Popcorn Selling Fun!!!

Our Pack got a late start selling popcorn this year, but we are making the best of it.  We will be selling popcorn until November 4th and deliveries will start on November 14th.  Since we are so new to the area, I was worried that it was going to be really hard to make more than a couple of sales, especially with Aiden hesitant to go door-to-door in our neighborhood.  So, I helped him get a little start by making a purchase, calling his Grandma, stopping the guy that rents out the house across the street and hitting up a Papaw that picks up one of Aiden's classmates that is not in Cub Scouts.  Then we went out on Friday afternoon last week and started making our rounds around the neighborhood.  We knocked on several doors that no one answered, got a lot of "No Thank-you's" and finally made one sale before Aiden got discouraged and was ready to come home.  Since our Popcorn Kernel had made that weeks goal 5 sales, I decided not to push him to keep going and we gave up for the day.

At the meeting last week, Aiden was rewarded for his efforts along with all of the other Cubs that had met their 5 sale goal, the our Popcorn Kernel had set for them the week before and I was hoping that would inspire him to keep selling.  I have asked him almost daily if he wants to go out and try again, to no avail.   He really seems to be excited about the prize sheet for hitting certain sales goals, but he has not been interested in actually going out to get the sales.  So, this afternoon, I offered to walk towards the park and if we could get 5 more sales in time we would go play at the playground that is not too far away.  He agreed and though we got a slow start, we managed to finally get out of the house around 5:30.

I have been told more than once that trying to keep up with my three kids is like trying to herd cats, I was totally feelin' them today. This time out was a little more stressful for me, since I had all 3 kids with me and the girls were not listening very well, but we did the best we could.  ((I think next time I am going to put the girls in a wagon with seat belts.))  Again, we knocked on a lot of unanswered doors and got a few "No Thank-yous," but we pressed on and it was totally worth it.  After we had gotten 4 sales and walked for about an hour the kids were ready to go home, so we headed in that direction.  As we headed back up the road we had made it to the end of, Aiden noticed a lady on her porch that he had not talked to yet.  At first when I asked him if he wanted to try one last house, he said "Nah," but as we were about to pass her house by he changed his mind.  He looked at me and said "It's a chance, we should go and ask."  He was thrilled when his chance paid off and he made that last sale we were trying to get today.  I was excited to see him learning that the more people you ask to buy popcorn the more you will sell, you just have to keep trying.  Aiden has earned one patch for selling popcorn and we are shooting for a second patch for making 30 sales, just 20 more sales to go and a month to get it done.  I really wish our pack had online sales available, I think that would make this a much easier process, but I think we are doing pretty good either way.

Since selling popcorn took longer than we anticipated and we didn't make it to the playground I decided to reward the kids with mini ice cream cones when we got home, that they ate while I made them some dinner.  Surprisingly, they all ate all of their dinner even after having ice cream as their first course.  I do still want to take them to the playground tomorrow, just because, and hopefully it will be a little warmer tomorrow too.  It really felt like someone turned off the heat outside yesterday and it hasn't improved much at all.  In fact, tonight it is supposed to get down to 38 degrees in this neck of the woods. Brrrrrrr.  This cold front is making me really wonder what I was thinking when I made arrangements to go camping next weekend, LoL.  It does look like it is going to be a little warmer next weekend, at least I hope so, I don't like cold and I really want Aiden to have a good time at our first Cub Scouts Family Camp-out.