JOY COMES IN THE MORNING


light
like i could dance
everywhere
out of the dark
into the light
a glorious light
finally
finally
i'm happy
finally
finally
it feels like i have a living sun in me--
oh wait
i do
a bright
living
Son
rivers actually do come in every wasteland
i almost didn't believe
i feel like
i could burst
with a love unexplainable
i'm not where i want to be
even still
but that's good, right
always wanting to grow
i forgot what it felt like
joy
but now i know
and i never
ever
want to forget again
isaiah 43:19
--------------------
I don't care if this is considered good or not.. I wrote this within five minutes just now. It's how I feel right now. A short time ago I came out of a pretty awful place of feeling nothing. Just nothing. I don't even know how to explain it. Just very dark. But I kept hoping and pushing and I'm okay. More than okay. I've got my JOY back. I've got my love for prayer and reading the Word back. I realize now the importance of prayer and staying in the Word and that a relationship means you have to put in work too. And I'm very happy about this whole thing.
"For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow." James 1:3
-aaliyah

THE MUSIC TAG

Hey hey hey!

So most of you all probably know by now, but I am hugely, crazily, fanatically in love with music. Besides Jesus, of course, it is my heart; my passion; my everything. I have a really long story about my music background and how I got to this place in my life of loving it as much as I do, but that's another post for another time ;) Anyways, so in honor of National Music Day today, I decided to make a tag for all you music lovers out there! And I stopped at six questions because it's a really odd number to stop at. I was gonna go to ten but I was like, "no, this is my life." ENJOY :''') OOO! Also, feel free to use the image below or use your own!


RULES:
1. Thank the person who tagged you and include and link to their blog. (because kindness, bro)
2. Answer the questions asked below.
3. Tag 5+ bloggers and let them know. (social media, text, email, comment, whateves)
4. Add your own question to the end of the tag for your nominees to answer and answer it yourself. (optional, but fun)
5. Include these rules in your post.

QUESTIONS:
1. Do you play any instruments?
2. What is your favorite music genre?
3. Is there a music genre you absolutely cannot stand?! (this can be a multiple answer)
4. What is your favorite way to listen to music? (CD, vinyl, mp3, radio, etc.)
5. Top three favorite bands/singers?
6. What are your three favorite chords? (I guess this can really truly only be applied to people who play an instrument...whoops)

MY ANSWERS:


01. DO YOU PLAY ANY INSTRUMENTS?

Yes!! I play four instruments. I've played piano for as long as I can remember, and over the past year I've taught myself guitar, ukulele, and banjo. Still teaching myself banjo, but the other three I can actually play fairly well. I'm not a pro (not even close) at any of these though, haha. I did play violin when I was seven but I never picked it back up... I should now, though!!

02. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC GENRE?

Definitely folk rock. I also love alternative rock, but there's something about rock mixed with banjo and harmonica that is just stellar. And since I really only listen to Christian, NEEDTOBREATHE does this perfectly for me. And because NTB is all around amazing. ;) #fangirl

03. IS THERE A MUSIC GENRE YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT STAND?!

Country. I cannot listen to it. Also bluegrass. And I can stand very few rap songs. It's not that I just hate it... I'm just not gangster enough (I've tried, trust me). *girl with hand up emoji*

04. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO LISTEN TO MUSIC?
(CD, MP3, VINYL, RADIO, ETC.)

It's probably a tie between mp3 and vinyl. I live for listening to music in the car, but at night when I'm chillin' like introverts do, I love my vinyls.

05. TOP THREE FAVORITE BANDS/SINGERS?

 NEEDTOBREATHE (for sure), Switchfoot/Jon Foreman (definitely) and hmmm... This is hard... I mean, I will always and forever have a love for For King and Country but I don't know if I would put it at my top three right now. Maybe The Dust of Men.. I dunno. I'm more of a person who has a band that I like but I pick out the songs, ya feel? So there's not many bands I like as an entire whole. I have a lot of folk bands I listen to but not really the bands... Just certain songs. :'''') 

06. WHAT ARE YOUR THREE FAVORITE CHORDS?

F#m, C#m, and G!


QUESTION FOR MY NOMINEES:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG BECAUSE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU?

 "Wasteland" by NEEDTOBREATHE. The lyrics mean a lot to me. My favorite verse is Isaiah 43:19 and this song is basically based off that.


