This bugs...

Ummm... if Gabby thinks her fruit fly infestation is bad, I think I can one-up her.

Last night I was getting in bed and I looked at my sheets and saw what I thought was a piece of lint or string or something (I didn't have my contacts in, so it could have been a bear for all I knew). So I went to flick it... and it MOVED. It was a CENTIPEDE. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I had a centipede ROMPING AROUND IN MY BED. Uggggh, barf. Luckily, Julie's the man of the house and she squished it. It could have latched onto my pupil or something.

HELP!

Ok... they've found me. 3 years and 10 miles away, I've been found out... by the horrid fruit flies. Once inhabiting apartment 215 CD in Humes Dormitory for endless months (all because of some rotten apple and rotten orange that we got move-in weekend that never left our fridge)-- they have found me out in Rain Tree. I wrote about our infestations in North Knoxville earlier, but apparently West Knoxville is just as prone to having annoying and infuriating pests. You can blame it on our building-- it has *quite possibly* the most unsound structure (as evidenced by the curve in the back wall on the porch where you can see underneath the bricks or the fact that none of the doors shut right-- or you can blame our kitchen, which is currently holding bananas, open watermelon, open cantaloupe, grapes, apples, and peaches-- hey, we like fruit-- what of it?! Many a fruit fly has died just trying to enter the heaven that is our refrigerator. I find their cold little carcasses SOOOO close to the goodness of the fruit, but alas-- one can't fly when one'sbody temperature is a mere 40 degrees farenheit. Muahaha. I sound evil now, don't I? Well, they wouldn't be such a pain if they weren't so darn bold! They fly right up in your face and into your eyeballs every five seconds without a care in the world. You'd think they'd fear the creature that is 2000 times bigger than them, but they don't! It's amazing. God made some fearless creatures... for me to squash. James got so tired of me staring off in the distance and crouching like a cat before going *SMACK* with hands that I think he has deemed fruit flies out of season for hunting. I'll have to find new prey now... please send bug spray...

Short people got... no reason...

I read a news article on MSN yesterday that said researchers discovered evidence proving that tall people are smarter than short people. Also, they said that research has shown that short people make significantly less salary than their taller coworkers.

Clocking in at a whopping 5'2"..... I'm doomed to remain a broke-as-a-joke idiot.

Just thought you should know.

I talk goood and everythang...

I've officially decided, based on many proven instances, that I am by far the worst at making conversation with new people. Sometimes I'm bad at conversation with people I only know slightly, but with new people-- random stuff just flows out of my mouth, and I can't seem to stop it. I just met my neighbor across the hall [She's the one stinking our hallway up by starting her cigarette inside and then walking through the hall with it. Ick. I don't think Febreeze can mask that.] and all this stuff flew out at once, so I just backed away and said, "Have a good day!" and shut my door. I think I was just taken by surprise that she was actually leaving the apt. building since her car is always here (so is mine until I get a job...), so I didn't know quite what to say. At least I didn't say, "Oh, so you smoke?.... That gives you cancer..... Just thought I'd tell you in case the Surgeon General's warning wasn't big enough..." That would've been a pretty awkward conversation as well. I don't think I can bare to repeat what I really said for the sake of it being so stupid on my part (I need to save face somehow!), but I just thought I'd let you all know how dumb I am.

Fin.

It's been a while...

Hi, folks! I am coming to you live from Krystal's on the strip where I am stealing free Wi-Fi with my brand-new lappy! I bought a really nice Toshiba yesterday from Best Buy... and it's pretty much amazing.

Anyways, I am really excited about VFC this year! It's going to be awesome to see God at work. Plus our interns are GREAT.

There are now 4 girls I live with in the Hodgson's house (next door to the Kittrells... I smell some pranks a-brewin'... tee hee). Julie Kotynski, Loren Milstead, Sara Sagraves, and Sara Brown are now my unfortunate roommates... unfortunate because they have no idea what they are getting into. No, really, ask Gabby.... I'm a weirdo. Anyways, we are trying to think of name for our house. Great names like The Bex, the VFC house, and the Pink house are timeless.... so we were hoping to get a name for ours too. I was thinking something short and catchy, but I'm fresh out of ideas. You guys got any?

