Our house, the marketplace

Summer has apparently blown in the winds of entrepreneurism here.

A few days ago, Strider begged me to have a restaurant for lunch, "with menus and everything" so he could order whatever he wanted. I flatly refused... until he said he would pay for whatever he bought. That got my attention. So, I quickly made up some menus and recruited Rayna as my waitress/server. I told her to go get a costume, and this black cape and silly black hat is what she came down with...

She did a good job taking order, serving drinks and bringing in the orders -- she was definitely in her element. It was actually fun for all of us, although next time I'm raising my prices.

And speaking of raising prices, pricing has been a major theme around here. Strider opened a new business a few days ago also - -a "massaging business." He found this wooden back-rub thing in the toy box, and announced he was ready for clients who wanted back massages. At first the price was $1 for 10 minutes. Until he did his first one and decided he needed to raise his prices dramatically because 10 minutes was "soooo long." So then the prices jumped ten-fold, and his customer demand dropped off the chart. We had a lot of good "supply and demand" economics conversations.

His response, man after my own heart, was to offer coupons! He made an official announcement that there would now be flyers and various coupons scattered around in hiding places around the house. Some were definitely better deals than others. And Wednesday was "double coupon day" which was a nice option.

Alas, despite his best pricing and promotional efforts, his customer base remained quite small, and the purchasing power of some of the constituents quite limited. So, yesterday, after giving us official warnings and announcements, he sold his business to Rayna (who then started charging "forty cents" for 10 minute massages that she wouldn't finish).

Colsen, meanwhile, took a trip with Pete to a weed-whacker repair shop, which sent him into a complete, blissful tizzy. He talked about it a-mile-a-minute for the whole day afterwards. And now he's got his own repair stations set up around the house, if anyone has anything they need to have fixed...

So there have been a few "Tips" jars around the house. There is, as we all know, always a reason to tip someone! I guess as parents who teach economics and marketing classes, we should not be too surprised by all these marketplace endeavors...

Oh -- and one last business note. I have discovered a marketing campaign (for Shredded Wheat) that I just LOVE -- in fact, I have been showing some of the webisodes in my class this week. Check it out here (http://www.thepalaceoflight.com/) if you're interested... The "Speech on Progress" is my favorite.