Kids & Chores

Growing up in a large family, on a large piece of property, Jamie learned early how to work. Daily chores involved tidying around the house. Weekly jobs generally began early Saturday morning and lasted several hours. These tasks varied with the season: weeding in the spring, hedging bushes in the summer, gathering overripe fruit from the ground in the fall, and shoveling the long driveway in the winter. When the tasks were completed, the family would reward a job well done by cooling off in the pond, picking up a milkshake, or burning up all evidence of their yard work in a huge bonfire. To keep all five kids working side by side, their dad helped them develop a chant to keep them going: "Work till the work is done! Work till the work is done!" Jamie has passed that mantra on to her own kids.