Friday Link Party!

Good morning.

Did you drink too much red wine last night?

If so, I am sorry.  I don't have any idea what that's like.  I don't have the foggiest clue about making dinner with a friend, celebrating your awesome dinner-making skills with red wine, lots of red wine, falling asleep fully-dressed, then staring at your blog the next morning and suddenly forgetting how to type.  Nope!  Would just not know anything about that!

(Or, forgetting how to spell. God bless you and your helpful red underline, Blogger).

Thank goodness it's Friday, or more specifically Friday Link Party, where I point you in the direction of other worthy corners of the Internet.  Today I want to discuss four of my favorite Austin blogs, who have been keeping me in stitches / making me thinking / generally improving my quality of life all week long.

REPUBLIC OF AUSTIN

This is a cute post for Austinites and non-Austinites alike: "1500 Historical Postcards from the 1900's of Austin with water!"  I have a total thing for vintage postcards, and not only did this introduce me to a local archive of them -- AustinPostcard.com -- but Chris Apollo Lynn, Republic of Austin's editor, completely cracked me up with this post.  It's also kind of NUTS to see Austinites in Victorian garb hanging out at Barton Springs ... I guess it took a few years before it became legal to sunbathe topless there.

*Austin Gastronomist*
This food blog is just gorgeous.  I want it to be a radio show.  Or on TV.  Recipes.  Local food news.  Profiles.  Killer photography.  Anyway, the main reason I'm including it in Friday Link Party though is the feature blogger Kathryn Hutchison writes each week: "This Week's Meal Plan."  I've started following it, and getting ideas for my own weekly meals!  Ross (husband) is still the main chef here at Château Moseley-Carnes, but Kathryn has inspired me to look into organic vegetable delivery services here in town.  So much smarter / easier / tastier than schlepping it to the grocery store each week, non?

*Furnish123*
Confession.  I'm co-hosting a party at Furnish123's store here in town on August 30, so this is a teensy weeny plug I am pulling right now!  Are we ok with that?  Still friends?  You the Preppy to my Slater?

Maureen Stevens of Inspired Mrs. Stevens and I are co-hosting this party, and she wrote a super-cute post this week on her first piece of adult furniture.  If you are here in Austin, and enjoy winning free things, like furniture, stay tuned -- I'll have more to say about that next week.  But in the meantime, read Maureen's reflections on getting to the point in life where you say, "ok self.  It is time I buy one piece of furniture that did not come from Craigslist.  I'm going to get something nice and NEW for myself."  Because it's a milestone, non?

*Hipstercrite*
I read Hipstercrite daily, but I love, love Lauren Modery's heartfelt post from Wednesday: "I Need a Blog Mentor." God I can relate to this.  As can almost every blogger I know -- the feelings of inadequacy, the excitement of small blogging victories, the slow, step-by-step build-up of traffic and readership.

*Trophy Boutique*
Are you reading this adorable style blog yet?  I'm lucky enough to know blogger Laurel Kinney in real life, and she is as goofy, funny, and hip in person and she is on her blog.  I bookmarked her post "Summer Job Interview," for all of those work occasions when the outfit called for is cute-but-also-take-me-seriously.  I'm not the best at melding work and play in outfits, but Laurel is.

hope you enjoy those!  what quality posts have you come across this week?