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The Tip is 'Don't procrastinate' For years I've been buying ink jet cartridges from a big box office supply store. These cartridges were made overseas and labeled with the well-known brand of a large American printer company. One I remembered a local store that advertised quality cartridges. I had traveled by this local store hundreds of times but never stopped. This time I stopped at the local store. To my surprise I discovered that they carried the cartridge I needed and it was a Made in USA cartridge. Made in Chicago, to be precise, and it was half the price of the imported ones I had been buying for years. The quality is exceptional and they last longer too. Who knew? After that experience, I make a point to stop at every store I can. By doing so, I've been finding more and more Made in America products. Occasionally the clerks don't know the country of origin; this can be discouraging but finding the origin information yourself isn't difficult I've come to realize. Believe it not, there are actually a number of computers made in the US including laptops made in the USA. When the label is not visibly displayed I use the other Made in America buying tips to help me find Made in US. If the store doesn't carry what you are looking for, use Made in America Secrets to find it and tell the manager about your experience at their store. If enough people are asking for Made in America products stores will begin to carry them. Buying Tip Continued - Read more on Made in America Products by Trappist Caskets In July 1849, Abbot Dom Bruno led a small group of Roman Catholic monks from Mount Melleray Abbey in County Waterford, Ireland to their newly acquired property southwest of Dubuque, Iowa. Taken by the beauty of its densely wooded hills and open prairie, he named the place, Our Lady of New Melleray. The ravages of the Irish Potato Famine caused these pioneering members of our community to seek a place in America. Bishop Mathias Loras, who ministered to Catholics in an expanse that ran from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River and north to Canada, offered 500-acres of land and support to help establish our community. Combined with our own investment in another 560 acres ? which at that time sold for $1 per acre ? over time it became known as New Melleray Abbey. For more than 160 years, we have experienced the ebb and flow of good times and bad, from surviving our first frigid Iowa winters and near starvation to lucrative sales of grain and livestock and the construction our landmark limestone buildings. We have lived a life of self-sufficiency, relying on the land to grow our food and at times provide crops and animals for sale and stone and timber for building. We are Trappists ? also known as Trappistines ? members of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, and can trace our roots back 900 years to France. We follow the ancient monastic Rule of St. Benedict and lead a sequestered life of silent prayer, community liturgy, and manual labor. The life of a Trappist monk ? which begins each day with morning prayer at 3:30 a.m. ? is guided by the mandate to, Let nothing be preferred to the work of God. We live simply and support ourselves by the work of our hands. To that end, New Melleray Abbey launched Trappist Caskets in 1999, when we began selling caskets and urns directly to families at wholesale costs. Our casket business is a sacred ministry and a corporal work of mercy. Though it provides a vital source of income for our community, we are not a high volume manufacturer. We work at a monastic pace, paying close attention to detail. Our skilled craftsmen employ old-world techniques that have been perfected through generations ? producing caskets and urns of unique quality. A Trappist monk ringing bells to signal beginning of monastic activities Throughout the course of a day, the sound of bells call us to prayer, to spiritual reading, to manual labor, or to simple enjoyment of the company of our brothers. We were sustainable before it became a strategic marketing term. Since the beginning, we have been guided by the spiritual mandate to practice responsible stewardship of God's natural creation, even if it means less profit or slower production. We harvest only as much wood as we can responsibly glean from our 1100 acre forest, acquiring the rest from like-minded sources. We manage our forest to be a diverse eco-system and plant far more trees than we will ever harvest. In fact, a new tree is planted as a living memorial to every person who uses a Trappist casket or urn. To learn more about New Melleray Abbey please visit: www.newmelleray.org If you would like to learn more about the Trappist order, please visit www.trappists.org |
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