monday magic | volume 4

HELLO! We're back! It's been a hot minute, but I'm so excited to share what's been up lately.

If you're new here, HI! This is Monday Magic, where I share my favorite links from the past week as well as what I've been up to. You can catch up on old MMs here!

-Starting with vacation: I took pictures the sweetest family and I'm crazy excited to share them...soon!

-Also, Old Navy has sunnies on sale for $7 and they're actually really, really good quality! 10/10 recommend!

-I'm starting back from vacation with organizing my Mondays as much as physically possible which means...

-I'm tackling budgeting! (LOVING the Dave Ramsey "Every Dollar" App!)

-I'm keeping my inbox clean. I decided from now on, all of my boxes from my personal to my work need to be clean, so that means sending out responses and filing away my old favorites.

-Lists are my favorite! I'm using the app MinimaList which is quickly, hands down, making my work day 10x better. 10/10 recommend!

-I'm putting my iPod away. If you ever want to realize how much time you spend on your iPhone, go to the settings, go to battery usage and then see how many hours you spend on various apps. For me, Instagram is a HUGE time waster, so I literally scheduled when I get to check Instagram in on my Clock app! Call me crazy, but it is much more satisfying to allow yourself short time chunks to check social media than to be on it aimlessly.

-I spent a few hours of vacation last week cleaning my laptop of bugs, software, and mainly 30 full GB of photos onto an SD card. WHOA.

So now that we've talked through all of my helpful busy things(!), let's move on to the fun part.

-READING: I just finished Rilla of Ingleside on vacation. A very cute read about Anne of Green Gables' daughter! It took me a while to get used to reading Anne and Gilbert as "Dr. Blythe" and "Mrs. Blythe", but this is such a fresh take on WWI and I absolutely loved it.

-ALSO READING: David Boudia's book, "Greater Than Gold." Where to begin: this book is crazy good. It's the testimony of Olympic diver David Boudia, who relates his story of God's work in his life. The subtitle is "From Olympic Heartbreak to Ultimate Redemption." I won't say anymore. ;)

-DEVOTIONS: I'm on Day 4 of the Bible in a Year Plan by She Reads Truth, and I'm loving it! I'm working through "The Shadow of the Almighty"-which are the journals of Jim Elliot and "Uninvited" by Lysa TerKeurst.

-WATCHING: if you haven't heard of the Maia and Alex Shibutani (the ShibSibs!), you can check them out here. Frankly, they're the cutest ice dancing siblings! They take viewers with them around the world through vlogging to their different meets and competitions.

-ALSO WATCHING: Collins Key. If you haven't heard of Collins, he was on AGT a few years ago, and he is a crazy super talented magician who makes some pretty awesome videos! My personal favorite involves book pages in popcorn, but you can view that for yourself here.

That's it for this week, folks! Catch ya next time! :)

#MondayMagic

monday magic | volume 3

Hey there! Monday Magic round three comin' atchya!

If you're new here, HI! This is Monday Magic, where I share my favorite links as well as what I've been up to in the past week. You can find old MMs here!

What. A. Week.

I know I say that always, but holy moly, every week brings so much crazy joy and excitement that is completely amazing and makes me so glad I keep a record of these little things. In 2014 I wrote down anything that made me happy (like a date with my sister to a movie or a concert) and it makes me so nostalgic whenever I read through the little slips of paper!

Anyway, I wax eloquent.

-Can we talk about how much I love this photo? Mmkay.

ALSO:

-I FINISHED SCHOOL.

-WHOA.

-High school graduate, what??

-In case you wanted to know, I got McDonald's right after I graduated. Enjoyed all of those chicken nuggets ;)

-My mom got free tickets to a rained out baseball game, so we ate our hotdogs and waited for an hour in our rain coats just waiting, but we finally went home and Angie and I watched Wonder Woman.

-On another note, Wonder Woman is an incredible film. Am I going to learn music from it? It's possible ;) But seriously, did anyone else catch the Captain America vibes? Captain Steve & Steve, both played by Chrises. And let's not even go into the similarities of how both die (cough sacrificially in a plane cough cough) and then there's the one scene in the bar, just like in Cap, and yada yada.... But it was so well done! Loved the fight sequences. I loved hearing Chris Pine talking about the similarities between his movie and Cap: it was such a cute musical number!

-My cousin and I spent Thursday morning nosing around in antique shops and eating donuts at a tiny old-fashioned bakery and it was just one of those good, gossipy catchup sessions that you need every once in a while.

That was my week! Now, links comin' atchya...

-Listening: I'm not the hugest fan of Barbra Streisand, but she did a duet with Chris Pine of a mashup of "I'll Be Seeing You/I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" and it's. so. good. You can listen to it here.

-Also up on my listening feed this week is "Your Crowning Glory" by Julie Andrews from Princess Bride 2. If you haven't heard of it before, it's a song about prizing your heart, having high expectations and talking about how a real guy will cherish and guard your heart, ah so good! I've listened to this countless times in the past few days, it's my favorite this week! Before I say anything else, you can view it here!

-Watching: The Dungeons & Dragons Series by Studio C. Angie talked me into making a full playlist of all my favorite Studio C sketches and I ended up rewatching these three, and the geeky voices and dragon speak is my favorite!!! You can view the first one here, part two here, and part three here.

-Rewatching: the cutest scene from Wonder Woman where Diana uses a revolving door with her shield and sword and Etta says the line "please put your sword down, it doesn't go with your outfit at all!!!" You can view it here!

-Reading: I've talked a little about She Reads Truth and how much I love their Bible plans, but I've been reading the James plan and it's phenomenal, would highly recommend!

-Memorizing: Philippians 1:6. Such an amazing verse on remembering the power of Christ!

See ya in two weeks! (Vacay is coming up! :D )

#MondayMagic

monday magic | volume 2

Wowwww, what a week!!! Lemme tell ya, Messy Bun Monday is in full swing around here.

If you're new here, HI! This is Monday Magic, where I share my favorite links as well as what I've been up to in the past week. You can find old MMs here!

Now, onto the magic!

-Am I super pumped that my YouTube video I talked about last week is past 1k views? YES.

-I spent two nights this past week working at VBS as the photographer and holy moly, it was so cool! I don't think I'll be able to share any pictures from it for security reasons, but it was such a neat experience.

-One kiddo told me I was like a "photo ninja!" 'cause he noticed I kept floating around in the background quietly.

-#complimentsyo.

-AM SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE WITH SCHOOL.

-On that note, if you're in summer school/or still just hanging in there with me, this may or may not have been motivating me this week:

BECAUSE DR. WHO.

-I've been working on eating healthier too, and I was doing super until I saw that church had brought pizza for dinner on the last day of VBS in which case, you know...pizza. In case you wanted to know, it was delicious.

-Listening to: How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell, narrated by David Tennant. Oh my goodness. This is absolutely fantastic-David Tennant is such a great narrator!!! His Scottish accents are so good, and if you love the movies at all, the books have similarities in a Viking named Hiccup, a dragon named Toothless, and Snoutlout and Fishlegs. That's about it. But seriously, go listen to them! They're hilarious!!!

That's it for this Monday-it's a little bit shorter, but I'm so busy with school!-may your coffee be strong and your messy bun last all day!!!

#MondayMagic