Happy Friday, friends! I hope you've all had a good and productive week. I have some links for you this weekend, so I'm just going to jump right in!

Interesting & Inspirational

• Vicktory Dogs! A wonderful look at where the dogs who were rescued from Michael Vick are now.

• I'm pretty much terrified of outer space, but these kinds of discoveries are still really awesome.

• I wish Jon Stewart were my friend in real life.

• A new blog for you to read: What Love Does. Kelly is so sweet!

Wish List

• I'm completely maxi dress obsessed, as you can see here, here, here, and here.

• I bought my first pair of shoes from ShoeMint and just loved everything about it.

• Though I love my extremely cheap sunglasses from Forever21, I think I could use a pair of pretty cheap sunglasses, too.

• Loving this grey Everlane backpack so much.

Food and Drink

• This was a really cool video about making Japanese-style iced coffee, which I found via Hank at Home Brew. 

• 35 Most Amazing Restaurants With a View--my list of places to travel just grew dramatically.

• There's a great grass-fed beef promotion running on Gym-Talk's MuscleFood discount code page!

Other Stuff

• Bad Lip Readings in general kill me, but I can't get enough of the Game of Thrones ones (one, two).
• One of my favorite professors from Longwood sent mea link to this hilarious piece on The Onion.
• If Winnie The Pooh Were Actually Regina George.
• Some friends and I went to the Matisse exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts last night and it was fantastic. It's in town until May 18th, so if any of you are local, you should really go check it out! (And then go get pho at Quang, because that's what we did.)
• Don't forget to order a print for your mom and have 20% of the proceeds to go Every Mother Counts! Place orders by April 28th to get them in time for Mother's Day.

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I have some place cards to finish and lots of packing to do--on Monday I leave for Virginia and next weekend we're getting married! Lots of little ends to tie up before the big day. What are you up to this weekend?

Photo credit: V.A. Photography (from this shoot)

It's rainy and cold today and I can't tell if it feels like spring or autumn.

We had a couple sunny, warm days recently and I found myself with a slight sunburn on my right arm on Sunday evening. The next day was just as beautiful so I slathered myself in sunscreen before donning a tank top for a nice long run outside. I've written about this before, but the smell of sunscreen brings me back to a time before Minnesota where spring is always warm and sunny and it never snows in March or April or May.

I wrote this in 2012 when I lived in Charlottesville:

I thought of grad school--those six weeks starting in July, and Men, Women, and Dragons: Gender and Identity in Fantasy for Children, which was from 9AM-12PM every Monday and Wednesday in that freezing room in the art building. I thought about quick Starbucks runs for dirty iced chais by myself on those same days before my History & Criticism class. I thought of that apartment with the brick walls and the cold shiny floors. I thought about Roanoke, last summer. All this, because of some sunscreen.

And now, after the coldest winter and during the chilliest spring I've ever experienced, that sunscreen scent reminds me of Charlottesville, too, and the hard runs in the woods with my dear friend Shawna; the smell of dirt in the humid air and cold press coffee on ice. Virginia really knows how to do spring.

I don't know what smells will remind me of Minneapolis in the years to come. I'm sure they will drift by and surprise me one day when I least expect it.

This post is in response to the following prompt: "Write about a memory of sunscreen." (From Old Friend from Far Away, page 209.) You can visit this post for future prompts, but I'm taking a break from these for a few weeks (at least until after my wedding.)

If you're looking to do some good with your mother's day gift shopping this year, I have an idea for you. As though gorgeous stationary, notebooks, invitations, and wedding items weren't enough, Minted recently launched a line of beautiful art prints. This year for Mother's Day, they're donating 20% of all art proceeds to Every Mother Counts, an organization that works to end preventable deaths caused by pregnancy and childbirth around the world.

Want to get involved? Order a print for your mom (or any woman you celebrate on Mother's Day), and use the code FRECKLEDEMC at checkout so Minted can track the 20% donation to Every Mother Counts. When you use the code, you'll also receive a downloadable card explaining that a donation to EMC was made in their name--and Minted will be able to follow up and let us know how much Freckled Italian readers raised to increase education and support for reducing maternal mortality around the world.

Click through the gallery below to check out some of the beautiful art that's available! Which one are you going to get?

Order your prints by April 28th to receive them in time for Mother's Day!

This post is sponsored by Minted. You can learn more about their partnership with Every Mother Counts here.