4 on 4

1. Sooo I went on a cruise.  To Bermuda.  Yeah, it was awesome :)  The water was so beautiful, playing frisbee on the beach was a blast, the entertainment on the ship was amazing, and we ate incredible food 24/7.  How could it get any better than that?

And Bermuda is a British colony, so red phone booth pictures are a must :)

2. I met For King and Country, one of my favorite bands!!!  My mom and I have a lot of luck skill meeting famous people, (whether it's musicians, professional athletes, politicians, or Christian leaders - and trust me, there's quite a story for each of those, including running across traffic on a busy street in D.C. when it wasn't our turn) so when I was at the concert I was going to make sure I met them somehow :)  Luckily, it wasn't too hard, and I didn't have to be too much of a stalker to find them :)

3. The wonderful Petie interviewed me on her blog for The Beautiful Life Project!  Petie is so much fun, and I really enjoyed being interviewed :) Go check it out and give her blog some love!

4. Happy 4th of July!!!  Gotta admit, I'm a sucker for this holiday.  Here's my Pinspiration (is that a word?  Well I just said it, so it is now) for today! Here's the link to my Pinterest if you wanna check them out: pinterest.com/malsmith2205

God is good all the time, all the time God is good

So I've been wanting to get a job this summer for a while, but because of my age it's been really hard to find one.  Well it looked like I was finally going to be able to get one at a great place to work.  I went in, the interview went well, the manager wanted to hire me, but he just needed to check with the owner to see for sure.  Well I just found out that the owner decided not to hire me because of my age and the government regulations that they would have to deal with me if they hired me.  

Not gonna lie, it was a pretty big disappointment.  I was excited about the job, and I really thought I was going to get it.  But even though I was disappointed I remembered something: God is good all the time.  I don't know why God let this opportunity slip by, but I know He has my good in mind.  My job is just to trust in Him and His goodness, even when I don't understand. 

I might see why this happened in the future, I might not.  But I do know that this has strengthened my faith and made me realize again how amazing God has been to me.  Today we were making lunches for a charity that gives meals to kids who would otherwise go hungry.  By the grace of God, I've never gone hungry before.  God has been so good to me and has blessed me so much.  He's never let me down in the past, and I know He never will, so I will trust him, even when I'm sad and don't understand.  Nothing, not a job, not anything else can ever compare to God's embrace and love, and it's so comforting to know that He will always be there.

You are good, You are goodWhen there's nothing good in meYou are love, You are loveOn display for all to seeYou are light, You are lightWhen the darkness closes inYou are hope, You are hopeYou have covered all my sin

You are peace, You are peaceWhen my fear is cripplingYou are true, You are trueEven in my wanderingYou are joy, You are joyYou're the reason that I singYou are life, You are life,In You death has lost its sting

Oh, I'm running to Your arms,I'm running to Your arms
The riches of Your loveWill always be enoughNothing compares to Your embraceLight of the world forever reign

You are more, You are moreThan my words will ever sayYou are Lord, You are LordAll creation will proclaimYou are here, You are hereIn Your presence I'm made wholeYou are God, You are GodOf all else I'm letting go 
-Forever Reign by Hillsong United

Funny Five Friday {3}

Greetings, blogging brethren!  (Sorry, I'm in a weird mood today, just go with it)  I'm finally getting around to posting another Funny Five Friday!  I'm so bad at having to post something on a certain day - I'll think about it, but of course I never think about it on a Friday.  BUT, never fear, dear bloggers, I remembered today! Enjoy! 

If you don't know what the Japanese flag looks like, then 

A. go back to geography class (or whatever class they teach that in nowadays.  Would that be social studies?  What is social studies anyway?)

B. just Google it

And then once you'll see it, you'll understand it like the rest of us who paid attention in geograstudies class (that's what I decided to name the class where you learn about flags....cuz I'm cool like that).

Story of my life.  Here's the procedure for making an important phone call for me:

Step 1(optional): procrastinate and try to save it until later

Step 2: go into the guest room/my parents' room/a closet/a place where no one can hear me

Step 3: get the phone number ready and take a moment to gear myself up for the call

Step 4: call the number, pace around the room, and mentally debate which is worse - them picking up and having to talk to them, or getting the machine and having to deal with them calling back

I dunno why I don't like making important phone calls, but I just don't.  

Photo Shoot!

Hey, y'all!  I went for a shoot with the amazing Miss Megan the other day around the area, and the pictures turned out really well!  So go check out her post and give her some love!

And after you go check out all the good pictures from the shoot, here are some of the bloopers of me being my dorky awesome self.