With that said, keep us all in your prayers, please.

Oh, and Gabby.... post some freakin' wedding pictures.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back, loyal readers! Just kidding... I know there are no loyal readers, and I am the one coming back-- not you. I am currently in Panera stealing the WiFi and smelling fresh pastries pop out of the oven. If that's not tempting, I don't know what it is. The local temperature is a blustry -35 degrees farenheit here next to the window and 18 air vents. It's so cold that my right hand is slightly numb, making it hard to type. I think all my arm hairs are about ready to jump off my skin since they're so vertical right now.

Sooooo, I guess that's all I have to say.


All right-- I'll tell you a little about the wedding, honeymoon, and recent married life. Here goes.


7 a.m. the morning of my wedding: I wake up to a dark sky, pouring rain, and an empty room. One thing I'd advise for everyone getting married to avoid is ending your lease the weekend you're getting married. That was HORRIBLE. I drove around my neighborhood and pulled a bunch of willow branches from trees that were going to be used to decorate the aisle in the pouring rain.

7:30 a.m.: I came back around 7:30 cold, with sore hands, and began working on the reception music. I'd attempted to delegate the music to Holly, who downloaded stuff and left it on her compy. So we asked Kevin Shipp, who knew that Bowman had wedding music on his lappy at the VFC house. Unfortunately, the burner on the laptop was broken, so I had to get the files transferred to James's lappy. I'd left burning the files off until the morning of the wedding because we were up late at my parents's house arranging flowers the night before. Anyways, lucky me, half of the files were downloaded from iTunes and were password protected when I tried to open them! Yay!

8:00 a.m.: While waiting on the music to copy from one computer to the next, I decided to take a shower and started crying uncontrollably before I got in the shower and couldn't stop until around 10:00 (See, Suzanne? I was that unhappy on my wedding day... haha). I'm not sure why... I just didn't wake up and ask the Lord for help that day, so I felt overwhelmed and like no one would help me at all. I think anxiety, exhaustion, and self-pity took over at that point, and I just couldn't stop crying. Every emotion led to crying that morning-- if I laughed, tears would start, so I just tried to be unresponsive for those couple of hours. Everything I wanted to get done for the wedding did in fact get done, but it didn't seem possible for me to be everywhere I was expected to be that day. It just took a lot of crying and everyone was more willing to lend a hand, oddly enough. I was supposed to go to the florist on Sutherland at 11, get my hair done at 12:30 in Maryville, visit the church some time that morning to decorate, go to the reception hall to decorate... Not exactly possible.

10:30 a.m.: I ended up making it to the florist and waiting 30 minutes for it to get made. I sent on my bridesmaid, her friend Hilary, and my roomie Sara on to the church to decorate, and I felt better when I got the bouquet and got to the church to see it was mostly put together. The aisle stands were up, so all I did was prune some of the greenery with clippers before I had to leave for my hair appointment at noon. I got back from the salon around 2:30, and then got ready, did pictures with the family and bridesmaids, and sat around while we waited for the ceremony to start at 5. I picked out a first dance song at random from Stacey's computer while we were chillin' in the Magnolia Room. It wasn't too agonizing of a wait since we had Jillian reciting all the monkeys from a video game that she enjoys. :) We lined up, entered the sanctuary, and the fun began! My favorite moment was almost tripping up the stairs to the altar as my heel fell off the step. That would've been hilarious.

Well, I'm too cold to proceed with the rest of the story, so I'll have to continue another time. To be continued................

Here comes the bride...

Today's the big day folks... please keep Gabby and James in your prayers! =)

The thorn in my finger...?

Ahoy, mateys! Only 3 days until the big day... you know, the day where Holly cries like a baby. I'm sure you'll all be around just to see that. So, what else can I talk about besides wedding stuff? Ummm... nothing. So let's begin!

