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This is the healthy lifestyle blog of Matchstick Molly, green-tea enthusiast and certifiable bendy straw.

If you’re new here, click here for a “welcome to the club!” sort of thing, although nothing can prepare you as well as this will. Get out while you still can, honestly. 


My ultimate goal in life is to help more people than I’ve hurt.As a forewarning, I shamelessly persevere as a human being, rather than a furiously typing fitness robot. 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


















  Lovelies Lookin’
</description><title>Matchstick Molly</title><generator>Tumblr (3.0; @matchstickmolly)</generator><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/</link><item><title>The Greatest 5K Ever
After my recent obsession with finding cool...</title><description>&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8gm6rGqlN1qcwijgo1_500.png"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;h2&gt;The Greatest 5K Ever&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After my recent obsession with finding cool 5ks to run in, I somehow shanghaied Adam into promising to come with me to all of them and be there for happy support. He’s also thinking about running a few of them.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ME&lt;/strong&gt;: Ohmygoodness, I just found the best 5k ever.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADAM&lt;/strong&gt;: That I will run in. Afterward I want one taco for every time I scowl at you for having to be up before 6am.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ME:&lt;/strong&gt; You can have them!&lt;br/&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADAM&lt;/strong&gt;: Where are you going to get a billion tacos?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We’ll see how this goes. Regardless, I found my September Race.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29149178246</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29149178246</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:00:13 -0500</pubDate><category>5k</category><category>running</category><category>personal</category></item><item><title>Sunshiny Vacation</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I was home in Michigan for a few weeks visiting my family, and I can&amp;#8217;t get over how much I love that place. It was so nice to just relax and hang out with my sister and stare at Baa&amp;#8217;s adorable face until he got annoyed and left the room to finish his cigar.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5361.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5324.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5310.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5436.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5494.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29078286299</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29078286299</guid><pubDate>Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:57:50 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category></item><item><title>First 5K!</title><description>&lt;h1&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5269.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5285.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5266.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_5293.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I ran my first 5k last weekend with my cousins, and I can&amp;#8217;t believe I waited this long to ever run an actual race! I had some farm-fresh chocolate milk afterward, which was killer. I had a blast and immediately started making a list of all of these upcoming races I wanted to run&amp;#8212;I would totally love to do one a month to keep me motivated and running. Some of my favorites?&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.rockwallduckrace.org/" target="_blank"&gt;The Rockwall Rubber Duck Regatta&amp;#8217;s Duck Dash&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://thecolorrun.com/" target="_blank"&gt;The Color Run&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.runproject.org/race/hotcake-hustle-5k10k" target="_blank"&gt;The Hotcake Hustle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.5kfoamfest.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Foam Fest &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I used &lt;a href="http://www.runlocator.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Run Locator &lt;/a&gt;to search for 5ks near me!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notice that all of these 5ks are in the Dallas, TX area?&lt;/strong&gt; That&amp;#8217;s because I moved back for school (and so I could go on actual dates with Adam.) Nothing like having to wake up at 7:30 to run or risk certain death running in triple-digit heat&amp;#8212;so excited to be here! I fell in love with Dallas last fall and can&amp;#8217;t wait to get to know it a little more.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Did I miss any crazy cool runs in the North Texas area? Are you a champion 5k runner and have some tips?&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29009034659</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/29009034659</guid><pubDate>Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:37:00 -0500</pubDate><category>running</category><category>5k</category><category>personal</category></item><item><title>This is currently my favorite breakfast! It’s so yummy and...</title><description>&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7qo51DsM21qcwijgo1_r2_500.png"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is currently my favorite breakfast! It’s &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; yummy and &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; full of great stuff. You can put it in a pretty glass or just throw it in a bowl like I did.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;FYI: My favorites are Cascadian Farms Ancient Grains Granola and Chobani Vanilla Yogurt. And berries from Mother Earth.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28198632859</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28198632859</guid><pubDate>Sat, 28 Jul 2012 09:47:34 -0500</pubDate><category>healthyeating</category><category>recipes</category><category>parfait</category><category>yogurt</category><category>berries</category><category>granola</category></item><item><title>Ten Things I Read This Week...And Liked!</title><description>&lt;h4&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/two.png"/&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/SIX.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;1. &lt;a href="http://greatist.com/fitness/how-to-buy-yoga-mat/" target="_blank"&gt;How To Buy The Right Yoga Mat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;The Greatist&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;2. &lt;a href="http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/03/5-tips-for-lifestyle-photography.html" target="_blank"&gt;Tips for Lifestyle Photography&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;A Beautiful Mess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;3. &lt;a href="http://emmadime.com/kinfolk-magazine-volume-04/" target="_blank"&gt;Kinfolk Magazine Vo. 4 Shoot&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Emma Dime&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;4. &lt;a href="http://greatist.com/fitness/best-themed-running-races/" target="_blank"&gt;The 21 Most Incredible Themed Races&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;The Greatist&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;5. &lt;a href="http://www.amandajanejonesblog.com/search/label/My%20Better%20Half" target="_blank"&gt;My Better Half&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Amanda Jane Jones&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;6. &lt;a href="http://spoonforkbacon.com/2012/07/teeny-tiny-blts-our-book/" target="_blank"&gt;Tiny Food Party&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Spoon Fork Bacon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;7. &lt;a href="http://carlenesfigments.