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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

What an adventure.

So this is hard I must admit. I've wanted to call it quits and just run to my favorite stores and by a new shirt or something... but there is just something about it that doesn't allow me to. Maybe it's my annoying husband. But honestly this is so much harder than I thought. Let me give you an example. (FYI I did link to the web pages)

Cloths- they are almost impossible to find made in the U.S.A... jeans especially. We decided one day to take an adventure. We found a few stores that carried some items that may or may not have things made in the U.S... so away we went to the Tacoma Mall. Our first stop was Buckle . Mike did some research and found that they do carry some brands that are made here. But what we found is that the Jeans you can only get online but they do have some shirts that are cute but a little pricey... Does price matter when there is a reason behind your madness? Our next stop was Nordstroms . We found a few more items that were made here however one pair of jeans were almost $400 (YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?)... Mike found a pair of 7 For All Man Kind on clearance and he got a pair. However he did not read the whole tag and the fabric was imported from Mexico and assembled in U.S.A (close enough). He didn't realize it until after and we had a discussion that this would be ok because we are finding more and more that jeans are almost none existent here. I however found some Hudson Jeans . But I plan on losing some weight before I buy some of these jeans!

So it's a very slow and long process in finding things (especially cloths) made here in the U.S.A.. But we are determined to do this; to pass this onto our children; to pass this onto others so that maybe just maybe we can make a small difference in the bigger picture of things.

Friday, June 17, 2011

So ya umm...

I'm so bad at blogging lately. So much going on and so much keeping me from being able to focus on a blog.

Garage sale UPDATE. We had it and we survived! We made some money, we made off pretty good. The hard part has been trying to find things to replace it with. Plus I still have a garage full of stuff I need to get rid of. Some big things I have to try to sell but the rest I'm just gonna take to the goodwill. We have noticed that will all this stuff gone we don't really miss it, that's good!

My husband is amazing when it comes to research and we've found some places we can get furniture. If ever we aren't sure he'll email the company and find out. We will probably utilize EBay to get a lot of our cloths (cloths is becoming almost impossible to find made in the U.S.A). This really has been an adventure and it's going to continue to be one. I find myself more and more frustrated as I turn the tag over and find where it is NOT made. But I'm gonna keep faith and hopefully help you all in this adventure if you dare try. I do have pictures to post but as of right now I have not downloaded them to my computer (super fail)...

Any questions out there???

Friday, June 10, 2011

1 more day until...

So tomorrow is the day we try to sell all our non American made products. I'll admit that I've had a hard time deciding what to get rid of because I find myself oddly attached to them. (Oh that one fits so perfectly on the wall, that I got on clearance when we first bought our house.) Oh Oh OH... but Mike will remind me and I've reminded myself that these are just items they are not what makes our house a home. We are doing this for a reason and a reason that is good, to keep jobs in the U.S.A. So as attached as I find myself I have to take a step back and remember this is for a greater good, something that I can teach my children.

I feel good in the fact that we are going to be living lighter. I mean who really who needs a house full of stuff? My garage is FULL of stuff that honestly not being in my house doesn't make my house seem any less my house, just less cluttered. So the things I try to find and fill my house with I will love and I'll be proud that I kept one more person employed here in the good ole U.S.A. I'm gonna try and take a ton of pictures tomorrow of our adventure and I'll post how it all worked out and then show you what we replaced it with. We also have a few more things in the works as far as educating others in this adventure. I appreciate all my readers and hope that we can show you how all this can be done. Please if there are any questions post away and I'll answer them the best I can. Thank you!!!

Monday, June 6, 2011

American made...

So I think that my blog is going to be changing. I think I'm going to document our families adventure of changing our lives and changing our life style. We are on a mission to buy only American made products. I'm going to try and use this blog as a way to help educate others and show you that it to can be done.

So if that didn't explain what we are doing... My husband has been doing research and getting very passionate about buying only products that are made in the U.S.A... I wasn't completely on board. To be honest after looking at all the labels in my house I was discouraged. Almost everything was made from a completely different country then the place where I live right now. My views on the way I live have been evolving over the past year and this is a huge one for all of us. I've lived in the shadows of not knowing and honestly not caring, it never has effected me. But being naive to what is going on only hurts my children and their future.

I watched a documentary of sorts with Mike and I'll link it later once I figure out where it is and what it was. But it said something in the lines of "If everyone spent $66 a YEAR that would keep some 200,000 Americans employed!" Umm what??? That's a lot for such a small amount of money. And wouldn't you rather keep our economy growing then depleting?

I'm aware that this adventure is going to be hard but to start it off we have decided we are going to sell all the items in our house that are not American made (almost) and replace it with American made. We might not be able to replace everything but then we'll just live lighter. Because who really needs all this stuff anyway? Garage Sale next weekend and we've cleaned out a bunch of stuff in our home. Yesterday we went out around our town and even traveled to a smaller town about 25 miles out and did a little research. In this one store we found maybe 5 or 6 things that were American made. We also stumbled upon a furniture store that did have some items that were American Made and even Locally made (score)... On top of that we also went to some Antique stores.

I hope you follow along on this adventure and I will start posting on the places we've been to, what we've found. Hopefully I can help you along in your adventure to change your life style...