Today, all of the flowers arrived via a fat stack of cash, one arm, and the soul of my firstborn child. Ok, it wasn't that expensive, but we cut back a lot of things we wanted to order. Apparently it's more expensive to ship flowers than one would think. Anywho, after an hour or two of unpacking, trimming, watering, running to Home Depot b/c the flowers had nowhere to reside, and many many thorn stabbings, I finally finished prepping the flowers. I'm not sure if it was too early for the pink flowers because they came at a slower shipping rate and are more open than the white flowers. Oh well.

Ooo ooo-- I have a funny story from unpacking flowers-- so I ditched a kitten on my parents about a month ago that Holly brought home from behind Lenny's near Nouveau. He was very shy and veeerrrry cute, so I thought, "Hey-- my parents wouldn't mind another animal." Well, the shy stage has passed and he's now in his toddler stage. The kitten is still nameless, but I'm pushing for "Bubba Gump" or "Gumpy." For the sake of this story, we'll call him "Pablo." So, Pablo the kitten is a little terror. He has rule of the house over my 7-year-old beagle and 9-year-old cat because he has claws, sharp fangs, and some pretty good ups. He gets into EVERYTHING-- it's amazing! Today I left Pablo upstairs alone and came back to find every fake flower we'd had on the table for the wedding favors now on the floor. He became very interested the flower buckets I had in the basement, too. I was trimming some roses and putting them in an old copper tub when I saw Pablo hunker down all of the sudden and leap into the air. I thought, "Noooooooo" (in slow motion) and splash-- the lil kitty was in the tub of water! Faster than you can say "Jumpin' Jehosaphat" Pablo bounded out-- streaking water across the floor. He curled up in a chair to give himself a thorough bath and looked rather sheepish. It was pretty funny even though wet cats are not usually pleasant to be around. I will end with a picture so you can go "AWWWWW" (or so you won't go, "Wow, why did I just read all of that garbage?").

This is from the night I dropped him off-- I'm guessing he was only 4 or 5 weeks old. Soooo cute.

It's amazing what you can do with Paint...

In a week, the person who stole this picture off of my computer, edited it, and posted it as my desktop will be married and no longer living with me. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be sad about that or not.....

Kinda like Kroghetto...

I haven't blogged in forever, it seems. It's not so much that I have given up on blogging... it's more that I just haven't found anything worthy of posting for the world to read. I mean, really, no one wants their post to be deemed "subpar." Well, finally, today something happened that I had to share. I had to go to the North Broadway USPS, and it was one of the most disgusting and miserable experiences of my life. It reminded me of Kroghetto. Those of you who have ever been North-Knoxvillians know of that redneck cesspool-- the magical place where during every visit you can witness one (or all, if you come on a really good day) of these three things:

• someone who is missing a major body part (leg, arm, eye, head, etc)
• seventeen half-naked children running around barefoot through pools of a questionable liquid
• someone who doesn't know how to keep their mouth shut if they happen to find you physically attractive.

The North Broadway USPS is -- hands down -- one of the most ghetto post offices in America... and today, I think it may have one-upped Kroghetto. Avoid it if you can!!

The home stretch...

Well, we're now down to 12 days until the wedding. I keep getting asked if everything is all finished up, but I can't really tell yet! The flower stands and decor for the ceremony are all theoretical right now, so we'll have to wait and see if all these ideas work in reality. Kind of scary... I'm still nervous about how it will all go down. I can't watch any more wedding shows or read idea books this late in the planning anymore because I keep feeling like everything we do won't measure up to the things these other people have done. I have to guard my heart against designers with lots of money, apparently! Kind of weird, but true. In the end, it's one day and no one will remember after it's all said and done. Right now I'm needing some songs for the ceremony. Suggestions are welcome for a "special seating" song, things to play before the ceremony begins, and the walk down the aisle. I have some ideas, but I'd like to hear some more. So leave comments, please!

You are good... always... always...

I've just been so amazed at God's provision in just the last week alone! I'll give a few examples to help you understand:

1. I finished up classes last Friday (the 7th) and was not stressed about my exams at all. This may sound like no big deal, but I am the biggest stickler when it comes to schoolwork and always find something to fret over. I ended up with a B+ and an A in my business classes, and I'm now done forever. Huzzah!

