I got to help out with Kristen’s flier delivery today for the first time since she acquired the route, and we had a little trouble establishing that she has to do the (bulk of the) work since it’s her earning the paycheck. We had memorable moments along the walk where she thought that her 8 year old sister wasn’t doing enough, and she whined that her arms were sore after carrying five bundles of fliers that wouldn’t fit in the cart that I was lugging around that contained the bazillion other fliers she wasn’t carrying, so at one point I had had enough. I said, “here!” and passed her the route addresses and pen, released the cart from my burden and told Kristen she could do the whole darned thing herself.

We went two houses before she started appreciating her family again. Amazing, don’t you think?

It’s a wonder though seeing as a lot has occurred to her to go to her head in such a short period of time. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t made a huge bundle of money yet. Yet! But still, we have offered Kristen and Rylee a two dollar a week allowance for a few years now so they could learn the responsibilities of handling even their own meager finances.

So it took one day to screw up the fact that they thought they were getting a good deal!

Rylee’s friend Hailey’s mom offered Kristen five dollars a week to walk Hailey home, and immediately after that another mother asked her the same thing for the same price. Now Kristen makes 10 dollars a week walking home from the bus, so to speak. Then she gets this flier route the same day! Pretty soon she’s going to be making more than me! She probably gets to keep more, anyway…

I entered another challenge at the Animation Forum, but thankfully this one isn’t an animation as I’m not swimming in free time at the moment. This is just a simple character design, or CD. Basically, a moderator of the forum puts out a little character description write up, and members who are willing to participate draw up their envisioning of the character. This is the description from the CD Weekly thread:

John has a problem with drugs and gambling lately... He hasn't left the children any money for three months now. He's keeping it all to himself. Still, John loves his work more than anything, so that's why he keeps visiting them. Dedicated to his job, he's willing to take radical actions to get things done. And he even has a bad habit of pulling out teeth that shouldn't be pulled out just yet...

Yes, John is a tooth fairy.

I had to come up with something that reflected everything said above, so this is what I came up with:



Disturbing? Just a little…Some of the comments I’ve gotten have been pretty positive in a shiver-down-my-spine kind of way, but I’m taking what I can get. It’s been a while since I’ve drawn seriously, so I thought these weekly exercises would be an excellent way to flex those atrophied muscles again and learn all this wonderful software.

Until then, I’m locking my kids’ windows so they don’t lose anymore teeth than necessary to this guy…