1990 Honda Civic White smoke coming out of exaust

Two nights ago I was driving home from work about 20 blocks away from my house and I noticed that the temp gauge was 3/4s of the way to the red, so I pulled over immediately and turned my car off. I let it sit for a few minutes and then turned the key to ON and saw that the temp gauge was back down to its normal position. So I started up the car to drive it back the 20 blocks and a bunch of white smoke billowed from my exaust. I'm assuming that this was coolant because it smelled sweet. I checked it the next morning since it was like 11 at night when this all happened. I topped off the water/coolant and started it up. Just a little bit of white smoke I noticed as I was driving it around for like 10 minutes to make sure it wasn't going to overheat on me again. I got out of the car and checked all the hose and looked underneath the car in a dry area for leaks. I didn;t notice any so I went to work. No problems there and back. Today I was off work so I drove to my friends so we could do the timing. No major white smoke, just a little bit when I first take off from a complete stop. We undid the battery, unplugged the computer that adjusts the ignition timing and bridged the terminals. Turned on the car and saw the wire frying, so I turned it off immediatly. We adjusted the wire a bit and turned the car on. Everything being fine this time except for lots of white smoke again. I adjusted the timing until it was good and the engine idle screw until that was good. Car is running and idling better now. Not perfect but what can I expect from a 19 year old car. White smoke still coming out quite a bit. Checked my oil with the dipstick and smoke was coming out of the channel my dipstick goes into. Doesnt seem good. So I drove it back home. On the way home the car overheated again. I caught it fast this time. Pulled over, turned on my heater and saw the temp gauge go down to normal. So I drove it to autozone and bought a thermostat. It almost overheated 3 more times on the way home, but every time I turned on my heater full blast it would go back down. I got home and replaced the thermostat and gsasket, but over torqued one of the bolts on the housing and it snapped.(Well not me, but my friend did). So now I gotta go to a pick-a-park and pull a housing unit and bolt for the cover that snapped. So I haven't figured out quite yet if the car overheating was my thermostat. So now to my questions. What is with the white smoke? Where should I start? Any quick fixes to limp it along if its a blown head gasket? Does the problem with my car overheating sound like its a faulty thermostat?