wordy wednesday: entry #4

INSECURITY

one of my devotions this week was on insecurity & it got me thinking: i'm insecure! {lol}  i have my reasons.  i fear rejection, i'm a people pleaser, i feel that i need approval of others, i like to hear compliments for confirmation of my actions, but on stage i feel like i am a totally confident alternate person.  if that doesn't scream insecurity, i don't know what does.  these are things that i struggle with everyday.

anyways, Joyce writes, "the truth is that we don't need to struggle to get from man what God freely gives us... our worth, value, acceptance & approval come from Him."  that was very uplifting & hit home with me!

i remember one sunday, i was practicing with my church's praise band before performing a new song that i had wrote.  the song was a little bit more confrontational {being that it addressed the church body as a whole & it was dealing with my own personal issues... no, i'm not perfect, if you can't tell at this point}.  i was nervous that i would upset people in the congregation and i was talking with my pastor {also the bass player in the band} and our music director about it and i'll never forget what my pastor said:  "we play for an audience of one."

i don't really know who started that phrase but whoever it was, they were so right and Joyce is too.  why should i care what others think or say about me?  as long as i am trying to please God, His opinion is the only one that matters.

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

- Galatians 1: 10

who are you trying to please today? just wondering.

song obsession

obsession! yes! and not just because it's on the Hunger Games soundtrack {i'm getting sick of myself saying it so i know you probably are too lol}  but this song is amazing, i think this might be the best duet taylor swift has ever done!  and if you know anything about the book series then you will understand the music video a little bit but its awesome without that knowledge too! check it out!  & while your checking things out, my sister and i did a rendition of this song you can check it out here.  after you follow the link; under songs there should be a play button beside "safe and sound- cover"; click the play button & it should start momentarily!

enjoy!

there's my sunshine

-TODAY'S FORECAST-

68 & SUNNY

today was amazing in the great city of lexington, ky.  i haven't done awkward & awesome in awhile so i thought today i would do sort of an "awesome" post because i'm in such a good mood!

why today was sunny:

- the sun was literally out & shinning, there was a slight breeze, i wore a shirt with short sleeves, my $5 sunglasses, & NO jacket!! {this is amazing for kentucky because it's february & we are suppose to be shoveling snow right about now}

- got my astronomy exam back, got an "A"... what is this madness?!?!?!?!  jesus must love me!

- i was motivated to clean out my car so i could put the top down {i didn't want months of parking papers -not tickets, more like vouchers lol- flying out on the road not to mention all of those receipts I have kept from when i get gas}

- that said-- i drove the first time this year with the top down!!

- i got to cash two checks this week {apparently i hadn't received my check from almost a month ago but hey two checks is awesome for one week, especially now that you have money you hadn't thought you lost to begin with-- like finding 5 dollars in a pair of jeans that just came out of the wash!}

- i went to target and successfully purchased a case for my phone {the first stage of creating a DIY fan case for the Hunger Games!!  another post will soon follow on this project!  don't worry, you will understand!}

- i bought a spring-sh backpack at target as well!  perfect for those stylish days when i don't want to carry a whole lot to class & just be cute! :)

- hamburgers, fried potatoes, and sweet tea for dinner!

- somewhat of a homework free week to look forward to!  YAY!

this week has started off SO great!  it's just what i needed!  a little bit of sunshine to remind me what i'm here for & to remind me that i CAN do this college thing!  i'm sure these feelings will be short lived but i know God is thinking about me because i REALLY needed a day like today to brighten me up!!

i hope your monday was just as blissful!  but if it wasn't i'm sure you will have one soon when you need it the most!!

friday's accomplishments

this week i've been really busy with A LOT of life!  so here are just a few things that i have accomplished this week!!

i took 3 exams: statistics, astronomy, and economics {i almost pulled every single hair out of my head}

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i participated & dominated in a scavenger hunt with my bible study group! i had such a great time! "Too Cool to Be Team Two" um, winning!! lol 

{i had to kiss this lovely lion mascot to a sorority/fraternity haha!!}

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i updated my facebook page to include a "band profile" page powered by reverb nation & i also uploaded a song cover!

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i created an official website for my music!! YAY!  so now people can "book" me!  yes!

{click the pic & check it out!!}

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i've been crocheting like crazy, working on my grandfather's throw!

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last night i successfully watched Never Been Kissed two times in a row!  once by myself then once with my amazing roommate kacie tingle!

