Link Up.

Guess who's coming to visit this weekend? My most wonderful and fantastic best friend, R! Remember our Brooklyn Flea adventure? She lives  in New York, so I've been seeing her more often what with the travel for work, but it's still exciting that she's coming to my abode today, husband in tow. Or leading the charge, as I'm sure he'd prefer I present it.

Me + R = best friends like this girl and elephant. I'll be the elephant bc she has curly hair so that's more believable.

Here are five great things to improve your mind and your life this weekend.

The wonderful LearnVest bringing us the impressive Joanna Coles and her tips for getting ahead at work. Joanna was one of the all-star presenters at LearnVest Live last month, and this is the recording of her talk.

TWO friends had sent me this house tour from Refinery 29 on the home of GoodWood owners, Dan and Anna. GoodWood is an incredible store/showroom of design, including furniture, home furnishings, knickknacks, and really well curated products, like an amazing perfume or candle. I'm heading there tonight for a wine tasting with R- it's located in the ever-trendy U Street, a great place to stroll around and grab some cocktails.

One of the many amazing groom's gifts my brother made was infused liquor. Next time I spend the night in Hoboken I'll get him to do a guest post, but for now, I've been searching for innovative ways to use D's flavor: bacon bourbon. I'm liking this option from Taylor Takes a Taste. You can do a bacon-old fashioned, with maple syrup, but I'm not a syrup fan.

I liked Robin Berstein's the best, but check out all of the messages-to-my-15-year-old-self penned by some of the most powerful women in the world in honor of "International Day of the Girl". Didn't know that existed, but any excuse to get reflective, brilliant women together to share their life lessons is fine with me.

Going to try this recipe for goat cheese stuffed figs soon. Couldn't find figs at Whole Foods this past week...I wasn't mad, because it was nice to feel disappointed FOR ONCE by this mecca of overpriced specialty foods.