Putting it all together

During the past year I have employed some of my grandchildren to help in various ways.  At first it was only the four oldest Hancock children who came to my house to do various jobs.  Jacqueline was in charge of sweeping and mopping the kitchen and dining room floors.  Diana was asked to vacuum and dust the living room.  Calvin mowed the lawn and later swept the leaves and shoveled snow.  Adam was put in charge of weeding and later had the job of keeping my car looking nice.  This was an evolution of the tasks they had done previously of helping clean out a very messy work area.  I found that they were able to proceed without detailed guidance and even exceeded my expectations.  Last spring they helped with a number of tasks in the yard.  Eventually I asked Ralph and Lelia to help keep the yard watered.  Each month I settle up with them, paying a small amount that adds up to a couple of hundred dollars.  Now and then I give small jobs to Jared and Timothy. 
As winter approached I wanted to continue providing a job for Ralph and Lelia since there was no longer a need for watering, then I considered that I had been stuck with no or little progress on my stained glass panel because of the design.  I had included a lot of sunflowers which were tedious to create in glass because of the many little parts.  I decided to make Ralph and Lelia my studio apprentices and teach them how to cut and grind glass.  There was a learning curve involved, but I had already developed the habit of restoring my working area at the end of every session and that was part of what they learned.  They come and prepare the studio by folding the rugs out of the way so they don't accumulate glass shards.  They put on safety glasses and face masks to protect them from glass dust.  After completing their task for the day they restore the studio to order.  To my delight their skill rapidly increased.  Soon they had created all the petals and I gave them green glass to make leaves.  Finally, today I set up areas where they could solder the petals to the centers and the leaf halves to each other.  They discovered that they needed fume masks and proceeded to develop deftness and skill in applying the line of solder using a very hot soldering iron.  Neither suffered burns, and both observed good protocol in replacing their soldering irons in the holders provided.  I am grateful for the opportunity to teach my grandchildren.