Thrifted Goodies ~ Strawberries, Teddy Bears, and Unicorns

I had to make a hardware store run today, so I figured I'd also stop at the Goodwill nearby. Like most thrift stores, this is a pretty hit or miss shop, although this one in particular has been more miss than hit in my experience. This time, though, I found gem after gem. These gorgeous items seemed to jump out at me as soon as I entered the store! Now that I think about it, this may have been my best haul from this particular Goodwill (Clement St.), which up until now could not compete at all with the one on Fillmore.

Strawberry Teapot ~ $3.49

I almost died when I saw this. The only thing I love more than tea is strawberries, and here the two have combined into one gorgeous piece! Also, for $3.49, this might be the most inexpensive piece of teaware I own. It will make a perfect addition to my next lolita tea party.

Teddy Bear Kitchen Canister ~ $5.49

I've said it before, but the easiest way to get me to buy something is to put a teddy bear on it. I love kitchen canisters, too. (I have a Sear's Merry Mushroom canister set holding dry goods in my cupboard.) I buy a lot of bulk dry goods, so it's always nice to have a sturdy container to store them in. PLUS, TEDDY BEARS.

HUGE Pastel Pink & Lavender Unicorn Plush ~ $2.49

Okay, seriously, this thing is huge. I feel like the $2.49 price tag should have been a mistake, especially since Goodwill stores seem to have this odd tendency to price items by size (often to one's advantage; I got a Yixing teapot for 99 cents at the Fillmore Goodwill.) Anyway, who cares, because a giant pink and lavender unicorn now lives on my couch.

Not pictured: 3 denim mini skirts and a tartan mini skirt originally from Torrid, $5.49 each. The Torrid skirt is too big, but that's an easy fix. I didn't feel like photographing them, so just imagine cute denim skirts that make my ass look amazing.

5 Excellent Game Boy Games from My Youth

Pretty much everyone knows I've been a Pokémon addict master since I was 13, but did you know that I was passionate about a number of other games before Pokémon? Like most kids in the late 80s/early 90s, I really, really wanted to play Nintendo. Most of my friends had either an NES or SNES (or both), and my siblings and I wanted one, too. For a variety of reasons (cost/distracting from schoolwork/we only had one television), my parents refused to get one for us.

I'm pretty sure I whined about this almost daily, and the eventual compromise was to get my sister and I each a Game Boy and one game for Christmas. I was so happy. Finally, I could play video games of my own. Not only that, but it was a one-player system, meaning I would never have to wait for one of my jerk friends to finally relinquish the controller so I could have a freaking round at Mario.* Just about every childhood memory I have revolves around playing that Game Boy: Saturday afternoons, visits to relatives, summers spent helping my dad at his shop, or my mom at the school library were all accompanied by that big, grey brick. I'm pretty sure I even snuck it into church a few times.

*The majority of my experiences with video games up until that point had been at friend's houses, where I was usually resigned to maybe 5 minutes of play time for every three hours of watching them play. When I did get to play, of course I would die quickly because I had no experience with the game, meaning my turn would be over and I'd have to wait another three hours.

For our first games, my sister picked Jurassic Park, which is just...just terrible. (Check out this playthrough video. It is 6 minutes of literally nothing happening. I've been distrustful of film tie-up games ever since.) I wanted to go for something cuter, of course, so I picked...