Sorry, I have Been a Slacker

As the post says, I have been a slacker. I am very passionate about this blog but finding a hard time to post to it on a regular basis. Right now I am dealing with a sick husband who has multiple myeloma. He/we have been spending the last year trying to manage life with cancer and coping the best we can. He just got over a case of pneumonia and that cleared up nicely with an oral antibiotic. About a week before the bug hit him his mother passed away and so it is no wonder he got sick, we presume from being up at the funeral home and around so many people. It could have been the stress too. Loosing a loved one is never an easy time. These past 2 days were spent at the Cleveland Clinic because the ball is now rolling to start the Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT). It will now be weeks of appointments and procedures. My husband will be staying at least 21 days straight in the hospital. I can not say enough good about that hospital and the staff. They definitely have all their ducks in a row, and if you don't have yours in one too they set them straight for you. God bless all these doctors and care givers because they are very proficient in their jobs. It gives you confidence and hope. When you have cancer that is what you need, hope and plenty of understanding. Having cancer puts a whole new spin on your life and your outlook on things.

Now I do not mean to make this blog about sickness although I am sure somewhere along the line we could add medical care and all the trappings of the health field into the posts. I have been trying very hard to buy only goods made in the USA, but once in awhile stuff falls into my cart that is made elsewhere. In the past couple of months we did find some men's slacks at of all places Walmart. I about fell off my chair when my husband brought them home and I checked them over. I had to laugh, someone in the ordering department must have goofed up there, lol. It does sadden me because I do not want to give a wrong impression. I repeat that I do not hate other countries and fully understand that the people living there have families to care for and that includes putting a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and food in their mouths. A people in a country can not help what it's government does to provide jobs.......my gripe is with the big industry and big business in the USA, the selling out and closing of our factories and shipping the jobs to countries that have less environmental restrictions and to countries that have people who are desperate to work even at a lower wage than the people here. My belief is if you move your factory to a foreign country then you need to stop expecting the people here to buy your products for top dollar and ripping off the underpaid workers overseas who made it. Stop sending us products from China with lead in them. We are expecting our first grand baby in March and I have been busy making soft knitted and sewn cloth toys because I do not want my grand baby (or anyone else's baby) to be sucking, chewing and mouthing harmful toxins like lead and God knows what else. For years our country has worked to remove harmful substances from the products it manufactures. Yet we have taken 1 step forward and 2 steps back and seem to be right back on square #1 where all this is concerned because we are importing crap. Not only that but these countries need to clean up their acts for their own common people who are exposed to these harmful things as well. Life seems to have no value anymore as long as someone can make a buck.

I say thank you to anyone who follows my blog and please use it as a sounding board for expressing your own opinions on any subject that I or anyone else has commented on. I for one put a value on human life and well-being. I thank God that there are still others who care and do what they can to help save the earth and the life on it.

Take care,
Susanne

Time Consuming Searches

Years ago I loved Walmart, but in the past few years I have changed my mind about that store. They are the biggest seller of goods to the American people and if you do some label looking you will read "Made in China" on just about everything you pick up. How long has this been going on, well it was not over night. I was in a rush the other day and yes, I ended up in Walmart. The local K-mart left town along with other smaller stores. We live in the boon docks so we have to travel to 3 other near by towns to do our shopping. It is either Walmart or the Dollar Store unless we travel even further to the larger cities. I was looking to replace our tooth brushes. I grabbed a package that contained two, after all my hubby could use a new one too. In my haste I did not bother to look on the back of the wrapper until I got home. You guessed it, they were made in China. I walked into my kitchen and started looking around, I picked up 3 things that I have had in my kitchen for many years......all made in China. The stuff has slowly infiltrated my home over many years, right under my nose. I am tempted to trash it all, but some things came from my daughters, they were gifts. It is tougher yet to throw things out only to have to spend good hard-earned cash to replace them all. It would be crazy on my part to do something so insane as that. Don't get me wrong, I do not hate the Chinese. They are hard-working people who need to make a living and provide for their families. I am not upset with them, but rather the big business in this country that has sold us out by taking the jobs away from hard-working Americans who are also trying to provide for themselves and their families. Somewhere it all went so wrong, ever so slowly, right under our noses, while we were sleeping and had our eyes wide shut. I was sick about those toothbrushes, especially after I have been preaching about the very thing that I set out to do with this blog. I resign myself to do better in the future. I am on the soap box to do my part and will continue to be faithful to my mission. One thing I do plan to do is to make a list on the side bar of goods that are still made in the USA. My husband and I did find out last week that you can no longer buy a television that is made in the US. That put a damper on our quest to help stimulate the economy by buying a new flat screen :(

Doing My Part

On Monday I went shopping. We had 2 chairs in our living room that were literally falling apart and needed replaced. The age of those chairs was roughly 20 years old. Both had some major spring action going on and sagging bottoms and worn out spots. Believe me if I would have known someone who could have fixed them and reupholstered them that would have been my first choice. I am all for saving anything worth salvageable. Besides, that recliner was one of the first Father's Day gifts from our girls to their dad, so it did have some sentimental value. I found a new recliner for my husband and a new occasional chair with ottoman for me......and to my absolute delight they were both made in the USA!! YEAH!!! One chair was a LANE, the other an ENGLAND brand. And this is not the end of this story.....the old chairs sat out by the end of the driveway and within 3 hours some pickers came and took them, so maybe they will be repaired and serve a purpose in a new home. I went to bed feeling satisfied that I had helped some people keep their jobs right here in our country. Now, have you been able to do your part this week? If not, then maybe another time you will find an opportunity to keep America working. God Bless America, God Bless You.♥

9/11

Another good reason we should buy American goods. We continue to make other countries wealthier and they ultimately turn on us once they have the money and resources to buy weapons.

