On Sunday I Smile - Week in review October 2nd

On Sundays I review the past week and I Smile. I share these moments with you.

This week I discovered antique malls. It's a mystery as to why I waited so long to explore them. The Texas landscape is dotted with warehouse-sized spaces crammed full of  interesting, eclectic, and downright bizarre things. Antique malls are broken up into different-sized booths offering everything from vintage clothes to housewares, decrepit (and occasionally refinished) furniture, collectibles, books, embroidered linens, and groupings of found objects, some guaranteed to give you nightmares. Such as this collection of Kewpie dolls. If I close my eyes, I can still see them grinning at me, their tiny little smiling faces hiding what I am sure are homicidal thoughts and OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO BE MURDERED IN MY SLEEP. 
 

Also discovered: This 1930's Remington typewriter, which makes a fine pairing to the typewriter tattoo on my right forearm . I lugged this thing home and now gaze at it lovingingly while screeching at my children to keep their grimy little hands off it.

And there were hat. Lots of hats. Vintage hats always make me smile. I imagine it must have been a joy to have something pretty, feminine and decorative perched on your head everyday. Some of these hats were so intricately adorned that they were more sculpture than headgear, making them ideal collectibles. Wearing a vintage hat makes me feel like A Lady, someone who wears white gloves and pantyhose to church and calls blush 'rouge'. Though I tried on many Lady Hats, I liked the late 1900's top hat I'm wearing above the best. It made me feel like a shorter, much less distinguished Abraham Lincoln.

Yesterday I threw my twin boys' a birthday party. Martha Stuart, I'mma gonna let you finish, but I threw the greatest birthday OF ALL TIME. There was a Nerf Gun war and target competition, pizza and Hawaiian Punch, and Pokemon tag. But the highlight by far was the timed team ice cream sundae building competition. I offered all sorts of toppings that would give you instant diabetes, such as gummy bears, Lucky Charms, marshmallows, chocolate chips, M&M's, syrups and Coco Puffs, and instructed the kids to build two sundaes that would blow your mind. Because I'm a little bit mean, I judged on appearance, creativity, team work and taste. It was pure chaos.

Of course, the contest was a tie. Everyone went home fully sugared up and happy, and my boys declared me Mom of the Year. I'll probably be scraping dehydrated ice cream from my dining room table for a year, but it was worth it.

Now it's your turn: What are some things that made you smile this week? Grab my button (created by Kate of Divergent Musings - HUGE THANKS to Kate!) and blog about your Sunday smiles; share your weekly smiles in the comments; or smile just because it makes you feels good.

While I'm recovering from my diabetic coma, catch up on everything from Dress With Courage this week:

• I talked about shopping studies and what they miss;
• Channeled Baby from Dirty Dancing and wore a pair of cutoff denim shorts in an almost daily out of the day post;
• Confessed my difficulty making adult female friends and explored why this might be a problem;
• Continued my Thrifting 101 series with Part 27: A history of Dr. Martens;
• and wrote a guest post for one of my favorite bloggers, B Of Beautifully Invisible, exploring why women find it so difficult to take a compliment;

I currently have TWO giveaways running on my blog this week:

• Win a pack of custom business cards from UPrinting (giveaway ends on October 5th.)
• Win a Missoni for Target winter gift set (giveaway ends October 7th.)

And I had two big blog accomplishments this week:

• Sal of Already Pretty featured my guest post regarding women and compliments in her Lovely Links;
• and Autumn of The Beheld featured my post on shopping studies and what they miss in her Beauty Blogosphere round-up.

 As always, thank you for supporting me by following my blog, continuing to leave thoughtful and introspective comments, and dropping by every day. I am so appreciative that you are here.

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