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i've also been preparing for a gig tomorrow night in Louisville!  {wish me luck!!}

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so that's what my week has looked like!  i'm so glad it's friday!

the Hunger Games

peeta mellark has stolen my heart & the count down has begun!!  one more month until {in the words of effie} the big big big day!  i am so pumped!!!  i'm picking up my shirt from hot topic today and i've started reading the book again!  i'm gonna try to read slow and soak in every single detail!!  i hope the movie is amazing, i'll be extremely disappointed if it's not!!  comment if you're attending opening weekend or shortly there after!!!

may the odds be ever in your favor!

a monday of change

so today i got a hair cut!! and there is only so much you can change about short hair, so i changed the  BANGS!  i was so nervous, a year ago i would not have even considered doing this to myself because i was convinced i couldn't pull it off!!  i'm still on the fence but i needed to mix things up a bit!  so i took a chance!

{i'm no model!  these are cracking me up!}

this totally took my mind off the three finals that i'll be taking in the next couple of days but brought to my attention that tomorrow it's suppose to rain and i'll be taking my mini hair straightner just to fend off from the curly mess that my new bangs may become!! lol, wish me luck!!!

today was a monday of change for me, what was it for you?!?

a bag dilemma

well folks, my birthday is in about a month away and i'm putting together a wish list!  but i need your opinions!  i have found a couple of fossil bags and i'm having trouble making a decision on which one needs to make the list!

fossil organizer flap by macknzphillips featuring fossil handbags

fossil bag key-per by macknzphillips featuring a leather shoulder bag

i love the ladybug print but i love the mint and coral colors too!!  on the first set the flap might be irritating but the smaller one {second set} might not hold all of my goodies.

hoping your saturday is wonderful!!

awkward & awesome thursday: memories edition

{October 2011}

awkward:
- that time you wear slick shoes going down marble steps and slip then tumble all the way to the bottom of the stairs while making desperate squeaking noises against the marble trying to redeem yourself and make back up to your feet
- realizing that you just fell down the steps behind possibly the most attractive man on campus & yes he noticed { and stopped to ask if you were ok, ugh more awkward in that i'm practically drooling when i manage to say "yes i'm fine," i should have said "no"! }
- that moment when your out shopping and you start talking to your mom with a red coat on but she indeed turns out to be a random shopper impersonating your mother, the eyes 
- trying out mattresses when you are in the market for a new one... it's weird laying on those things with people watching you!!
- asking for decaffeinated tea at a restaurant {way to show you're high maintenance mackenzie!}
- interrupting a bride dancing with her cousin {who she doesn't get to see very often} during the dollar dance, then realizing they were in the middle of taking a picture, i felt so awkward and awful!
- being a skunk for halloween

awesome:
- getting a car for my 16th christmas {thanks mom & dad!!!}
- France & Spain trip after graduating high school {pictures will come... i need to reminisce!}
- becoming a big sister to a little miracle
- rooming with my best friend
- learning i was cast as Dorothy in our high school's rendition of the Wizard of Oz {having NO acting experience lol... this was somewhat awkward as well but it was SO much fun}
- all those youth trips with my church
- "junking"/antiquing with my mom and two grandmothers


sometimes there are just some awkward & awesome moments you'll never forget!!

wordy wednesday: entry #3

How to be Content

i've been doing a daily reading plan by Joyce Meyer, and one day last week i got a message that made me quit wining.  she says that, "contentment is a decision to be happy with what you already have." 

lesson 1: contentment is a choice
lesson 2: contentment is a choice in every circumstance
lesson 3: accept that God will give you what He wants you to have
lesson 4: after excepting lesson 3, trust Him to give you what you need
lesson 5: contentment is learned, so be patient

" I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty.  I have learned  the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens, when I have enough to eat and when I go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough."

-Philippians 4: 12

Joyce goes on to say that we are brought up in a world that lets us live discontent lives until we get to a severe breaking point, where life becomes too much.  but if we could master the skill of contentment, think how much happier our lives would be!  i know mine would be different!

wishing you a wonderful wordy wednesday!!

happy love day

{birds of a feather}

 ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥   ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥

in years past i have seen valentine's day as, "i'm single and alone awareness day". i've never had a "valentine" and i even remember last year being stuck in traffic behind a truck holding a couple that could NOT keep their hands off each other on this particular day in february and I felt like vomiting. lol, but I understand that I was probably just jealous. so this year I'm going to appreciate what i'm holding out for!