Help One Another

I am hoping that this blog catches on and produces helpful and useful information for anyone and everyone who visits it, that is if there is something you need to buy and truly want to buy goods Made In The USA  This blog can be one of 2 things, a testimonial of what you bought and where you found it, or what you need and asking for suggestions from others who might know where it can be found and purchased. Shopping for American goods involves reading labels and maybe passing up the first items you look at. It seems fruitless sometimes to even find anything made in our country, but it can be done. Right now everyone who shops for fruits and veggies can take advantage of home grown or your local farmer's markets. Support your local farmers! I hope to start a list on the sidebar of this blog of items and the stores where they can be found. Hopefully in time, and if this catches on, people can come here and look at the list to see if the item they need is listed. I am open to suggestions and ideas.

Buy ONLY American Goods

Are any of you sick and tired of the daily news casts about what shape our economy is in? Are you sick and tired of hearing about more factory closings and rising unemployment? Are you sick and tired of all of our jobs going to foreign countries and more people out of work? Are you sick and tired of the value of your home (if you can still afford one) and the selling cost hitting rock bottom? Are you just plain sick of our law makers with their inability to work for the good of the people (other than themselves) and their keeping the country in a dysfunctional state? Is it any wonder we are all stressed out. We are the greatest country on this earth with the people who work the longest hours. Yet we are now the most despised country on this earth. We always are the first to help all countries to improve their situations even now at the sake of our own. We rebuild countries, we feed starving, we give till there is nothing left. We are now still giving and I would say it is a fact that we have given till it hurts. We give our lives, the ultimate sacrifice. We have always unselfishly helped others. We are all aware of the sacrifice so many have made because no matter where you are, the good old USA is no doubt still one of the best places to live. The proof is in the illegal aliens living here.

I guess the one thing that irks me the most is the talk about how we "need to create jobs for the unemployed." Now forgive me, but isn't that what the last generations already did? They started this country from virtually nothing and built on that. From good ideas, determination and hard work this country was created and it prospered as well. It prospered till some got GREEDY and decided to move their factories and jobs to foreign soil and hire foreigners at a cheaper labor cost to make their products and then ship them back for us to buy. It wasn't over night, this has been slowly going on for years........so I think those people in Washington need to get their heads out of the sand (or where ever else they have buried them) and wake up to why we have high unemployment and suffering people. This isn't rocket science folks! It is just good old common sense and being able to see past the blinders. My say in all of this is to BRING OUR JOBS BACK TO WHERE THEY CAME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE, back to AMERICA, and if you don't, then don't you dare expect Americans to buy the stuff, don't ship it to us, we don't want stuff that is full of lead and all the other things we have been working to keep from harming our people. We want American goods, made by American people....

so...my suggestion to all of you out there who feel the same way.........just one request and one good sound idea.......JUST BUY ONLY THE STUFF YOU NEED THAT IS MADE IN THE USA!!!

No matter how small an item, check where it is made. I give you an example of 2 recent purchases:

1.) I needed a spatula for scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl. I went to Walmart and Kmart, both had them, yeah, made in CHINA (probably full of lead). I refused to buy them. I didn't run myself silly all over town but happened to stop one day in a wonderful place called "Ralph's Joy of Living". They have all sorts of things from appliances to small kitchen gadgets. I FOUND MY SPATULA!!!!!!! MADE IN THE USA. I bought 2.

2.) In my blogging travels I ran across the recipe for making your own laundry soap. I needed a 5 gallon plastic container with a lid......I did find one, in of all places, Walmart. The container  MADE IN THE USA in Sandusky, Ohio.

Anymore finding any item made in the USA is like hitting the jackpot. It is a thrill that I am doing my part and  helped a fellow American keep their job. This is something we can all do. There is no reason we can't all do as much of this as possible. I know even mandarin oranges are imported and can be bought at Walmart, yet there is another one on the same shelf grown in the USA. Grapes grown in Chili where pesticides cans are thrown in the vineyards.......I buy grapes grown in California only. I know many times the items made in our country are a bit more expensive, but in the long run can we really afford not to buy them?

So my new blog is for anyone who loves America and wants to help our fellow citizens keep their jobs. The requirements are to buy as many of the things you "need" made only in our country and to please post about the item and where you found it.

We are Americans and united to buy only American goods when possible. This might be a small project, but I am hoping that one leads to 2 and then 3 and so to hundreds and maybe more. Show retailers that we don't want the crap made in foreign countries unless Americans can have a hand in the products. David brought down Goliath......I rest my case.