Ok this face was warranted because there were 6 scary pitbulls chained up across the street barking at us the whole time.  Scary stuff, people.  You'd be making the same face too.  

the simple joys

Our new house is full of simple joys.  Watching golden hour descend behind the trees.  Looking for deer.  Pretty flowers on the trees.  New and exciting places to take pictures.  Being surrounded by nature in a new way.  Watching blue birds and cardinals fly by.  Eating dinner as a family on the porch. Going outside into the cool evening air to do homework.  Life is good, God is good, and I am blessed.

little things {1-20}

Idea taken from the amazing Petie's blog :)

          1.  An amazing and Spirit-filled Easter service at my church last Sunday

2.  Not hating studying the French Revolution like I thought I would

3.  LOVING reading Tale of Two Cities by Dickens for school. (I hated it the first time I read it cuz I didn't understand it, but I'm loving it the second time around :)

4.  Literally on the floor crying due to laughing so hard while looking at funny things on Pinterest with my brother

5.  Absolutely falling in love with Versailles and dreaming about going to Paris. I'm so far gone that I replaced one of the pretty rose pictures I took with this picture of Versailles as my phone wallpaper. (Side note: we got asked a couple years ago if we wanted to move to Paris for my dad's job.  We said no, but how amazing would that have been?!?)

 

6.  Having so much fun at my school debate over the ratification of the Constitution 

7.  Watching Duck Dynasty with the family on the weekends

8.  3 more weeks and I'M DONE WITH PHYSICS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!!! 

9.  My beautiful and perfect new house

10.   I used to dread running, but now I'm starting to like it a little bit (emphasis on little) since I get to run in the field by the woods behind our new house

11.    Grabbing Darcy and going for walks in the little woods behind our house

12.    My senior friends that are graduating this year that have taught and helped me so much over the years

13.   Figuring out part of the Lord of the Rings song on the piano by ear

14.    Laughing at Looking at pictures of my friends in old yearbooks

15.  Getting tickets to go see For King and Country live

16.  New shoes J

17.  Laughing with my friends

18.  Super-soft American Eagle hoodie jackets

19.  Still getting candy in Easter baskets at 15

20.  Realizing that an actor is in several movies I’ve seen

Tumblr Q&A #2

Here's part 2 of a questionnaire I found of tumblr!  Hope you're having fun with this like I am!

Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "heart."

• My biology/English teacher whose last name is Hart.

Basic question; what's your favorite color/colors?

• Blues of all different shades, and the ones that have a little hint of green in them :)

What is your current desktop picture?

• Me with a couple soccer players at the Dynamo stadium groundbreaking ceremony a couple years ago (hence the dorky hard hat) (Ignore the fact that I look awful - that was a while ago....)

 

You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

• The power to have all your wishes true.  BOOM!  Cuz then I could wish for all the super-powers in the world! Yup -  I just out-smarted the system. You can thank me next time you eat radioactive vegetables and need to come up with a power and you use that.

You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

• The half-hour at the Newsboys concert when I got to go backstage and meet Anthem Lights.  Best night of my life :)

You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

• Uhhh obviously I'm going to Europe! If I can only go to one place, then I'm going to London :)

What was the last movie you saw?

• Love's Christmas Journey, one of the prequels to the Love Comes Softly Series :)

Do you have any obsessions right now?

• Just the usual ones :) BBC Robin Hood, Anthem Lights, and British actors/movies/TV shows/accents!  And I got a glockenspiel (it's like a xylophone, just awesomer :) and I'm sooo excited :)  My newest musical obsession is For King and Country (they're two Australian brothers with cool accents - how can you not like them?) I'm going to see them live in May, and I'm so excited!  And you gotta love killing two birds with one stone, so here are a couple of videos of For King and Country playing a glockenspiel ;)

Ever had a rumor spread about you?

• If I have, it's never gotten back to me!

What's the last thing you purchased?

• A glockenspiel, clothes, and shoes :)

How many relationships have you had?

• I have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  That's about it!

What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

• Uhhh sleeping! Like I always am :) I'm not a night owl.  Or a morning person for that matter.  I like sleep too much for either :)

You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

• Walk by quickly because dogs are scary and the dog might stop drowning and it could come towards me and how awful and terrifying would that be?!? *prepares for the "you're scared of dogs?!?" comments*

You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

• a) Yes - I tell everyone
• b) I live life to the fullest.  I serve others like crazy, love my friends and people with everything I got, maybe try to knock off a couple bucket list items, get so excited to go to Heaven, and live a life that makes a mark on the world for Jesus
• c) being a person who doesn't like medical stuff, I'd probably be scared of the actual moment of death, but I'd be so excited about going to see Jesus. 

because they're not "little things" when done for the kingdom

Here's a post I wrote on my iPhone one night a while ago :)

Recently I've been thinking about my life and wanting to do big things for God's kingdom. But the other night as I was lying in bed, I felt that God gave me a direction for my life, and now my outlook has changed. I want to do little things for God. You don't usually hear people say that, and it might sound like laziness or lack of passion for the kingdom to some people, but it's not. Here's what I mean when I say that I want to do little things: I want to touch people's lives by doing small things to show them God's love. I want to touch as many people as I can. It might be as simple as smiling to people in the grocery store, being a friend to someone who doesn't have one, being extra nice to a waiter, or helping around the house. Because, you see, the little things are important. So much of our lives revolve around the little things, so we can show God's love to people in their day-to-day lives. I might not become a missionary, start an orphanage, or do "big things" like that on a large scale, but I can be a light to my family, my school, and my community. Because when they are done for God's kingdom and through His love, there are no such things as big things or little things - they're all kingdom things. So as I go into 2013, I want be intentional about touching the lives of people around me by doing the little things I can to show God's love. Wanna join me?