- loyalty
- my best friend
- sharing laughs & smiles
- kisses under the stars
- strong hands and a warm embrace
- someone who wants me for me
- cooking meals tag team style { i'll shake and you bake ;) }
- goofing off together
- quiet moments
- movie nights
- finally having a hand to hold through thick & thin
- being half of a whole
- being truly loved in every way by a person who is not of your own gene pool


ahhhh!  a girl can dream can't she!!  i know when the time is right, it will happen & this list shall be put to shame!

 ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥   ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥    ♥

until then, Happy Valentine's Day!!

collecting 101: finding your obsession

if you want to start a collection, the first thing that you need to do is obviously find something to obsess over.  i'm using the word obsess for many reasons.  if you are going to find something to spend time and money on potentially for the rest of your life, you've got to want to see it more than once.  it can't be a one time deal or you would have wasted valuable time and funds.

i'm no expert but here are some ground rules when picking out the thing you want to collect:

- find something that intrigues you

you need something that is going to keep you excited.  something that appeals to you in various forms.  if you don't pick something that will intrigue you, you will get bored easy and collecting won't be any fun!  and i think that's probably the whole point to collecting, having fun and enjoying yourself!  i don't know why i ever started liking owls so much, but they just grew on me.  and once i realized i couldn't get enough of them that's when i started collecting!

- keep your budget in mind

i will caution you, collecting takes money, BUT the great thing is your budget can be as little or as much as you want it to be.  if you decide to collect things that are more rare and more valuable, you more than likely will spend a lot more money than what i've spent on my owl collection.  but that all boils down to how you manage your money.  if you pick a more expensive collectible then that just means maybe you have to save awhile before you buy.  owls are relatively inexpensive so more when i found one i went ahead and bought it  but if you want something more rare, GO FOR IT!!  be aware of what you want and how much you are willing to spend in order to get it, so there are no surprises later on down the road.

- find something that is meaningful to you

when i decided to collect owls, a partial collection just kind of fell into my lap.  my grandmother was cleaning out her basement and decided to give her collection of about 10 owls to me.  so in a way my grandmother and i found something we had in common, and now a piece of her is my collection.  i'm not saying that owls are some sort of symbolic turning point in my life or in and of themselves have some deep meaning to me.  but i was really glad when hunting for them started to bring my family together in a way.  i'll talk more about that later in another post.  but if you do find something that means something to you or that reminds you of past experiences that's always a good place to start looking for inspiration when it comes to finding something you would like to collect!! 

i hope this all made sense.  and like i said i'm no expert but in my experience these are some great things to keep in mind when trying to choose that special thing to collect!! :)

if you collect i would love to hear your thoughts & feelings, maybe even some pictures too!!! just link up in the comments section!

happy monday everyone!

life in facebook montage...

there are SO many pictures that i love to go back and look through!! and the weird thing is that most of them are on facebook!! haha.  i think it's because you have access to everyone's pictures of you.  you get to see yourself in light of someone else's memories as well of your own!!  anyways, since i didn't have a long time to talk to you guys today i thought i would show you some pics of the young me, me with my friends, and doing things i love!! so enjoy!  do you ever like to waste time reminiscing?!

from this picture you can see:

- what color i bleed (it's blue by the way... GO CATS!!)
- who my best friend is
- that i'm dramatic
- what my sister looks like (some people say we could be twins except for the hair - i hope she forever stays blonde!!)
- that i love to perform and where i am most comfortable is on stage
- glimpses of some of my happiest days
- how important friendship is to me

see if you can match them to the appropriate picture {they may be used once or multiple times ;) }

i promise to be a little more bloggy next week, it's been a crazy time!!  :)

happy Friday!

you may be asking: where has she been?

{taken by jessica}

i've been...

- getting so far behind on homework because of this little book series called The Hunger Games {finished the trilogy today btw and i haven't the slightest clue what my accounting teacher talked about today because of it!!}
- stressing out over my first exam this week... boo accounting!!
- contemplating a break from college... possibly an indefinite break
- writing songs in the shower, of the love story persuasion, when i indeed have no man... depression
- playing guitar so much that my fingers hurt {a sign that i need to play more often... bring on the callouses}
- worrying about catching up on said homework
- planning Spring Break 2012!! Red Velvet here i come, elsie be there or be square!! lol {only kidding about the square part}
- working... people gotta have their chicken!!

sorry i've been absent for a bit and for the interruption of wordy wednesdays!!!  what have you all been up too?

insta-what?