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/intuitive-eating-principles/" target="_blank"&gt;The Principles of Intuitive Eating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Carlene’s Figments&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;8. &lt;a href="http://www.hungry-runner.com/post/24780145163/4-healthy-food-brands-doing-social-media-right" target="_blank"&gt;4 Healthy Food Brands that are Doing It Right&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Hungry Runner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;9. &lt;a href="http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/more-shopping-storing/grocery-store-layout-00100000082999/index.html" target="_blank"&gt;The Secret Behind the Layout at the Grocery Store&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;from &lt;strong&gt;Real Simple&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;10. &lt;a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/reddits-guide-to-fitness-infographic" target="_blank"&gt;Reddit’s Guide to Fitness&lt;/a&gt; // &lt;a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/running-style-and-your-shoes-infographic" target="_blank"&gt;Running Style and Your Shoes&lt;/a&gt; // &lt;a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/get-nuts-infographic" target="_blank"&gt;Get Nuts!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Crazy-good infographics from &lt;strong&gt;Daily Infographic&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28138129780</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28138129780</guid><pubDate>Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:15:56 -0500</pubDate><category>tenthings</category></item><item><title>I grew up in the prettiest place.</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m home right now with my family, and I didn&amp;#8217;t realize how gorgeous it was here until I left and came back. My dad didn&amp;#8217;t realize how much he appreciated not finding my clothes all over the house until I came back either.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4850.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4883.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4834.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4839.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4874.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/IMG_4873.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/Picture1-5.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28084825211</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28084825211</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:01:36 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>photo</category></item><item><title>Three Things In My Fridge This Week</title><description>&lt;h4&gt;&lt;img height="259" src="http://freshman5k.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/peanut-butter-cookie.jpg" width="652"/&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Larabars&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I used to eat Kashi Go Lean! Bars all day long, because they seemed pretty healthy and were a nice thing to throw in my bag in case I had some sort of hunger apocalypse after work or class or something. A hunger apocalypse, for those uninformed, is when you aren&amp;#8217;t thinking about food at all, and then already are so hungry you have to eat immediately or you will definitely die. Ask Adam about them, he knows.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Anyway, Fooducate suggested Larabars as a healthier alternative, because Larabars are basically ground up fruit and nuts, plus some natural flavoring, in a bar.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And the first one I tried (banana bread) was terrible, so I was a little bit disheartened. But they have a whole planet of flavors, so I kept trying&amp;#8230;and finally came upon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. It tastes like a slightly healthier no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookie.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now I always have one in my backpack in case of hunger apocalypse. It&amp;#8217;s been working great.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Freeze-Dried Fruit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve loved these for a long time, but I&amp;#8217;m still going to talk about them because they&amp;#8217;re like a revolution. Rather than just drying the fruit (and getting a chewy, sweet snack) they do this other process that doesn&amp;#8217;t add any chemicals, but does give you a super light, crunchy, airy snack (like astronaut space food.) They&amp;#8217;re really sweet and taste like candy&amp;#8230;except they&amp;#8217;re &lt;em&gt;just fruit.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve tried a lot of different kinds, but my absolute favorites are Trader Joe&amp;#8217;s freeze-dried &lt;strong&gt;mango, bananas &lt;/strong&gt;and&lt;strong&gt; strawberries. &lt;/strong&gt;They can get a bit expensive though, which is why I&amp;#8217;m glad I don&amp;#8217;t live two blocks away from a TJ&amp;#8217;s anymore.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wheatberry &amp;amp; Barley&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When I was a poor kid that had just started paying her own bills and buying her own groceries (still me) I got totally obsessed with rice. I remember calling my mom and being like &amp;#8220;oh my sweet lord, will you get me a rice cooker for Christmas!? I just went to the grocery store and bought thirty gallons of rice for fifteen cents! I don&amp;#8217;t ever have to spend money on food again, this is incredible!&amp;#8221;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I seriously ate mostly rice for three weeks, I thought I had cracked the code on starvation across the world.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then I got &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; sick of rice, and learned that white rice is not necessarily the healthiest thing I could have been eating. We&amp;#8217;ll talk about the fresh produce sticker shock later (my firstborn for a handful of honeycrisp apples? What will become of me?) but I still really like rice from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Step in this delicious blend of wheatberry &amp;amp; barley that I found in the freezer section at the grocery store the other day. It feels like rice, but it&amp;#8217;s actually a blend of grains and it&amp;#8217;s really yummy by itself or as a base for other dishes (which I never cook, because I&amp;#8217;m very impatient. If I ever write a cookbook, it will be called &amp;#8220;Out of the freezer and into my mouth!&amp;#8221; Recipes for the Astonishingly Restless.)&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28001135961</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/28001135961</guid><pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:24:00 -0500</pubDate><category>threethings</category><category>healthyeating</category></item><item><title>Oh, the plans I have.
