I'd have all the cars made in the Carolinas, and I'd ban the ones made in China. - Hank Williams Jr., If The South Would Have Won

New Years resolutions give us the opportunity to take on obstacles and challenges that we would never think of randomly, in the middle of the year.


I'm working on my own resolution right now, but I won't talk about it for a while and make sure that I stick to it.

Cameron's resolution is to go this year without buying anything made in China. It doesn't have to be all made in the US, but at least not in China. I've taken it on as my second resolution also. It is a tad tricky!

I have a DSW gift card and I've been on a hunt of brown sneakers for a long time. They are ALL made in China. All of the shoes. New balance. Puma. Sketchers. Keds. Adidas. All of them. Online when I search, the page only says if they are "imported" or not. I challenge you to find a pair of shoes at DSW that does not say "imported". It's even harder that way, because then I can't find if it's imported from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Phillipines or China.

It's taking a stand against the largest group that is taking away jobs from the US. I was shocked to find out that Dickie's (a well known "American" brand) has a lot of their clothes made in Mexico.

This is so wrong that we depend so much on other countries to make our clothing, electronics, shoes, kitchen accessories, etc. Cameron says many times that your biggest vote is your dollar and we are voting every time we enter a store.

I was bummed to find in Ross the other day, a smaller version of my grey suitcase....I really wanted to get it to match my big suitcase for our big move...and then I saw it. Made in China. Damn. I fought for a while with it and left without buying it. I'd rather leave knowing I stood my ground on my choice than to cave.

There is a quote from a person in the book I'm reading, A Year Without "Made in China" said " 'You're a dreamer if you think you can fill your daily needs with things made in America.  That's a thing of the past.  The whole basis of the American economy is people buying a bunch of stuff, and China makes it easier for them to do it by making it cheaper.  People eat up everything China makes' ".

Cameron has really opened my eyes to a lot of things and I think together we make good moves in the right direction. I still don't know if I'm happy that we had the movers take all our stuff to Japan in November or if I like that we are living in a temporary place, that doesn't feel like our own...but it's opened our eyes to see what items in our home are necessities or just junk.  I'm going to be making an inventory when I get to Japan and unpack all our items. I gave away a lot of things before they took our household goods. That's where it's nice to have moves every few years, so you can go through and clean out unused items and donate them. Because we moved all of our big items already to Japan, we have had an excuse to not buy new items. It's been a great thing for us. It has made it easier to not buy Chinese goods.

I just looked in my closet. Mizunos, roxy, new balance....all of my shoes. China! Mizunos?? Really? Just like how Coach purses are made in China....right next to the cheap Walmart ones. Women, does that make you feel more important?

So, what is something I can do besides look at labels? Learn to sew. I sewed Cameron a vest and last night picked up some yarn and did my first line of chain stitches. We'll be all hippied out with crocheted sweaters and mittens. :)

More to come later on our journey!