sneak peak of what's to come this new year with "The City"

just recently, a few of us musicians have been mulling over, thinking, writing and expressing our desire to get music out there and to serve God even more. we recorded a first take of one of our most recently completed songs this past weekend. take a listen, like it, and share it for all to hear! every view is greatly appreciated and most of all, all of the glory goes to God.

Happiness #8

So this is now on track, for Saturday, which will become Sunday in two minutes starting now. By the time I finish this, Sunday will have already started.


One minute.


Things that made me super happy today: worship and praising God & getting good sales.


I put it in that order because anything that has to do with leading worship and music and just all of that always goes first. I love it. And though you may not completely understand the real mentality or misinterpret it, I always say that if it were possible, I would do it for a living or my career or just for life. But alas, this world doesn't allow that easily. Tonight at my youth group was just really special and I think there are a couple of things that just did it so well for me tonight:

• Having a really productive and good practice -- we had a little nicks here and there but there was communication, understanding and time well spent
• The most random combination of kinds of food for dinner but probably the best dinner too -- fish and chips, chicken, rice, this BBQ'd meat, pork dumplings, etc.
• Praying together as a group -- I've grown to really love praying with other people; it's just crazy encouraging and helps get things off shoulders
• A great worship time -- I think that the flow went well tonight from song to song and it was just really refreshing to come back together with the youth after not being together for three weeks. 

Now...getting good sales. I'm not going to give away any numerical values but I will say that on my receipt, I had saved more than I had spent, which really surprised me. A lot of the things that I got were really practical and also final sale but I don't think twice about any of them. Yet. It was a 50% off sale items at Gap today (one of my part-time jobs) and I had made sure to put in some time this morning to stop by and get some stuff. 

And since I'm bored and I like looking at clothes online too (it's a terrible habit of mine...shopping, I mean), here are a few pictures of what I ended up getting:

Ribbed shawl-collar sweater in heather gray

Rayon racerback tank (i actually do have this intense orange colour already) in black (x2)

Knit inset skinny cargo pants in fatigue green (these i can think about...but i've always wanted a pair of green-ish cargo pants; just one of those things)

Ribbon-waist printed skirt in black print

Tie-lapel blazer in river clay

1969 belted denim blazer in light caicos

...there goes my uh. i think we call it narcissism? anyway, at least now all you sort-of noninexistant readers know. ...oh dear. that may not be good. haha. shameless advertising. i considered this my fall shopping spree. AND it was a super great sale. 

talking done. i will be zipping my mouth closed now.

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ps: i'm editing the time so it seems like i wrote this on saturday, which i did...when i started writing it but it's just so the day numbers of this challenge don't get confused with the actual days. 

Happiness Challenge -- Day #1

Things that made me happy today (in the subtle way):

1. I'm a little bit "OCD" when it comes to organizing and planning events -- it's something that I absolutely love and enjoy doing but it's also one of my biggest weaknesses because I allow it to consume me and very often, stress me out. So for the last week, I've been the contact person for the young people's outing we had tonight: my responsibility was to gather what times the young people could be at the hall, hand them over to Ian and have him arrange the rides. Up to this morning, I was still updating Ian with young people jumping in last minute and even confirming ride times. But even when I'm stressing out about something (that I usually put myself in to being with) and I feel like nobody cares, I know that God is bigger than I could ever be and that it all, one way or another, works out just fine. There were about 80-90 people in total at Carol and Mark's tonight and I even had to admit that within the first five minutes of stepping into the garage, I was a little bit scared of how many people had actually all come together for our outing. It just warmed my heart that young people could gather together outside of church, play pool, sit around, talk, eat dinner, roast marshmallows, withstand campfire heat and smell and smoke and be in each other's presence. 
2. I led some singing/worship time tonight playing acoustic guitar! Granted, it was completely acoustic -- no mics, no sound system, no amps, nothing. Just our voices and two acoustic guitars. It just so happened that none of the regular guitarists could make it tonight so I did what I could do best ...next, which was to take the opportunity and use what little chords I knew and led some singing time. We ended up not having enough time for some sharing or any mini-message but I feel like God could still speak through the three songs that we sung -- and there's just something about being a worship leader and hearing tens of voices singing along with you, praising God for how much He loves us ...that blows me away each and every time. It never gets old. 
3. I studied today! So I only understood one chapter of Stats and gave up on the other two BUT I started making notes for my phonetics midterm and was even enjoying myself, while listening to Taylor Swift. (PS: I really like her Speak Now album ... I wasn't such a big fan before but this album really sings to me) 

I wasn't feeling so positive during the day but writing this out made me realize that despite feeling completely worn out and drained right now, it was a pretty great day. How was your Saturday?