Listen, I know I’ve been sort of...</title><description>&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7f1rd3XlT1qcwijgo1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oh, the plans I have.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Listen, I know I’ve been sort of silent lately, but that’s all about to change. I have been pulling things together and thinking things up and scribbling notes all over the place because this blog is coming back &lt;em&gt;with a vengeance&lt;/em&gt; come September. Possibly even sooner. I’ll just have it &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt; by September.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Together&lt;/em&gt;, according to my mom, is when you have everything &lt;em&gt;running smoothly&lt;/em&gt; and are &lt;em&gt;being responsible at all times&lt;/em&gt;. According to her I’ve never had it &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt;, but we’ll see.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If anyone has any ideas for a less exciting update than this one, please, point me to them.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/27560023669</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/27560023669</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:28:23 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>super dumb</category></item><item><title>Friday Five!</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/fridayfive-2.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Listen, y&amp;#8217;all, I know it isn&amp;#8217;t Friday. But I really, really wanted to do a Friday Five post, so I asked my editor if I could, just this once. And she rolled her eyes, and waved her hand in a motion that I&amp;#8217;m assuming meant &amp;#8220;whatever, get out of my office.&amp;#8221; So I took that as a yes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Just joshin, I don&amp;#8217;t have an editor, and my office is my couch, so I can do whatever I &lt;em&gt;want.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;1. I&amp;#8217;M LISTENING TO:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Wailin&amp;#8217; Jennys. Listening to them makes me feel like I&amp;#8217;m on the porch in a rocking chair when it&amp;#8217;s raining. Every time. Especially Swing Low, Sail High. And Long Time Traveller. And the Parting Glass.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So pretty.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-UNT3poCd6U" width="420"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;2. I&amp;#8217;M READING:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I just finished &lt;a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316175676/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=matchmolly-20&amp;amp;camp=0&amp;amp;creative=0&amp;amp;linkCode=as4&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0316175676&amp;amp;adid=1N330P08GC32PHXSZ7CG&amp;amp;" target="_blank"&gt;The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey&lt;/a&gt;. Mmm it&amp;#8217;s such a cozy book, set in Alaska. An older couple who have never been able to have a child build a child out of snow and then she comes to life. It&amp;#8217;s based off of an old fairytale&amp;#8212;a really unique storyline, and a great read.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;3. I&amp;#8217;M LUSTING AFTER:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;All the kitchen stuff at &lt;a href="http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/category/kitchen/home-kitchen.jsp" target="_blank"&gt;Anthropologie&lt;/a&gt;. All of it. See examples above. &lt;em&gt;Also see the P.O. box in my sidebar.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;4. I&amp;#8217;M WISHING:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That we had air conditioning. It&amp;#8217;s 93 today, good morning Minnesota.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;5. I&amp;#8217;M DROOLING OVER:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The delicious-looking recipes at &lt;a href="http://spoonforkbacon.com" target="_blank"&gt;Spoon, Fork, Bacon&lt;/a&gt;. Most of them aren&amp;#8217;t healthy&amp;#8230;but they will make you hungry. Even if you&amp;#8217;ve already eaten the contents of your refrigerator. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Like this &lt;a href="http://spoonforkbacon.com/2012/01/cherry-tomato-and-fresh-thyme-tart/" target="_blank"&gt;Cherry Tomato &amp;amp; Fresh Thyme Tart&lt;/a&gt;. Or these &lt;a href="http://spoonforkbacon.com/2012/01/mini-blueberry-galettes/matchstickmolly.com" target="_blank"&gt;Mini Blueberry Galletes.&lt;/a&gt; Or this &lt;a href="http://spoonforkbacon.com/2011/12/rose-water-glitter-cake/" target="_blank"&gt;Rosewater Glitter Cake&lt;/a&gt;, for goodness sake.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m flipping through Intuitive Eating for the chapter about what to do when you&amp;#8217;re reading Chocolat and follow it with a few hours of scanning through Spoon, Fork, Bacon. I&amp;#8217;ve yet to find anything conclusive.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23893302795</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23893302795</guid><pubDate>Sun, 27 May 2012 18:23:00 -0500</pubDate><category>fridayfive</category></item><item><title>Oh goodness.</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Let&amp;#8217;s start by reviewing reasons my blog could have disappeared for the past couple of weeks.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1. I could have been kidnapped and kept tied to a chair on the tippy top of a windy mountain.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;2. I could have decided to get out of Minnesota and see the world on the back of a fluffy sheep.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;3. I could have joined a band of pirates and sailed the seven seas, freaking out about scurvy and building a lot of planks (someone&amp;#8217;s gotta build those.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;4. I could have pricked my finger on a spindle and fallen into a deep, deep sleep only to be woken by true love&amp;#8217;s kiss.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;5. I could have built a house by digging a burrow into the side of a hillside and survived on carrot stew and turnips (are turnips a real actual vegetable? I just realized I&amp;#8217;ve never actually seen one in real life. I&amp;#8217;m pretty sure they just exist in Beatrix Potter books.