2. I hit dead broke last Thursday when I realized I had a rent check (and a few other purchases) going through soon for $216.67. What did my account have in it? $216.97. I had $0.27 in savings and $216.70 in checking. My mom had agreed to pay my rent this summer since I couldn't get a job (I kept telling people I had 3 hours of class every morning and needed a week and a half off in July, so finding part time work just didn't seem fruitful while planning the wedding...). She transferred some money to my account, but that's not the amazing part. What is amazing is that I thought I should check up on my half.com books for sale and try to sell more books so I wouldn't have to pack and move more stuff than I wanted to. I lowered the price on a couple of books and added a 2005 Cracking the GRE book that I would never need, and lo and behold-- I sold 4 books in 2 days! It was such an act of God! How else would I sell "Economic Botany," "Economic Regulation and Antitrust," "Microbiology," and that old GRE book? Wow. So in 2 days, I made $177.57 (minus some shipping costs that I'll have tomorrow and the price of envelopes) that I should be receiving in a couple of weeks.

3. I've had 2 showers in the past 3 weeks, and I've been amazed at all of the people who have given James and me gifts! We definitely have some generous friends and family with the amount of things we've received. It's mind-boggling that anyone would even want to buy us stuff.. I was just shocked at how many people came to the shower when they could've been doing anything else with their afternoon. God's so good!

Future job plans!!

In case you hadn't noticed, my little profile picture for this blog is a little (I'm assuming British) girl who seems to be the only "Gabby Wells" and also already a trained rider. I possess no such riding skillz, unfortunately. In light of my impending graduation on Friday and lack of occupational direction, I decided to do a search for my new name to see if I could find a career by following in my namesakes' footsteps since I know I could never be as cool as that little girl is. This is what I found:

http://gabrielledalton.com/: pretty much a blank page with an e-mail address for "Gabrielle Dalton & Associates Solicitors." Solicitors? UGH!

http://www.loesjesanders.com/04/clients/dalton/dalton-pix2k6.html : Gabrielle Dalton Costume Designer. Pretty sweet.

http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nt/content/2006/s1606129.htm : Gabrielle Dalton, a filmmaker who did some documentary called "Frontier Women" in the mid 1980s and collaborated on an autobiography for Mayse Young who died in March this year.

http://www.screenhub.com.au/index/crew_detail.asp?crewID=2913: Gabrielle Dalton, a producer of the 2006 movie, Rampage. This may be the same as the above person, but who knows.

http://imdb.com/name/nm1979886/: Producer of 2005's "Soundtrack to War" movie.

Looks like I have a lot of career options for the future now! Iif only I can obtain social security numbers and bank accounts for the people whose identity I'd like to steal... I mean...

Oh-- and here are my options for future cosmetic surgery if I'd like to look like any of my namesakes:
mm... I would look super awesome if I looked like him.





















Or maybe like her:

















So tell me which career path you think I should follow since I'm currently jobless with no prospects. Woot!

The Shipp or not the Shipp

Okay, so this may be a woman, but it looks a lot like Kevin Shipp to me. I just found it on one of those random pics that show up on mail.yahoo.com. Let me know what you think.

INFESTATION NATION!

