’s sin nature, we have seen positive results.

So now that you can see why we do it, here is how we do it. Again, the name of the game is delegation.

I can remember watching war movies as a child and chafing whenever I saw a general and his top men going over strategy in a tent, far removed from the danger that the common men were facing. “How wrong!,” I thought. But now, as a mom and second-in-command, I can see the wisdom in that system. If the general had been in the trenches with his men, he would be unaware of the overall picture and may have won the battle, but lost the war.

Likewise, in the running of our home-based business, if we are sidetracked into jobs that others could be doing, we begin to lose ground fast. We can also be unaware of bad work habits or attitudes that may be developing. So one of our family business axioms is that Dan and I do what only we can do. In other words, anyone can cut stickers for the packages, so for Dan or myself to do that means that projects that only we can do, like reordering inventory, may not be done in a timely way.

As mentioned in a previous catalog, our children are expected to work a minimum of 20 hours a week. Joy is in training in the postal section. She not only mails out catalogs to everyone who calls or writes, but also prepares all postal packages. For foreign orders this has been a real learning adventure! She also takes care of collating bills with invoices and getting those out in the mail for us.

Hope is primarily responsible for inventory three hours a day. This is not a fun job for her because it involves a lot of decision making concerning what arrives damaged and what does not. But with time, some of the decisions will become easier as she becomes more familiar with the products. Hope was selected for this particular job because she is the family fuss-budget and has a dependable eye for observing the details.

Grace fills one of our two “floating” positions. Right now she works on inventory and on mail. Her mail responsibilities include opening the mail, and then delivering the sorted mail to the appropriate people. She sorts through the returns and ascertains which are damaged. She also makes sure stickers are ready for packers.

Abel fills the other “floating” position, helping Grace with the returns and couriering messages up and down the stairs to various people. He loves to help when our cornstarch packing peanuts arrive and delights in keeping our employee candy dish restocked. He also labels catalogs to be mailed out, but his main responsibility is making sure catalogs are ready for the packers. Other janitorial jobs such as garbage and bathroom detail are assigned as extra jobs, in much the same manner as household chores are. The only exception here is that being tardy to work is another reason to be given an extra job. Obviously, mail-order works for us, but may not suit you or your market. Still, there are unlimited options for business. Making lots of money or being nationally known is not equal to success. “Do you see a man skilled in his work…” (Proverbs 22:29). Our goal should be developing skills in both workmanship and character.

So how do we do it all in a home business? By delegation and observation with the goals of not only “marketable” skills, but also maturity.

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