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;6. I could have gotten trapped in an unfortunate mishap when building a teetering princess and the pea bed out of every mattress and blanket I could find near and far. Those things should have regulations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Or my domain could have just expired. It could have been literally the most boring thing that could possibly happen.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Easy fix though, a domain renewal. Problem is that at first I panicked, and just sort of scratched my head and put my hands up and said &amp;#8220;internet how?&amp;#8221; and some other murmers of nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And then I just got busy with things. I still don&amp;#8217;t understand how someone who only has to do her own laundry has to do it&lt;em&gt; all the time. &lt;/em&gt;Or how I&amp;#8217;m &lt;em&gt;always out of everything&lt;/em&gt; (because I eat it all, that&amp;#8217;s why.) Or when I could fix this little internet issue when last week I got home from the restaurant I work at at 3:30 in the morning&amp;#8230;and set my alarm for 7:30 because I had to &lt;em&gt;be back at 8 the next morning.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/em&gt;I work a lot, guys. I&amp;#8217;m hogging all the jobs in Minnesota, because I&amp;#8217;m very interested in &lt;em&gt;makin&amp;#8217; them stacks&lt;/em&gt;. It could be because I&amp;#8217;ll be in school soon, or it could because I want to buy &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rappers.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/grillz1.png&amp;amp;imgrefurl=http://www.rappers.org/hip-hop-artists-are-the-best-businessmen-in-the-world/&amp;amp;h=209&amp;amp;w=252&amp;amp;sz=86&amp;amp;tbnid=iwWnskzSoXnAHM:&amp;amp;tbnh=95&amp;amp;tbnw=115&amp;amp;zoom=1&amp;amp;usg=__I1fDC5slXRZQHIV354XcSQp9IVQ=&amp;amp;docid=93U8NM1lQ-NExM&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=7be_T97yOcmmsALA3OHdCQ&amp;amp;ved=0CKcBEPUBMAg&amp;amp;dur=290" target="_blank"&gt;some of these&lt;/a&gt;. Don&amp;#8217;t rule anything out, &lt;em&gt;you hardly know me&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, this is hardly a tale of woe. I love being busy, I thrive on it. When I finally get a little free time, I relish it, rather than wallow it away doing nothing &lt;strike&gt;but pinning&lt;/strike&gt; like I do when I have too much of it. I bike, or go to lunch with friends, or take a blanket outside and read. But it just makes little hiccups, like a domain expiration, take longer to fix.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then there was the problem of the sudden quiet. Having a blog means you&amp;#8217;re in constant contact with other people and there&amp;#8217;s this inescapable slow buzz of information coming at you all the time. Emails from other bloggers, twitter (I would hardly call myself a twitterer (tweeter?) but it still counts.) instagram, checking my comments, replying to this and that, updating my facebook page, you know.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;All that.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It&amp;#8217;s a lot to take on. &lt;/em&gt;And it&amp;#8217;s a lot of your time. And although it&amp;#8217;s technically a part time job, there aren&amp;#8217;t any set hours. And you find yourself doing these things at seven on a Friday night, or 11pm, or 4am. And it just gets to be so much to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And I realized I had started to resent that &amp;#8220;time-sapping&amp;#8221; feeling from my blog, the feeling that whenever I got some free time, I should be blogging or doing something else to better my site. Feeling &lt;em&gt;guilty&lt;/em&gt; when I ignored that feeling and did something else I enjoyed. I didn&amp;#8217;t like it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So when all of that stopped when my domain expired, it was sort of a relief. A rush of quiet after a long jumble of noise. As long as I didn&amp;#8217;t renew my domain, I didn&amp;#8217;t have to deal with any of that. I went out with friends and didn&amp;#8217;t instagram it. I didn&amp;#8217;t spend hours pouring over comments on my posts, and worrying about how whatever I wrote was going over. I didn&amp;#8217;t check and recheck how many likes my Instagram photos were getting, or how many people were &amp;#8220;impacted&amp;#8221; by my facebook post. I could just do what I wanted to do, and I didn&amp;#8217;t have to tell anyone about it, and I didn&amp;#8217;t have to make sure it sounded &lt;em&gt;interesting&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;fun&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;inspiring&lt;/em&gt; if I did.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;During that break, I started to think, this is kind of nice. This is so relaxing, so simple, so easy. Why was I pouring so much time into that? I couldn&amp;#8217;t believe the relief I felt.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But as I thought about that, I also thought about how much I love this community, and how much I love blogging. The amazing letters I&amp;#8217;ve gotten from girls all over the place, saying that I inspired them to work toward recovery, to treat their bodies right, to take pride in being healthy rather than skinny. I have heard some incredible stories.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I am so inspired by that roar of response, and I would hate to miss out on the opportunity to inspire even one more girl to change her focus because I just got too busy or too selfish or enjoyed the quiet just a little too much.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That quiet though. It was so nice.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#8217;s a middle ground here, isn&amp;#8217;t there? I can still stay in this community, learning and finding my way like I have been, gently pushing toward a healthier outlook, being as positive as I can, being a voice for what I think is the better choice&amp;#8212;without caring about how many people like my vintage-filtered salad picture on instagram, and without caring about how many people voted on my facebook &amp;#8220;favorite cardio&amp;#8221; poll, and without caring whether or not people agree that my pup &lt;em&gt;is indeed the cutest pup there ever was.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#8220;More passion, less fuss.