five things Friday: around the blogs edition

With all of the bird-day party and big kid room prepping that went on leading into this 6th birthday week for Hendrik, there's been a less of the blog post prepping - but luckily there are a zillion other posts out there, so today I bring you 5 I've loved recently from the blogs that I read most regularly:

1. Cook Islands travel guide - not a destination I've ever considered, but ooh does Kimi's recap of her awesome 30th birthday trip make me want to pick this for my next tropical trip! (Time to get on planning a tropical trip, am I right?!)

2. 5 Alternatives to Pumpkin Spice That Will Keep You Caffeinated This Fall - because - for fun - I thought I should finally get around to trying the basic blogger fall favorite pumpkin spice latte... and because - not surprisingly - I found it fine but a bit weird (I don't like pumpkin spice stuff! Why would I think this would be different?), I thought this was a fun recap of other seasonal stuff. It (along with a reader comment - thanks!) inspired me to try my first chai latte, and... yes please!

3. Freelance Writing for Beginners - I love a behind-the-scenes on any workplace, but I found Kait's intro to how to build/maintain a freelance writing career to be especially fascinating. As an editor who works from home (but only part of my work is freelance) I feel adjacent to this field but don't know that much about pitching things and stuff, so it was really interesting. And also impressive how kick-ass Kait is at what she does.

4. Sunday Book Club: October 2019 Reading List - always love getting book ideas from Dana, but this recent roundup got me especially excited because it covers such a range of genres and they all sound so good... very excited to get my hands on The Lager Queen of Minnesota, and definitely hoping to check out The Missing Years, Mrs. Everything, Well Met, and Hello Girls.

5. 6 Ways to Style a Floral Blouse - I love try-on/remix type posts that are just selfies in front of mirrors because they feel like very real, daily wear kinds of outfits, just based on the photo format alone. Is that weird? Jill always does really great "ways to style" posts like this that include lots of excellent basics, and I love how versatile it makes a non-basic like a floral blouse work in this edition.

Happy weekend!