Why Shopping for "Made in the USA" is not that difficult.

There are scads of things that aren't made in the USA, but when something IS made in the USA am I willing to buy it from a USA manufacturer? With the miracle of the Internet, and the foreign made device that I am using to surf on it, I have found a whole world of American made products. Here are just a few examples below, you get the idea.

In my local supermarket items made locally are labeled clearly and when a customer checks out the receipt shows how much of your purchase went to products made in our county. It has influenced me in my grocery shopping. Granted, the local made olive oil is four times the price of the foreign made one, but I notice the last four times I bought Sonoma county made anyway.

It's a tough awareness to come to, that my home and office reflect back to me product labels of anything but American made. I don't expect I will be able to step out of the international market, and that isn't my goal, however, I can shift the balance in easy ways. For example, of my three journals, two are printed in the USA and one in China. I'm scratching my head with many others and looking to what I can do rather than slip into a feeling of helplessness.

Shoes made in the USA
http://www.unionlabel.com/shoes--boots.html

Men's shirts, classic, well made and beautiful
http://inlandclothing.com/collections/shirts

Games, toys and puzzles
http://www.unionlabel.com/games-amp-toys.html

On Amazon put quotes around the search phrase "Made in USA"
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22made+in+usa%22&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%22made+in+usa%22

Personal care products
http://stores.shopofamericanproducts.com/-strse-Personal-Care-Products/Categories.bok


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Black Friday - Come Back To America Friday

Reading the news and it all looks.... -  Joni

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The Power of Meditation: How Sitting Still Reveals A World Within

I love the fall for its light and color and sense of change.  I love being outside and inside during the fall.  I love watching the world and learning from life.  Sometimes I just sit in my garden and watch the plants approaching their winter.

If I sit long enough and look and listen I notice a voice inside saying “Oh my goodness, the bounty of creation, I’m made up of the same stuff. The beauty that is all around me in this county, I’m made up of the same stuff”.
This thought lingers in me through a whole day, and cause me to visit thoughts such as “I’m more than a separate creature in the world fighting nature to get ahead. I’m actually interacting, interfacing, moving with creation in a beautiful dance.”

It’s so beautiful to stumble on this thinking that I have made a practice of taking time, and built a pattern, a regular practice of doing so, of sitting still and listening and looking.

Take time regularly in nature and be by yourself, is my advice, to myself.

Sometimes the closest I can get to nature is to sit in my garden.

So there I sit for thirty minutes and my goodness, in just sitting there for thirty minutes alone with my inner world, I feel like I have never been in that particular garden before and never will again. I slowly, sometimes suddenly, begin to realize that I am alive in a world that is teaming with life, strange and beautiful life, and I begin to contemplate the power of the universe that is greater than I am and to which I am connected.

Taking time to be still lets me also notice things like:

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How neuroscience is telling us to read to improve our problem solving skills and get on with others

 

In Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech he writes:

Why don’t we “think something different” more often? There are several main reasons. The first is that we don’t need to be creative for most of what we do. For example, we don’t need to be creative when we’re driving, or riding on the elevator, etc. We are creatures of habit when it comes to the business of living. For most of our activities, these routines are indispensable. Without them, our lives would be in chaos.

There are times, however, when you need to be creative and generate new ways to accomplish your objectives. When this happens, your own belief system may prevent you from doing so. Here we come to another reason why we don’t “think something different” more often. Most of us have certain attitudes that lock our thinking into the status quo and keep us thinking “more of the same”.

There is something to think about. If my life is one hundred percent just the way I want it to be, then I might leave my habits and attitudes just the way they are. However, if I want to expand my experience of life in the direction of something more joyful, with more understanding and connection, one possible place to begin working might be in the area of my habits and attitudes.

When I’m stuck with a situation that seems to be endlessly going nowhere, I try to remember to air out my habits and attitudes, give them some fresh air and bring in some big thoughts, creative ideas, spiritual thoughts and ideas that expand me.

How?

By reading. At least that is one of the ways. By reading fiction. I like science fiction for this task,

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