Life/work took me to Texas  last month and, thanks to the alignment of the stars (and my parents’ offer to keep our boys), I was able to take my husband with me and make a mini-vacation out of it.

While traveling between San Antonio and Kerrville, we stopped in Comfort, Texas. My first thought was simply to get a pic of the “Welcome to Comfort” sign (who could resist that?).  But when we learned Comfort’s downtown is home to a handful of antique stores, we traveled past the road sign (never did get that pic) and spent some time poking around.

Most of the stores were either selling one-of-a-kind, handmade wares (leather, wood, copper) or selling real antiques, so they were fun to peek into, but held nothing we could afford.  Then we found the Comfort Antique Mall – a wonderful blend of real antiques and real finds, plus real Texans on hand to answer questions or tell stories about the oddities in each booth.

Because we flew to Texas for this trip, we knew whatever we fell in love with had to fit in our suitcase (or be so wonderful it was worth leaving something behind in order to pack it). The one item I couldn’t walk away from turned out to be a jar of wooden spools. I’ve seen half a dozen project ideas using wooden spools (on Pinterest and elsewhere), but (so far) I haven’t wanted to do anything more than display them. There’s something about their simplicity that just makes me happy. It might also be their potential – sitting on the shelf above my craft table, where I’ve begun storing/displaying components for crafting (like keeping your most-used spices nearby while cooking). Not sure what I’m hungry for (yet), but it’s comforting knowing I’ve got the ingredients I need when the mood strikes.

Item: jar of wooden spools; Comfort Antique Mall, Comfort, TX; $12.50