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like the oncoming summer months only means one thing. No, no... not freedom from massive amounts of schoolwork or fun at the beach. I'm talking about bugs. EVERYWHERE. So about two weeks ago, a foul stench was wafting my way from one of our two trash cans. "What could that be?" I thought, all too curiously. Upon opening the lid, what did mine eyes see? About 30 maggots went cascading to the ground from under the lip of the lid. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. They all wriggled on the ground in shock and then crawled away to I don't even know where but a vent to our crawlspace was very close... Ok, so after avoiding the trash can until trash day, I had a sigh of relief when the trash men actually got the nasty infested bag out. No more maggots! Ooohhh no. Last Tuesday, my roommate Sara threw away half of a raw chicken (the breast and ribs that had the gizzard and sick stuff attached to it). I knew disaster was imminent, so I attempted to keep the lid sealed on the trash can to prevent flies from going in there. Every time I went by, though, someone would always leave it cracked open. On Thursday, Holly and I had noticed a foul smell around our front porch (very close to the trash cans). I said, "It's trash." She said, "IT'S DEAD ANIMAL AND I'M GOING TO FIND IT!" Well, maybe not that excitable.. but you know, loud. Like Holly. So she goes out to the bush by the front steps with a broom and starts jabbing around in the dirt. I go inside thinking she's a moron, and then Holly runs in to tell me it was the trash and that there were maggots eating all up in the trash bag. Uuuunnh. The trash came the next day, and sadly, not all of the maggots left with the bag, so I had to give them a little bath with our water hose and dump their foul selves into the grass. I'm hoping the robins had a feast. Anyways, I've gotta run to class now. Watch out for maggots.
The end.

Back to school... back to school... to prove to Dad I'm not a fool...

This is the God-breathed verse for the first day of summer school today:

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.

Ecclesiastes 5:18

School will be over soon. Yayyy.

It is hot in my house right now.

The girls in my Biblical Femininity Bible study are doing a traveling necklace this summer... kind of similar to the sisterhood of the traveling pants or whatever (I never saw that movie, it looked like a wad of snotty tissue to me). Leave it to my darling friend Julie Kotynski to pick out the most obnoxiously trendy necklace known to man (well... I guess men wouldn't really know...). The sad thing is, I really like it. Today was my turn to wear the necklace, take pictures with it on, write encouragements to the other 5 girls, and journal about my life for the next 4 days. All in all, it's pretty sweet.

All of this journaling has got me really thinking about some specific struggles I'm having right now. I think when I am in a group of people where the Holy Spirit is really at work and changing lives, it seems like no one ever deals with the same sin pattern for more than a couple of weeks (well, except pride, maybe). So, needless to say, I have a tendency to feel weighed down by the same recurring sin of laziness and lack of discipline. It's frustrating... I really connect with Paul's lament over him doing the things he doesn't want to do. It kinda makes me wonder if this will be "just one of those sins" that I struggle with until I go to Heaven (the thought of which has really been blowing my mind lately). Who am I to deserve sanctification? Of course, God promises it, but who am I to put a timeline on it? I can't demand to overcome something... I can only beg God's grace and plead that the Holy Spirit will change my heart. Praise the Lord that I received an amazing, encouraging, truth-filled email from Squatty yesterday reminding me that through Christ, we have power over sin.

Dude, dude, DUDE. New Attitude. Saturday. So flippin' excited. Ahhhhhhhh.

3 small steps for mankind...

3 small victories of the week:

1. I had an interview for a very good job yesterday, and although I'm not available as much as they'd like, I may be able to petition my way out of the 2 summer school classes I need to graduate.
2. I just received $1323 in financial aid to cover the cost of tuition although they originally said I couldn't use it if I wasn't full-time.
3. I just found my deodorant that went missing yesterday... yesssssssss.

NUMA NUMA.

Gabby, James, and I have spent the last 15 minutes running around the house and dancing like this guy.

Ohhhhh man, I see this making an appearance at the wedding reception...

Exams, exams

Ok, so I'm definitely supposed to be studying right now. I've been home alone since 4:30 this afternoon, and what have I done? I took a nap from 5-6, ate dinner at 7, played on the computer every spare moment I thought about something I just "had to look up," and then started "studying" again. It's so hard to get motivated! Tomorrow is my 2nd exam, and I am just not feeling microbiology right now. I made notecards about 2 weeks ago over maybe half of the material and still haven't even read through them all once yet because I've been going so slow. No need to even mention the amount I've not committed to memory yet... I did the math and found that I only need a 76% to keep an A and that seems to be prohibiting me from focusing on what I need to do. I'm only going to have 1 more exam to study for after micro and then I'll be free (for 3 weeks that is). Summer school in June will be my last 2 courses of my college career, so I'm way too pumped about never having to study again. Haha. Anyways, I have to go back to learning what staphylococcus aureus is all about... Good night!