&amp;#8221;&lt;/strong&gt; -&lt;a href="http://www.thetinytwig.com/" target="_blank"&gt;The Tiny Twig&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;That&amp;#8217;s what I want.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Stick with me here, I&amp;#8217;ll find my way (or don&amp;#8217;t, I&amp;#8217;m not the boss of you.) I can&amp;#8217;t promise any consistency of posts, or that I&amp;#8217;ll make any sense, or that I&amp;#8217;ll stay relevant by any means. And I can&amp;#8217;t promise I&amp;#8217;ll never post another vintage-filtered salad picture on Instagram, because sometimes, salads are too delicious not to share. I can, however, promise that I&amp;#8217;ll keep trying to be authentic, and honest, and open.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And that my pup &lt;em&gt;is indeed the cutest pup there ever was.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm6p7bvzsX1qcwijgo1_1280.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23807336242</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23807336242</guid><pubDate>Sat, 26 May 2012 12:53:09 -0500</pubDate></item><item><title>Oh, hello loves.</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m back/didn&amp;#8217;t get swallowed up by a whale.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23786626926</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/23786626926</guid><pubDate>Sat, 26 May 2012 03:22:43 -0500</pubDate></item><item><title>7 Pretty Things on a Sunday</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Because sometimes I just need pretty things. Found and loved through the magic of &lt;a href="http://pinterest.com/honeybeehaven/pins/" target="_blank"&gt;Pinterest&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/7things1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/7things2.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/7things3.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/22087372884</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/22087372884</guid><pubDate>Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:02:27 -0500</pubDate><category>7prettythings</category></item><item><title>Friday Five!</title><description>&lt;h3&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/fridayfive.png"/&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;1. I&amp;#8217;M READING:&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007HW1ESQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=matchmolly-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B007HW1ESQ" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Good Graces&lt;/strong&gt; by Lesley Kagen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;I loved the prequel to this book, Whistling in the Dark. This is one of those books that feels like apple pie, which is my favorite flavor of book. I think my next addition to &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/tagged/20before25" target="_blank"&gt;20 before 25&lt;/a&gt; is going to include a book vacation, where I bring a tent and about 20 apple pie books into the wilderness, and then just read all day while doing things like&lt;em&gt; sunning myself on a large rock&lt;/em&gt; and&lt;em&gt; floating down the river on an inflatable mattress&lt;/em&gt;. While reading the whole time, and only taking breaks to make s&amp;#8217;mores and build tiny tents for my squirrel friends.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0399159010/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=matchmolly-20&amp;amp;camp=0&amp;amp;creative=0&amp;amp;linkCode=as4&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0399159010&amp;amp;adid=191KZG5B7BAQT9TRJG7W" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Let&amp;#8217;s Pretend This Never Happened&lt;/strong&gt; by Jenny Lawson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;This is the book written by &lt;a href="http://thebloggess.com/" target="_blank"&gt;the Bloggess&lt;/a&gt;, which if you aren&amp;#8217;t already reading you will be now. I was going to link my favorite posts, but I started to get lost reading her blog like I always do, so just start with the &lt;a href="http://thebloggess.com/2012/04/if-its-wednesday-this-must-be-dallas/" target="_blank"&gt;Angry Transvestite Lego Army&lt;/a&gt; and go from there.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307592731/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=matchmolly-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0307592731" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wild&lt;/strong&gt; by Cheryl Strayed &lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;This is a memoir about the author&amp;#8217;s six-month solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. It made me want to go hiking really badly and also &lt;em&gt;never go hiking ever again ever.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. I&amp;#8217;M WATCHING:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#8217;s talk about what I haven&amp;#8217;t watched yet: The Hunger Games. I know, I can&amp;#8217;t believe it either. I read and loved all of the books, but somehow I just haven&amp;#8217;t made it to the theater yet. Someone in Minnesota come and pick me up, I think I have a mental block.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. I&amp;#8217;M LUSTING AFTER:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005OGR1R0/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=matchmolly-20&amp;amp;camp=0&amp;amp;creative=0&amp;amp;linkCode=as4&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B005OGR1R0&amp;amp;adid=1JKS5ZZNCBGAVHC72VDY" target="_blank"&gt;The Nikon 1&lt;/a&gt;. I&amp;#8217;ve wanted a really nice camera for a long time (although right now I&amp;#8217;m good with my birthday Holga :). I don&amp;#8217;t know the quality of pictures I&amp;#8217;ll end up with using it, I&amp;#8217;ve barely researched it at all, but it&amp;#8217;s just so &lt;em&gt;attractive&lt;/em&gt;. I want to lick it. If I had one right now, the very first thing I would do would be to lick it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. I&amp;#8217;M WISHING:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That I had a treehouse cabin to vacation in. Wishing that so hard right now. I would make pancakes and play banjo music on one of those boomboxes people used to carry around on their shoulders (which they still do on Nick at Nite. Nick at Nite is a real life alternate universe, by the way, and as soon as I figure out how to get there you&amp;#8217;re invited. For pancakes.