Life ...

No matter how hard I try to stop it, life continues to roll by. And with it comes good and bad.
On Thursday and Friday my 16 year old sister spent the night. Which I think I've said before, but I LOVE that she wants to spend time with me and willingly comes over! She's not forced to come, she doesn't have to come, but she does. And that rocks! She told me while she was here that she loved me and she loved my kiddos and maybe someday she might even love my husband. I think that's pretty cool honestly!
Also a cousin of mine who is my oldest dd's age was over those two nights as well. They all played (mostly) pretty well together! I hope she had fun here and I know my girls enjoyed her being around as well. This is our first sleep over with her but I have a strong feeling it will not be our last.

Dh had another meeting at work about how they won't be doing any reviews/raises right now. He said it was tense and not pleasant. And although you would think a min. wage increase in our state would be a good thing, for my dh's company it is not. It has already had some pretty bad outcomes ( a-they raised their rates to accommodate the higher salaries b-they lost costumers because the states around us have a lower min wage so companies across the border can do the work for less and c- there will be no merit-based raises this time around because his company is mostly made up of temporary workers making min. wage. So this increase will affect his company a lot.) Anyway, I know that sounds cruel because lots of people fight to increase minimum wage, but it's not as simple as it sounds. We already had a higher min. wage then the states around us. Now the gap is just larger. It has been theorized (of course by those who tried to fight this increase) that our state will probably lose jobs as some companies will opt to move to a lower wage state - afterall, they need to make a profit - and that in the long run this will backfire and make things harder for a lot of people. Time will tell what will happen in 6 months. Last min wage increase, dh's company was able to absorb the pay increase within 6 months I think. However, this year, income was already down for them (as in way down - dh wouldn't get a raise right now even without the min. wage thing) so I'm nervous about how this might all pan out. I have already expressed to dh that I believe he should start looking to see if another job might be out there currently ....

Anyway, the point is, things will be ultra-tight for probably a year more now. I know we will survive it, and thankfully we will not go without home, food, clothes (and in that regard we are so lucky and I am so grateful I will not have to worry about if I can feed my children each day). But still, when you are used to the extras, it will be hard to not have them anymore - like cable, when you are not voluntarily giving them up! And yes, I do sound like a spoiled brat. I don't mean to though.

On to happier notes: Harry Potter comes out in one week. I am very anxious to get the book! My 7 year old is very anxious to get the book (despite the fact she won't be allowed to read it and hasn't even been allowed to read the first book yet! LOL!) My 16 year old sister is going with me to get the book, along with dd. Next Friday should be a fun evening indeed. I am curious to see how it all ends. My sis told me she thought she could finish the book before me ... we'll see. The race is on LOL!! I told her as long as we were both reading all day Saturday, at least we knew when we were done we could call each other and discuss whether it was good or not!

And now I've rambled on about things I never even intended to talk about tonight. I really had at least two other topics I wanted to tackle ... maybe tomorrow I can hit one of them.