The Pride of American Workmanship?

Chinese-made products = disposable-quality, and American-made goods are more expensive but built to last, right?

Right???

My Mom went to an Amish store when she was in Pennsylvania a couple years ago, and picked up a bonnet for Jasmine. It wasn't until she got home that she saw the "made in China" tag.

Lesson #1: don't assume it's American-made (unfortunately).

More recently, Josh and I were talking about doing an "All-American (or at least not made-in-China) Christmas." I had a bunch of ideas for people, and was pretty excited about it.

Last weekend, we bought a roasting pan from WalMart. It said "Made in America." We were pretty shocked, since it was also pretty inexpensive.

We made our first batch of granola using our patriotic pan. Yummmmm! Finally, we could stop having to remember to borrow someone else's pan when we were out of cereal.

This morning, Josh had a spoon full of our breakfast delicacy, and looked down at it to see a couple flecks of blue something. Something that definitely didn't look like food.
It was the coating from the pan.

Lesson #2. American-made isn't a guarantee of quality, either (unfortunately).

Life's just full of surprises, isn't it????

Lesson #3. No matter the country of origin, you get what you pay for (unfortunately).