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. I&amp;#8217;M DROOLING OVER: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://diana212m.blogspot.com/2012/04/baked-asparagus-fries-oh-yea-baby.html" target="_blank"&gt;Baked Asparagus Fries&lt;/a&gt;. I mean, are you joking? I can&amp;#8217;t tell you with any certainty that I would lick these before the Nikon 1, but there&amp;#8217;s a good chance. I don&amp;#8217;t want to make any promises, is what I&amp;#8217;m saying.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21922091070</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21922091070</guid><pubDate>Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:25:00 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>fridayfive</category></item><item><title>Insta-Wednesday: Austin Edition</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img height="612" src="http://distilleryimage7.s3.amazonaws.com/3ad23f3a87eb11e1af7612313813f8e8_7.jpg" width="612"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#8217;s start off by saying that I was totally responsible on the night of my 21st birthday and did &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; end up giving people high fives in the streets and &lt;em&gt;definitely&lt;/em&gt; didn&amp;#8217;t demand that Adam take anywhere from ten to thirty pictures of me on a giant ceramic jackalope, at a bar coincidentally called the Jackalope.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although, if we&amp;#8217;d like to keep up this tradition of honesty between us, I&amp;#8217;ll have to say that I probably did do those things, but to be extra honest, I probably would have done them regardless of whether or not it was my twenty-first birthday and all that that implies. Also, it wasn&amp;#8217;t even that weird, because 6th street in Austin is the definition of a total mess. I&amp;#8217;m pretty sure I counted at least seven policehorseman and 100+ &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodPodgWh8E&amp;amp;feature=related" target="_blank"&gt;woo girls&lt;/a&gt;, so, I was being unbelievably responsible in contrast.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta3-1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta4-1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta6-1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta8.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/instawednesday-1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21850433727</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21850433727</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:26:00 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>instawednesday</category></item><item><title>Sometimes...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think things like:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You should really do your laundry.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And write a post about your birthday trip.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And do Insta-Wednesday already, because you took a ton of pictures and it&amp;#8217;s already Thursday.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And maybe clean your room a little bit, or at least pick up that coffee mug that&amp;#8217;s been sitting in the same spot for let&amp;#8217;s-not-think-about-how-long.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And I don&amp;#8217;t want to do any of those things just yet, and that&amp;#8217;s okay, but it hasn&amp;#8217;t stopped me from feeling guilty about not doing them quite yet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Tonight, instead, I think.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ll take a shower. And paint my toenails. And watch Easy A. And have some blackberries.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And not feel guilty about it at all.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21419906437</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21419906437</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:30:28 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category></item><item><title>Here’s a picture of all of my best friends.</title><description>&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2nb59L51x1r8my5go1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a picture of all of my best friends.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21307451368</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/21307451368</guid><pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:10:54 -0500</pubDate></item><item><title>Honest to Blog Part III</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;img src="http://media-cache2.pinterest.com/upload/88523948895009410_MOce5jle_f.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is my second &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/post/17280201536/honest-to-blog" target="_blank"&gt;Honest to Blog&lt;/a&gt; post, a post free of edits or careful rephrasing. This also mean it probably contains some typos and potentially annoying grammatical errors.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My goodness it is hard to blog these days.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I love to write. I love sharing my life with other people, starting conversations through blog topics, changing and exploring how I feel about things through posting about it. But sometimes, especially recently&amp;#8230;I&amp;#8217;m finding I have almost nothing to say.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have plenty of things going on in my head. I have so many things I&lt;em&gt; want to do&lt;/em&gt;. But I&amp;#8217;m not doing anything interesting. I&amp;#8217;m not actively working toward a goal, just an overarching &amp;#8216;life happiness&amp;#8217; one. Trying to figure out what I actually want to do, what I think is most important to get out of the life I&amp;#8217;ve been given. This is such an exciting and terrifying beginning part of my life&amp;#8230;I feel like I&amp;#8217;m just inching closer and closer to the start of a big rollercoaster drop. I only get to be here a few times&amp;#8212;only get to look out at all that&amp;#8217;s stretched in front of me and then choose which way I&amp;#8217;m going to go, with dramatic differences between the choices.