Not MIC

I think i'm probably a little behind the ball on this one, but it's finally very important to me, so i want to share.

A few weeks before Christmas, i had a few minutes to wander through one of my very favorite stores in the world, Hobby Lobby.   I love Hobby Lobby because it is kind of a fantasy wonderland of craft supplies and craft ideas, and if you're not feeling all that industrious, you can buy all sorts of crafty looking items that someone else made.

And something in Hobby Lobby is ALWAYS on sale.  Always.

On top of all that, the music playing in the store is instrumentals of Christian worship songs, and the store is closed on Sundays, allowing all of their employees the opportunity to go to a traditional Sunday worship service of their choosing.

These are all reasons that i have always loved Hobby Lobby.

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Now, in recent months, i have been paying more attention, partially due to our present national economic condition, to where the items i buy have been made...hoping to find items that were made in the U.S.A., by my fellow-Americans.

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So, while i was in Hobby Lobby on this particular evening, i was automatically flipping over every item to see where it was made.  And every single item (i was in the expansive somebody-else-made-this section of the store, which was, of course, on sale) i picked up was made in China.  Every.  Single.  Item.

I became a little frantic, walking around, flipping over items, hoping to find something from this Oklahoma-based company, that was at least made in India or Mexico.  Something.

No.  Nothing.  Not one item.

Now i didn't search the whole store or anything, but...you get my point.

And soon, i was just about nauseous.  I had visions in my heads of fleets of ships carrying adorable decorative items, all coming from china, racing to America, while trillions of American dollars traveled through the sky ( yes i need a good cartoonist on staff here at humble ambitions, inc. ) to China.  And it suddenly became annoyingly clear that if we keep sending all our money to China, in exchange for all these questionnably-made products, eventually, China will have all our money, and all we'll have is all this pretty junk in our houses.  The result of an appearances-based society.  Thinking about it makes me a little ill, even now.

Almost the same thing goes for the great Wal-mart, which is truly funnelling an awfully large percentage of the funds of middle-America straight to the big C in Asia. 

And after all these sickening cartoons in my head, i had to do a heart check and decide to make some different choices.  I'm a realistic person, and i'm not against foreign trade.  And i do think that i would like my money to go to American made products as much as possible.  But as a compromise maybe.  Until we as Americans get our corporate head on a little straighter, couldn't we just try really hard to stop sending all of our cash straight to China?  Couldn't we? 

Which brings me, (i'm not exactly sure how, to be honest), to a request.  O.k., a request with an explanation.  When i mentioned buying items not made in China to some of my co-workers, i got the annoying repetitive response, "you can't get anything not made in China."  or  "Where can you buy things made in America?"

Now, i did some internet searches and found some great resources for items made in America.  And i plan to make a section on this page that will showcase those.

But.....and now i'm finally getting to the request......if you know of someone or some company, making and selling great products here in the U.S.A., would you help me spread the word?  I would like to promote, on my small level, any company or item made in America, and let people know what really is available.

Even companies that sell stuff not made in China.

There really are quality items, for sale here, in the U.S.A., that we can buy and not be supporting the largest communist force on our planet.

Just sayin'.