Great Find

Back in the days of Lakewood Antiques Market (those of us who lived for the second weekend of every month knew it as simply "Lakewood"), we'd happen upon the most wonderful finds. The Saturday or Sunday jaunt to this much-missed event usually involved a gaggle of girls. We'd pick a day, a time to meet, and a place (food court? at the "top of the hill"? the entrance gate?). We'd all have a "mission" and work in packs or go off on our own, but always with everyone's "missions" in mind. If kids were a part of the gaggle, they were each given $5 and encouraged to barter, which always made the purchase that much sweeter. The day had to include eating at the food court. I remember days hotter than h-e-double-hockey-sticks where we'd score an umbrella'd table, ahhhh the wonderful smells of funnel cakes and grilled hamburgers, sharing a table with strangers who, by the end of the meal, had become fast friends, comparing our stories of slick negotiating strategies.

On one of our trips there, sadly right before it shut down, my daughter and I found this dress form. It's not a real sewing dress form, it's more of a display form. It's now one of the cutest things in her room. It's always "dressed" in something fun. This weekend I was knee deep in costume-design and -making for our church's Lent dramas. With my daughter sick as a dog and in no state to be a model for me, we lugged the dress form out of her room. It worked wonders. And the whole time I was draping and pinning, I was remembering Lakewood days and feeling rather melancholy.