Funny Five Friday {2}

Guess what time it is??? It's time for Funny Five Friday!  Hope you enjoy!

I've literally done this exact thing before :)

Yup - so me :)

Tumblr Q&A #1

Wassup, y'all?!?  I found this questionnaire on Tumblr, and it is so much fun to fill out!  There are 60 questions, so I'll probably end up doing a couple posts so I can answer a bunch of them :) (And just in case you're trying to guess how the pictures relate to the questions, they don't, I just wanted to put them in there.  And in typical Mallory fashion, two of the three pictures are of food :)

Enjoy!

 Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.

• Feel It In Your Heart by Abandon

• Boundaries by Skillet (never even heard this song, but it's on my phone, haha :)

• Save A Life by Manic Drive

• Complete by Kutless

• Hero by Skillet (well they're popping up a lot today, aren't they?)

• Mistakes by Kutless (Ok I promise I have more on my phone than Kutless and Skillet, although you wouldn't know it based on this!)

If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

• Probably Lauricia, one of my best friends :) I met her through blogging, but I've never met her in person.  Either her or Richard Armitage ;)

Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

• The book is my dad's old economics textbook (don't ask why it's the nearest book to me, ask my brother) Line 17 says: "If we start from the origin (where both X and Y are zero) and the slope of the ray is 1" Sounds so interesting, maybe I should read more later. A clue, no. (Sorry, it's a Robin Hood joke, you gotta be a Robin Hood fan to get that :)

Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

• Yaw that's complex!  I gotta say that my all-time favorite band is Thousand Foot Krutch.  And I'm gonna be a good girl and not qualify it or list all my other favorites, just gonna keep it simple.

What does your URL mean?

• faith life photos. That's what I post about! (And thisisme was already taken :)

Do you have a collection of anything?

• Uh yaw I do!  I have between 30 and 40 nutcrackers that I put out at Christmas time and 13 items in the Vera Bradley Boysenberry pattern. (Today I went to school with 5 different things from my collection - I had a boysenberry pen in a boysenberry pencil case in a boysenberry backpack.  Yeah, it's a problem.)

What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

• Forks and Knives scraping against each other. *shudder*  I'd have to either go with Kyle Kupecky's (formerly of Anthem Lights) uh-maz-ing voice or the email noise on my iPhone. (Yup, I'm weird. But I love getting emails and I love that sound!)

Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

• Nothing - just air.  The wall.

Smell the air. What do you smell?

• Absolutely nothing.

To you, what is the meaning of life?

• To bring glory to God.

Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

• I just got my permit, so I don't drive much yet.  Although I did drive home once we got to our neighborhood today.  Most.stressful.thing.ever. Ok so maybe that an overstatement, but it wasn't particularly fun, especially when there were cars coming.  So yeah... But at least I didn't crash!

life in iphone pictures...

...because your phone is the place where you capture everyday life :)

Enjoy a tour through the pictures on my iPhone!

Warning: most of these pictures are basically of how crazy fun my family, friends, and I are...

I dare you to say that he's not the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life.... Go ahead, try, you can't do it! (He wore these 3D glasses with the lenses punched out to church :)

My brother texts this to me one day...wow...

Megan and I tried coffee for the first time...and absolutely hated it... But, hey, at least we can say that we tried it now!

I got a pair of glasses.  Do I need glasses? No.  Did I want glasses?  Yes. Do they make me look smart?  Yes.  Nuff' said. 

Lookin' good with my face mask :)

My Vera Bradley obsession collection :)  I now have 11 items in Boysenberry, my pattern!  That's not excessive, is it?

Yeah, I go to accessory stores with my friends and take pictures wearing random things we find... Do you not?

 And last but not least, pictures from my Youth and Government State conference :)  

1. There's a banquet night when we all dress up, so I got this new dress!!

2. Haha my brother has a polar bear hat that he wears all the time :)

3.  The beautiful Texas Capitol building!

4. The youth governor signing my bill into "law"  If you're not familiar with Youth and Government, that's not going to make any sense, but the picture looks all official, so I like it :) 

this is as artsy as i get, so enjoy it :)

Just a little something I did on a gloomy Sunday afternoon :)

A collection of some of my favorite Scriptures and lyrics + a piece of paper and a fun pen :)