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;With all of that, I find it a little silly that I&amp;#8217;m saying &amp;#8220;I can&amp;#8217;t think of anything to write about.&amp;#8221; I have &lt;em&gt;so much to say&lt;/em&gt;. I am thinking so, so, so much about every possible direction I could take and &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; that I could do with my life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I&amp;#8217;ve run out of &lt;strong&gt;immediate&lt;/strong&gt; things. I can only post daily updates when there are&lt;em&gt; things to update.&lt;/em&gt; Right now I&amp;#8217;m in a still period&amp;#8212;I&amp;#8217;m standing still while I figure out what it is that I want to do next&amp;#8212;and so my days mostly consist of waking up, walking to the bus stop, getting to work, working, walking back to the bus stop, riding to my other job, working, coming home and falling asleep. I love the busy-ness. I &lt;em&gt;love&lt;/em&gt; the rush, and the way I can lay down in bed at night and fall right asleep and that I don&amp;#8217;t have hours and hours of unobstructed time in front of me that I feel like I should have something to show for when they&amp;#8217;re over. I was working, all that time, so it counts. I &lt;em&gt;finished&lt;/em&gt; something.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But it &lt;em&gt;doesn&amp;#8217;t&lt;/em&gt; make for very good blogging material. You don&amp;#8217;t want to read about the same thing every day, and I don&amp;#8217;t want to write about it. &lt;em&gt;I definitely don&amp;#8217;t want to write about it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;So why can&amp;#8217;t I share what I&amp;#8217;m thinking? What I want to do?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have so much I want to do. So much. I could write and write and write and not finish it all for days. But I&amp;#8217;m hesitant when it comes to starting&amp;#8212;and I think I&amp;#8217;ve figured out &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt;. I think it comes down to that sharing them &lt;em&gt;makes them real&lt;/em&gt;. Sharing them means telling someone &lt;em&gt;else&lt;/em&gt; what I want out of life&amp;#8212;so that more than just me knows if I end up disappointed. Sharing means saying &amp;#8220;I want this&amp;#8221; and people &lt;strong&gt;knowing&lt;/strong&gt; if I got in the way of my own goals, or thinking that &lt;strong&gt;I don&amp;#8217;t know what I&amp;#8217;m talking about&lt;/strong&gt;, and will be so disappointed when I find out what the &lt;em&gt;real world&lt;/em&gt; is like. I can&amp;#8217;t just &lt;em&gt;decide&lt;/em&gt; that it&amp;#8217;s a little silly or too much work or too far-fetched later and let that particular dream fall through the cracks. It means taking responsibility for getting the experiences I want out of my life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sharing makes the things that I&amp;#8217;ve so far just been lucky enough to dream about more substantial. It means that I might have to see some of them in a more real sense, and deal with the logistical things that come along with realizing them. It means I might have to let some of them go because they weren&amp;#8217;t what I thought they were, or that they simply won&amp;#8217;t work. My life and my dreams can&amp;#8217;t just be dreams, untouched and still perfect in my head anymore. It makes them vulnerable to damage and disappointment. Nothing is ever how you imagined it, and it&amp;#8217;s so hard to let go of the dream-version of your life and actually get to the living part.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#8217;s so, so, so scary.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20808928835</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20808928835</guid><pubDate>Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:51:52 -0500</pubDate><category>honesttoblog</category><category>personal</category></item><item><title>Insta-Wednesday: My Week in Instagram Photos</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/top1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mmmmmm&amp;#8230;that salad&lt;/strong&gt; is walnuts, spinach, gorgonzola and raspberry vinaigrette, with avocado toast. I could barely take a picture before eating it. And I absolutely will proceed to re-watch every episode of True Blood along with the new ones. &lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta26.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Missin&amp;#8217; &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/tagged/baa" target="_blank"&gt;my pup&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; a whole bunch&amp;#8230;he&amp;#8217;s at home with my parents in Michigan. It&amp;#8217;s Springtime so it&amp;#8217;s probably time to shear him.&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta22-1.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Butternut squash soup&lt;/strong&gt; with cinnamon! It was every bit as good as it looks. The lapse between the left and right pictures was about 14 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta24.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;That&amp;#8217;s&lt;/strong&gt; Adam telling me that my birthday ticket to Texas was officially all set&amp;#8212;I&amp;#8217;ll be leaving next Thursday evening for &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/post/19985809858/because-im-a-lady-thats-why-so-in-17-days" target="_blank"&gt;my trip to Austin.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta21.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There definitely wasn&amp;#8217;t&lt;/strong&gt; enough coffee in my cup when I took that picture. That happens quite a lot.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/insta99.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What&amp;#8217;s your favorite photo editing app?&lt;/strong&gt; I use a couple, but I don&amp;#8217;t love any of them. And I re-used the container my chapstick came in for bobby pins, and it&amp;#8217;s working great so far!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Want to be insta-friends? Follow &lt;a href="http://copygr.am/matchstickmolly/" target="_blank"&gt;@matchstickmolly&lt;/a&gt; (and welcome, Android users!