Replace BLACK FRIDAY with BUY NOTHING DAY, I LIKE THIS IDEA

I received a newsletter today and I believe the senders won't mind my copying & pasting here.
They have summed up what I have been thinking about for quite a while.
(article in whole at NearSeaNatural's blog)
And it won't hurt my feelings if my customers will take this suggestion to heart and not buy from me on Black Friday.
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Southwest Creations Collaborative, and why we have no Black Friday deals. ........................ And secondly, I know many people are out there looking for Black Friday deals, but you're not going to find anything special here. Why not? Multiple reasons, really. First, we want our employees to spend time relaxing and recuperating Thanksgiving weekend, instead of going crazy -- we're thankful for everyone who works here, and they need a break! Secondly, even though we're a business and we dearly love and appreciate our customers (and we truly do!), we think there's a very good point behind Buy Nothing Day. Our business is built around sustainability -- we're encouraging people to think about what they buy and make and do, and we know that's what our customers do; you don't need us to be your conscience! But Buy Nothing Day is built around the idea that just for a day, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, what if you refrain from buying anything? Do it in solidarity with the millions of people who have no choice, or to end up without a retail hangover the next morning. Do it just to prove you can! Adbusters, who founded BND, encourages you to "not only stop buying for 24 hours, but to shut off your lights, televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off of your computer for the day." Go for a hike, read a book, sing a song, feed the birds ... we'll still be here when you come back online, and we'll have some marvelous fabrics and goodies waiting for you! (Oh, and did you know that shopping online is greener than driving around to do your shopping? And that study didn't even take into account a business's eco-friendly practices, which should make you feel even better about buying from us!)

It's been so busy...and thanks to a sweet customer

for including my beret tam into her outfit pictures which are featured on her cool style blog:
thestylerules

I won't touch the subject of my being busy, it's nothing I would like to complain about, it's just a state of being/living/breathing in the month of November, has been like this every November since I started selling my handmade hats. It's an explanation why my posts don't go into deeper details or musings these days.
I am thankful for having the chance to make a living for myself and provide my share for the family. And no boss to worry about, that's key to my satisfaction if I am totally honest.

Love this song and video "Possibility" by Sierra Noble

I saw this video clip on Hippie Moose's blog and "stole" it for a post.

Personal Memories about the Berlin wall and it's fall in 1989

On November 1989 I was in front of the tv set like every other German citizen who could not be in Berlin that day.
Even though many East Germans had already left the Iron curtain through Hungary it still seemed a miracle that the symbol of division between East and West would actually be torn down by the ordinary citizens who had lived in a divided Germany since the sixties when the wall was built.
Germany was elated. History was taking place.
Pedestrians for the first time came from the Eastern part of Berlin to take a stroll on Western shopping avenues like the famous Ku'damm.
Trabant cars with their blue smog emissions soon filled German autobahns.

As someone who had grown up with the ever present threat of a communist block close to home, I was so happy for the East Germans and East Europeans to gain freedom.
My home town is very close to the former border to the Czech Republic.
It was not Marx's communism theory, but the reality of failed approach of communism and socialism that had made them prisoners of their own country.

As the unification became reality and the 2 German states became one, some enthusiasm quickly
vanished as reality set in.
In the Eastern federal states of Germany unemployment became a big problem. The old DDR gave way to BRD life style, In social, educational and financial sectors the East was forced to adapt to the economical strong West.

Out of frustration, disorientation or plain envy over "hand-outs to non Germans" many former East Germans turned to Neo-nazi groups.
Homes for asylum seeking people from Africa started burning.
Non-white German citizens got attacked as well and grew very uneasy over this right extremism displayed by former communistic Germans who had once demonstrated brotherhood with Communistic states on the African and Asian continent.

It was a disturbing time for any German citizen who hated racism, nazi ideology and senseless violence.
I would not let my own daughter who has a dark complexion, travel into the former East. The threat was real and I grew ashamed of being German at that time. This overshadowed a lot of the events in the early 1990s.

20 years have passed, it's history and most young Germans cannot even imagine how it was before 1989.
When I listen to the Scorpio's "Wind of Change" it brings tears to my eyes...it was such a hope filled time, and we believed all wars may have come to an end. When we saw the Leningrad Cowboys play their punky rock we thought the world had moved so much closer. Not only in music, but as a whole.

We didn't know back then that new conflicts would arise with countries we hardly had ever heard of...Afghanistan was a remote place somewhere, it's location on the map unknown to most of us.