Visited The Church That Created The Prayer Lap Quilts For Me To Give As Gifts. Marshalls, TJ Maxx Are You Trying To Pull A Swift 1 On The Consumer?

Yesterday was the day I visited the church for their Sunday service. They are a lovely community. They actually have a communion kneeling rail around the altar. They make it known that all are welcome to receive communion in their church. I did not feel led to participate since I am not a member of their church. I went to make a 5.00 donation towards the prayer quilt ministry. They had a yard sale at the church, and they updated me that it raised over 10K which the money will go towards youth ministry. I saw the pastor that bakes the bread for the farm market, and he asked me if I would like a piece of the bread left over from communion that he bakes. I declined at first because I already have tasted his bread before and I know it is good, until he told me this bread is different than the other ones, he bakes this for their communion. It was very good. What a pastor that has a heart to serve the people and a portion of his serving is apparently cooking also.

One of the parishioners said how he baked a ham the day before and it was delicious. Apparently, those that shopped at the yard sale also had the opportunity for a small donation to order a dinner and enjoy it and a part of that meal was baked ham. I was able to follow along in their church service with a bulletin handed out which pretty much guides one in the service along with the songs sung during the service. So thankful for the days in which I was in a (back then it was called Yugoslavia) folk group in which I played a prim instrument. With learning to play that instrument we were also instructed on how to read sheet music, so I was able to follow along with having knowledge in reading sheet music to carry the tune of the songs sung. I must admit though, of the 3 things we performed in the folk group: singing foreign language songs, dancing folk dances and playing the instrument for instrumental ensembles. My least favorite of the 3 was playing that stringed instrument (it reminds one of a smaller version maybe of a mandolin.) During practices we were able to sit down and use a music stand to learn the songs. Performances were a different story though. We were expected to have the song/music memorized and we stood in uniform type of protocol, and we were not supposed to look down @ our fingers while playing the instrument. I think that was a lot for kids to hold up that standard, but we did anyhow. My most favorite was the dancing and choreography of the folk dances. Wow, I guess that sort of took me on a bit of a rabbit trail with explaining how I knew how to read sheet music. You know, in 1 of my bibles one day I woke up with a song playing inside of me. You will see in this very bible the words to that song, and I even drew the music bar graph with the notes the way I heard the song playing inside of me. I wonder if anything will ever come of that simple song in the future or was it just a song I have sung for the Lord that day?

I am seated next to our music instructor on the 3rd row. She was one of the kindest instructors I recall having while in the folk group. I will share that I was able to travel and see parts of our wonderful country USA while performing with this group. Even our 1976 celebration we all were in the former Yugoslavia for our national gathering that year. We stayed @ Hotel Intercontinental in Zagreb and of all people you would ever think of staying @ the same hotel while we were there, The Rolling Stones, imagine that. I met Billy Preston oddly enough @ that very hotel. I had no clue who he was at the time until someone told me afterwards. I wonder what the Rolling Stones must have thought about all these Croatian folk groups from the USA staying where they stayed @ the hotel? Makes one wonder huh.

Marshalls you are trying to pull a fast one in my opinion on the savvy shopper consumer. I noticed a pattern while shopping the past few days. I must admit I have not gone to TJ Maxx yet to see if they followed through also. Come on now, increasing your nail polish from 4.99 to 5.99. I looked at my bottles of OPI nail polish and they appear to show made in the USA so what is your reasoning behind increasing their sale price? You cannot even try to use the excuse of tariffs being the reason of increased pricing. Come on now, products made in the USA should not in theory be increasing in pricing, should they? I guess my impulse buying for nail polish OPI brand may just have to be curtailed for now. How do you explain 1 whole dollar increase when the product is made here and not being shipped in from out of the country. Buyer beware is all I can say at this time.