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20481740785</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20481740785</guid><pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:21:38 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>instawed</category></item><item><title>20 Before 25: Part III</title><description>&lt;h2&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/201.png"/&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/camera.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You can find the &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/post/19247956385/twenty-before-twenty-five-part-one" target="_blank"&gt;first five here&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href="http://matchstickmolly.com/post/19693825893/20-before-25-part-ii-i-started-a-list-of-twenty" target="_blank"&gt;five after that right here&lt;/a&gt;. You can find a really cute bunny &lt;a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzgxo72rTc1qdedm3o1_500.jpg" target="_blank"&gt;over here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11. Spend a month (or three) on the road. &lt;/strong&gt;Like what &lt;a href="http://www.thecorneroftheinterneticallhome.com/" target="_blank"&gt;The Corner of the Internet&lt;/a&gt; is doing right now. I want to be able to stop and stay for a few days if I really like somewhere. I would &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;love&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; to do this in the Southwest&amp;#8212;pretty Arizona sunrises, gorgeous New Mexico sunsets. Mmm.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12. Get a degree. &lt;/strong&gt;I would like to have proof of how smart I am at some point. I&amp;#8217;d like to be in school by this time next year&amp;#8212;which means I&amp;#8217;ll need a solid idea of what I want to &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; at that point. Is Underwater Basketweaving a thing? Feel free to suggest potential majors.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13. Make a giant deal about events.&lt;/strong&gt; I adore Busy Bee Lauren&amp;#8217;s approach to birthday parties&amp;#8212;they&amp;#8217;re such big, hilarious, super-fun looking celebrations. I mean, look at&lt;a href="http://www.busybeelauren.com/2012/02/hunger-games-birthday.html" target="_blank"&gt; this one&lt;/a&gt;. Or &lt;a href="http://www.busybeelauren.com/2012/01/baby-shower-for-sierra.html" target="_blank"&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. Or &lt;a href="http://www.busybeelauren.com/2012/01/tys-birthday-party.html" target="_blank"&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, for sure. It&amp;#8217;s easy to get busy and forget about stuff like that, but I want to make special events &lt;em&gt;events&lt;/em&gt;. Maybe by the time I&amp;#8217;m 25 I&amp;#8217;ll be excellent at it. (Note: I was going to say &amp;#8216;a pro&amp;#8217; but then I threw up so I had to erase that. I hope you appreciate my avoidance of that phrase as much as I do.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14. Take more pictures.&lt;/strong&gt; I definitely don&amp;#8217;t want to get so caught up in taking pictures when I do exciting things that I forget to actually be there&amp;#8212;like &amp;#8220;look how much fun I&amp;#8217;m having right now! Look, I&amp;#8217;m smiling!&amp;#8221; I would like to have more (good!) pictures later. Which will easy, because right now my picture average is like, three per month. I feel like I don&amp;#8217;t really have a record of what&amp;#8217;s happened in the last 2-3 years, even though I got to do a lot of cool stuff. And I get so &lt;em&gt;drooly&lt;/em&gt; when I see pictures from &lt;a href="http://taza-and-husband.blogspot.com" target="_blank"&gt;Taza&amp;#8217;s blog&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#8212;she is so great at really getting the whole story of whatever happened through just a few pictures! So I&amp;#8217;d like to buy a good camera soon&amp;#8230;learn how to use it&amp;#8230;and then actually use it. A lot.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15. Learn how to cook a few things really well&lt;/strong&gt;. I think everyone has that &amp;#8220;well, one day I&amp;#8217;d like to learn how to cook&amp;#8221; thing in the back of their minds, and I definitely do. Problem is that I&amp;#8217;m impatient and sort of flaky and a general &amp;#8220;learn to cook&amp;#8221; goal will probably go unfinished. But what I &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; do is learn how to cook a couple of things&amp;#8212;&lt;em&gt;super well&lt;/em&gt;. This always happens after I watch Julie &amp;amp; Julia. I&amp;#8217;ve been collecting delicious looking food &lt;a href="http://pinterest.com/honeybeehaven/i-would-like-to-eat/" target="_blank"&gt;on Pinterest&lt;/a&gt;, and I think we&amp;#8217;re getting close to me actually cooking something. If anyone wants to come over in a chef hat with a spatula and cook things in my kitchen for me, however, I would be willing to change this goal to &amp;#8220;eat things that someone else cooks really well.&amp;#8221; Especially in a chef hat.&lt;em&gt; Ahem, &lt;a href="http://gussysews.com" target="_blank"&gt;Mags&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20410005071</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20410005071</guid><pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:18:48 -0500</pubDate><category>personal</category><category>20before25</category></item><item><title>A Winner + Discounts!</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/Picture2-2.png"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Miss Marinka Z. is the winner of the Spring Giveaway! Marinka, please email me at matchstickmollyblog@gmail.com, we have some business to attend to!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Didn&amp;#8217;t win?&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Score discounts on your favorites by using these codes!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.wordstosweatby.com/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/wordstosweatbydisc.png"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/pardes" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/pardesdisc.png"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/CleanMamaPrintables/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m546/matcstickmolly/cleanmamadisc.png"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20207217007</link><guid>http://matchstickmolly.com/post/20207217007</guid><pubDate>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:30:05 -0500</pubDate><category>giveaway</category></item></channel></rss>