I TAG:


Enjoy the tag, my little pineapples.
-aaliyah xx

APOLOGIES/STORY TIME/MERCY JUBILEE

Gather around, my sweeties.
So I wanted to apologize for not posting my weekly segments, and I apologize in advance if I don't have a very full playlist this month. Life has gotten pretttyyy busy. You would already know this if you follow me on Instagram, but my little tiny baby sister was born this past weekend! I don't have a whole lot of pictures yet, but here's a few:

 
and we are just going to pretend this is not a screenshot ok because I really don't feel like cropping anything right now *laughing emojis*

For those of you who don't follow me on Instagram, we named her Mercy Jubilee. She was seven pounds, fourteen ounces and was twenty inches long. Mercy beat me at being my moms biggest baby! 
The original plan was to have a home birth like my mom did with the last baby, but there were some issues and it didn't happen. We moved to the hospital and she ended up having to have her first c-section which I was really hoping she wouldn't have to have. Mercy and Momma are doing well and the only problem they had was a minor infection for the both of them, but they are getting released tomorrow! We love Mercy so much already and she is the cutest little thing and she already has a lot of sass (which she totally gets from moi). ;) I will post more pictures soon but for now I'll just leave you with this!

Also, I guest posted for Abbie yesterday! I feel so blessed. I got so many wonderful comments! To everyone who didn't see my reply, THANK YOU!!! I am so excited for Abbie's new series and am so thankful she asked me to be apart of it!



THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS RIGHT HERE: My bestie irl, JacyRayn, has finally decided to convert to my Blogger ways. *THROWS CONFETTI* *DANCES WITH MY UNICORNS* *DOES THE CARLTON* She is moving her whole Wordpress blog to Blogger!!! I have her design all ready but we are just in the process of importing files and such. The link to her Wordpress blog is HERE if you want to read up, and HERE is the link to her new blog! Do not leave this blog until you follow her blog or I will unleash my wrath upon the nations.* You'll love her. (because obviously we are best friends and obviously that means she is awesome because obviously I am awesome. jk but fr) Her writing is basically.. MHM. I'm totally not bias though, what are you talking about pshhhhhh!

*aka make all of you sick waffle people eat pancakes for the REST OF YOUR LIVES MUAHAHAHAHHAHHAAHAA!



OKAY SO REMEMBER: Please forgive me for not posting segments. Forgive me if the playlist isn't full. Gawk at the pictures of my fluffy-cheeked baby sister. AND GO FOLLOW JACY.

ok love you guys
you are the shiniest of the stars <3
-aaliyah

INADEQUACY

*WARNING: i tried to make this coherent but failed ok forgive me please*

I have been thinking a lot lately about inadequacy.
Why do we always feel inadequate..? Or even adequate?

I find myself feeling so inadequate a lot and it's been on my mind non-stop for about a week now.
This is a post to me. I sincerely hope it encourages you but honestly, I need this just as much as the next person. Like, seriously, please throw this post in my face once a month. I struggle a lot with thinking if I'm not perfect at something, what's the point in sharing my gifts or continuing to pursue them? That's such a wrong mindset! But I will elaborate later.


I thought I'd start by giving the definitions of inadequate and adequate because this is what got me thinking
and made me realize we shouldn't feel "adequate" either.


in·ad·e·quate
inˈadikwət/
adjective
lacking the quality or quantity required; insufficient for a purpose.

ad·e·quate
/ˈadəkwət/
adjective
  1. satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.


So you see? Even feeling "adequate" isn't right. 
Being adequate is simply being "satisfactory" or "acceptable". UH NO??? We are so much more than that!
Let me tell you this: no one on the face of this earth can do YOU! No one else can ever play music like you, paint like you, write like you, sing like you, photograph like you. No one! You are so unique in the way you do you. Isn't that amazing?! I think that is so awesome! But we don't always remember that.. do we.. ? See, that's the problem with me. I hear all this wonderful advice but I never hardly actually use it. It's really unfortunate. I hate it. I beat myself up a lot about it. BUT THAT'S ME GOING ON A RABBIT TRAIL.

Why do we feel like we are so inadequate?
Why should we ever feel that someone else can do our job better than we can? Because pay attention really close now: they can't. You have a purpose no one else can fulfill and no matter what you say or try to believe, they cannot do things how you can.



