Meeting with state reps?? Yeah, that was my reaction too.

My mom sent me an email Friday saying something about going to a meeting. She mentioned a couple state reps, unemployment, a random group of people looking out for other's well being, store associates, etc. Huh?? Then she added there had been an article in the paper that morning. Thank you internet!! I went to the paper's website and could see an article listed on the front page, but it was not available to read online. I'm not local, so I got on Facebook and asked if anyone in the area could scan the article and send it to me. Within minutes my cousin said she would go get one out of the machine out front and send it to me. 20 minutes later the article was in my inbox! How neat!

So it turns out the random things my mom has been telling me about the job situation are all true. The store employees were originally told they would not have to look for work while out. Apparently this was when the store thought they would reopen in a month. Now we're looking at April or so. The unemployment office came back and told everyone they had to start looking for jobs in order to collect benefits. The only problem is: the store is saying that no one can accept a job at a national competitor or they will be terminated from employment. One girl apparently got a part time job stocking shelves at Kmart and was told she would lose her job (and benefits) if she took that one. She was just trying to make ends meet since unemployment isn't enough!

So this nasty catch 22 that everyone is stuck in has caught the attention of some people. That's great!! I don't know what can come of it, but people are listening. There was a follow up article the next day and that one was available online. My mom's picture was on the front page of the paper! She was very excited about that.

In other news, I've been happily shopping for Thanksgiving dinner - for FREE! Someone from my mom's company called to offer her a free dinner. She turned them down, telling them I was getting all the food for free anyway. Her BF told her she should have accepted it anyway... Why? Someone else could have used it instead. She did the right thing!

Our local Shaws grocery store has been running a promo this week: buy 100.00 in participating gift cards, get 20.00 to spend on your next order. Ooh, fun! Thank goodness the gift cards were limited this time. We really went overboard last time they ran this and gas cards were included. This time we picked up some Amazon, Sears, Lowes, JC Penney, TGI Fridays, and Chilis cards. Had plenty of certificates to buy the turkey, all the fixings, some extras, and some things we wanted around the house anyway. We've had a lot of fun shopping the last few days and are quite happy with our purchases!

I'm running out of time in the day and I still want to do more planning for drug store shopping tomorrow. Won't do much at Rite Aid and CVS needs some serious planning on my part since I don't have any ECBs to start. Not sure what we'll do at Walgreens - not too much, but there are a couple things we want. Then Friday it'll just be some free after rebate software at Staples. I have almost 200.00 in Staples rewards to roll back into cash. Sure, why not? I think there are also some free after rewards items we'll pick up too. Having WAY too much fun at the office stores this year.

I actually spent 40.00 of my Staples rewards the other day. I picked up a 2 TB Western Digital external drive. It was on sale for 79.99 - 25.00/75.00 coupon - 40.00 rewards + 0.94 tax = 15.93. I'm happy about that! Not like me to SPEND rewards, but this was something I wanted. Only thing left on the "want list" is a new laptop for DH. We'll probably get that with our Office Depot rewards early 2012.

Ok, need to keep moving and finish getting ready for Thanksgiving. Heading north and they got snow up there earlier. Joy, oh joy. Going to be a sloooow drive up I guess. Roads should be mostly clear by now.

Safe travels to anyone who is traveling! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!