not too long ago i found out about this AMAZING app for the iphone.  it allows you to take pictures or use existing ones and edit them right on your phone with different filters and blurs and frames.  then you post them to your feed.  it's called instagram and i'm sure every single person on the planet knew about it before me... but i'm slow with these trends.  i love it!  it's like facebook but just for pictures!  i haven't made too many instagram pics yet but i'm pretty sure you could tell about your day through your newsfeed if you didn't mind holding up your phone and taking pics every few minutes in front of people.  {i'm totally paranoid about what people think, i'm still trying to figure out why that is}

anyways i've made a few posts to my feed and you can see them all here.  that said there will be a photo challenge on here soon for instagram!  i'm excited, it should be fun and you can participate too!  but more ideas need to be generated, so stay tuned for more info on the "mackenzie instagram challenge"!!

until then, Happy Friday!!

awkward & awesome thursday

{this week has been more awkward than awesome... but it's the story of my life, so enjoy!!}

awkward:
-  when my professor's lab demonstrations seem like they could be really cool and then they all fail, so then they really demonstrate nothing
- being asked a question in a 350 person class.  being thoroughly warned that i could get called on. soon giving up trying to decipher said question, figuring that the odds of being called on are quite slim. then being called on and only having the answer "i don't know" to offer to my awesome teacher, who's next speech is about how coming to class and taking notes is simply not enough and that we need to engage our minds... it's not that i didn't want to answer the question with flare but i couldn't understand it to begin with, i'm sorry!
- getting brushed on the sidewalk by a cyclist!  i mean really it could have been less awkward had he just asked me to move, but nope, he slowly passes me then brushes my arm all while he is trying his hardest not to completely lose his balance and fall on top of me
- that moment when you get up enough courage to talk to a fellow classmate in the lunch room that was in one of your classes awhile ago by saying," you were in my psychology class right?" and they respond with "yea, like a long time ago!" and proceed to not talk to you while they eat by themselves, can you say OUCH! lol
- curly hair attempting be straight on a rainy day
- coughing... constantly... in public

awesome:
- heated blankets!!
- not working on saturday!
- the big bang theory
- okay i'm not much of a reader but i love it when i find a book that will keep me up all night because i want to finish it!! {another trait of my obsessive behavior lol}  that said, i strongly recommend The Hunger Games! it's beyond awesome!
- The Hunger Games motion picture being released 7 days before my birthday... a birthday outing is being planned as we speak, more details to come, your all invited by the way! ;)
- singing a song you wrote in front of... people!  it's an amazing feeling!
- all the people who give you encouragement after the performance of your song!! you all are awesome, thanks!  it means a lot!!

coping with strange

today's post was written with a heavy heart.  a couple of days ago, my neighbor passed away.  he was 21.  i wasn't close to him and i'm not going to pretend like i was.  but his death made me really stop and think how much death that our community has faced in the last 4 years.  my small town home is a place where everyone at least knows everyone's face.  and even if you can't place the face you can bet that you know someone that was really close to that person.  in the last 4 years, my hometown has lost 7 of it's young people that i can remember.  at least 5 of those were the result of car accidents.  you begin to wonder why all this happens.  it's become really strange to me to think that i just saw my neighbor working on his car this last weekend and now he is just a memory.  the truth of the matter is that death is strange.  when God created the world, death was not a part of it.

"Sin came into the world because of what one man did, and with sin came death..."

- Romans 5:12

no one was meant to die, and that is why it is so strange & sad & awful.  thankfully God gave us a way to live.  eternally with Him.  when He sent His son Jesus to die for us, he conquered death.  because we have sinned, we cannot associate with God.  but Jesus can, Jesus is His son.  and if we believe in Jesus and follow Him, He will lead us to eternal life!

i never made an effort to talk with my neighbor or any of the kids that have passed away in our small community about this eternal life.  i'm not saying that they didn't follow Christ.  i'm just saying that i personally don't know because i was afraid of an awkward conversation.  this has haunted me on several occasions.  that's why i'm writing this post.  i'm saying to myself: "enough is enough.  you need to make a difference because no one is exempt when it comes to death or eternal life."

i didn't mean for this to be a heavy post but i did think it was necessary because it's what has been on my mind.  if anyone has any questions at all don't hesitate to comment or email me!!!  this is serious stuff. 

so today my prayer is a song quote by the band, revive:

Lord,

teach me to number my days

and count every moment

before it slips away.

to take in all the colors

before they turn to gray.

i don't want to miss

even just a second

more of this.

cause it happens in a blink.

amen.