Have you ever noticed that even if you trace a piece of someone else's art it still never looks the same? (I mean unless, of course, you have a profession in tracing or something but YA KNOW.) That's because you cannot possibly do something the exact same way as someone else. And that, my friend, is awesome. We should take pride in our uniqueness instead of wishing we had someone else's talent. (Even though uh, homegirl does this wayyy too much.) Trust me, this is hard! As a self-proclaimed musician, I get the opportunity to do this a lot. I see other people or friends who play the same instrument as I do and I hear them play and think, "Wow, I don't even want to play now because I cannot possibly compare to them." Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhyyyy do we do this? Why do I do this?

I recently was talking to a close friend of mine about this and I said something along the lines of, "Could you imagine if people didn't compare themselves to other people, believed in themselves, and fear wasn't a thing?!" I wonder about this a lot. And that conversation was really the starting point of this post. What if you didn't compare yourself to others? What if you believed in yourself? What if fear wasn't a thing? What would you do? If that doesn't get you thinking I don't know what will!

Whatever your gift is, you are FABULOUS at it. Do not, please, feel inadequate. You do you. Let them do them.



Also: Please don't give up on something just because your first draft, song, recipe, whatever isn't perfect. The saying, "practice makes perfect" is actually true. Please remind me of this once a month, though, because I somehow always tend to forget this. I am so bad at expecting to be instantly fantastic at something at the first try. Unless you are a literal prodigy, this doesn't really happen. Your first blog post (unless you've had experience or just an all around majestic person unlike me) will most likely be so bad. You will look bad four years from now (trust me, I know) and laugh really hard at how shy you were, grammar, and just your overall weirdness. Your first poem may not rhyme too well, your choice of words will probably not be the best, but you have to start somewhere. All the people you admire --whether that be friends, family, or Picasso-- they all had to start somewhere and they sure didn't start at Perfection. I look back on the things I wrote, drew, or photographed a year ago and say, "Shew! I came a loonngggg way!" Remember this whenever you start something new!



The thing is, we will feel inadequate (or even adequate) a lot. That's just reality. We are human. No matter how much encouragement, pep talks, or pieces of advice we get, in the end we have to make the decision to follow through. It's all up to you. And like I've said about three times so far, please remind me of this at least once a month because I never seem to remember. We make the decisions on the things we do, think, and believe. Believe you are more than adequate. Know you are special. Accept your individuality and love it.

I'll leave you again with this:
What if you didn't compare yourself to others? What if you believed in yourself? What if fear wasn't a thing?


a xx
(all photos via my pinterest)




MAY PLAYLIST

Hey! Guess what?! I actually posted a playlist this month! Props to me for actually getting it done. I didn't post it in May because I was actually roller skating all day and forgot to schedule the post and so it just didn't get done.  BUT I STILL GOT IT UP SO. I didn't post one last month, and I'm sorry. :''''')

This month I've really been into folk. Christian folk. I've found a ton of new people and it's amazing background music but I love to listen to it for enjoyment as well! I am usually a folk rock kinda gal ya know gettin' that banjo in the background but also that bass, electric guitar, and drums? Ya feel? But I've branched out this month and listened to pure folk. Some of these songs are folk rock, some straight-up folk, an Abbiee song (hehe), some Disney, and even one pop song because I saw it performed live so there are hilarious and fun memories attached to it and because it makes me happy. :) You're just gonna get it ALL this month, okay? Okay.




(sorry for a poo-ey picture)

 CLICK HERE for the playlist!

HELLO JUNE | GOALS

It's June, guys. What.even.happened.to.this.year.
IT LITERALLY FLEW BY LIKE WHAT?!?!?! It's like, summer. Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.
I mean summer is always full of memories but... I really don't like heat so........

ANYWAYS. Let's grade my goals and set some new ones.



i. Finish Son.
A+! I finished it and started a new book.

ii. Learn more banjo and hopefully, get the gist of clawhammer.
F. I mean, I'm getting fast at my chord changes but I haven't really set out to
learn anything new. I have had a serious case of inspiration block lately.

iii. Hebrew, Hebrew, Hebrew.
Eh. I don't really know how to grade this. I've done okay. But at the same time, we
are out of school now so I haven't really done it because of that.


GOALS FOR JUNE:

i. Have my watercolor party.

ii. Write more about what's on my heart on the blog.

iii. Finish The Journals of Rachel Joy Scott

iv. Do a creative photo shoot.


(p.s. look for a May playlist tomorrow!)