Go out in twos and threes...

Well, I just had my first encounter with some Mormon missionaries. I got to hear the whole pitch-- from Adam to Jesus to Joseph Smith. Somewhere around Lehi the prophet sailing to South America between 600B.C. and 400 A.D. did I have something I really didn't believe. Every other argument I said, they agreed with-- that the Bible is the breath of God, infallible, and shouldn't be added to or subtracted from was totally fine with them... BUT-- they believe that modern-day prophets exist and are accepted via 12 modern-day apostles that they have who pray and unanimously select a new prophet when the old one dies. What do you all believe about their idea that prophets are around today? I always thought that the Old Testament was very separate once the veil was torn and the church was formed, so I didn't think modern prophets were called after that. The only real hole in their pitch for Mormonism (if I were gullible enough to believe it) is that I am supposed to "pray about it" to determine if the book is real, and they said it wouldn't hurt me any if it were a false book. I wouldn't pitch Christianity by saying, "hey, if you don't believe it-- just trash it." I'd be shouting, "THIS IS THE TRUTH!" Anyways, help me out here so I can give them something to think about for our date next Thursday.

I was way cooler than Holly in high school...

What? We weren't cool and popular in high school? I beg to differ. Holly always thought she was too cool for school, but she could never compare to my coolness. I mean-- I was in the band. How much cooler can you get?!

Anyways, Holly said I would be kicked off the blog, drawn & quartered, and have my toes nibbled on by man-eating ants if I didn't post again. I don't have too much to say, though. Nothing has changed in recent days. James and I are 5 days away from being married for 3 months (although it feels like 3 years already), I still haven't found a job, and we still have no tv, internet, or a Roomba to entertain us at home. I've got an interview today for a job with the large animal department of the vet school where I would most likely be knocked unconscious by an angry heifer, but I'm desperate! I don't think it would be as trying as working in a small animal clinic-- one time we had a dog named Princess Vincent who once whimpered while getting her temperature taken, and the owner banned all of the assistants from even touching the dog. It was a rectal thermometer, but c'mon! It's a DOG. And who names a female dog Princess VINCENT? Honestly.

In recent Dalton projects, we've almost finished building an entertainment center for our imaginary television. Only the staining and varnishing are left to do this week and then it will come home with us! James designed it a few months ago, and his uncles cut boards to make the frame and they knocked it together last week. Woodworking is painstakingly slow for my taste, though. Last Saturday while they were out in the woodshop, I used his uncle's friend's expertise in sewing to start a dress pattern that I'd bought months ago. I bought a pattern that said "easy" on it, but MAN-- it was awful! We couldn't understand the directions at all. The pictures were deceiving and a lot of the directions weren't written well. We had one heck of a time just getting the bodice of the dress done. I ripped out so many portions that I had already sewn that I thought we'd never get it together. I still have to add the zipper to the top half and sew on the skirt, which I think will be MUCH more straightforward.... and then I'll have a dress that I may only wear to a Christmas party, but at least I made one! Dannnng.

Now's time for a request to anyone who's still reading this: James is bent on training for triathalon season in January, and I think I can finally commit myself to trying this year. I can train with him, but I'm not exactly challenging to ride bikes with or run with since I'm not as fast as guys are. Soooo, I need some buddies who would like to swim, run, and/or bike with me! I don't have a membership to a pool, but I'll probably get one so I can practice swimming. Did I mention I can't swim? Yeah. I can't. I sink. Like a body with cinder blocks attached to it. You know the kind. A patient buddy to work out with would be good. So if there are some ladies who would like to get together to do this, give me a holla.

Well, I'm going to go back to job surfing in case the interview today doesn't work out... or if I get kicked by a cow in the near future... ouch.

Bring out the parkas...

I just wanted to encourage my brosephs and sistas in the Lord to keep fighting the good fight... swim upstream! I have been so aware lately of my tendency to lose my footing and begin floating with the current of our world. But, by God's grace, we can make Christ look GREAT.

"Come, let us return to the Lord... let us know; let us press on to know the Lord..." Hosea 6:1, 3

In weather news, BRRRRRRR!! I think we just skipped fall and moved straight into winter. Oh well, at this rate it'll be snowing in no time. And I'm a girl who loves her snow. I fondly remember one day in February in the year of 2002... the day when Memphis received a whopping 2 inches of snow (they closed the schools, too... then again, they also closed school once for just the threat of snow, which ended up just being drizzle). Gabby and I made this humongus snow caterpillar using every bit of snow in my front yard. We then spray-painted him all kinds of crazy colors and named him Snowy. Our local newspaper came and took our picture by it, and we were on the front page of the "Neighborhood" section the next day. Did I mention we were really cool and popular in high school? No? Well, good, because we weren't.

SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Okay, so there really weren't any snakes on this plane. I just couldn't think of a better title.

First of all, I'M ALIVE. And yes, skydiving was INCREDIBLE. Definitely ranks up there about second to my salvation. The ride up there was really fun... even though we got stuck in insane amounts of interstate traffic once we got to Georgia. We were supposed to get there arond 10am, but we rolled in at around 12:30pm. We then registered and basically signed our life away (one of the sections of the waiver literally said "You may be dismembered, decapitated, electrocuted, etc... but you can't sue. Sucks for you."). Then we waited around for a few hours... and FINALLY at around 4:30 they started calling our names and we got suited up. Katie Roach and Bonnie Japp went first, then on the next plane it was me, Ashley Adcock, John Douglass, Zach Varnell, Andrew Thornbury, and his friend from ROTC. The last guys to finish us out were Kevin Harris and Daniel Jinks. Even though we were sad we couldn't all go together, it worked out great for getting to watch everyone and take pictures.

In case you're wondering what skydiving feels like (mainly because you're too scared to go and you just want to live vicariously through me), let me tell you. It's cold. After I did my two backflips out of the plane and I started free falling, wow... all I could think of was how freezing it was and how it was hard to breathe. The air rushing in my nose and lungs was so cold and so forceful. It was insane. And you can move your arms around, which causes you to spin all crazy-like. I could feel my chipmunk cheeks doing some serious flapping in the wind. Once we deployed the chute, it was so peaceful and quiet. You could look out and see Atlanta and some mountains in the distance. I was in awe of all of God's creation. We got to go in the late afternoon, too... so the sun was casting these incredible shadows on everything. Then we steered the chute and did some spinning tricks before the tandem instructor took control to guide us down. The landing wasn't difficult at all (but of course I wasn't the one in control of it... if I'd been steering, we would have ate it... hard). We just stuck out our feet and slid on in. Nice and easy.

And then that was it. 145 bucks and 5 minutes later, I had backflipped out of a plane at 14,000 feet and lived to tell about it.

The ride home was also really fun, especially because we stopped by Zach's parents' house in Chattanooga for some home-cooked grub. It was delicious... my favorite part was the homemade chocolate ice cream. Mmmm.

And if that isn't enough, we might go skydiving again in the spring. Yesssssssss.

Check out John Douglass's video that he took himself. Crazy.

GERONIMOOOOOOO.

Roughly 15 other people from VFC and I are going skydiving on Saturday in Georgia. I AM SO STINKIN' EXCITED. Even though I have no doubts that all will go well, please pray that we don't become smears on the ground (but if we do, to die is gain, right?).

Since I'm too stingy to pay the $85 to have a guy videotape me, here's what I guess it will look like.

Are ya kiddin' me?

I got home from work today and went into my room to change into some comfy clothes. As I walked into our master bathroom to look in the mirror, I heard what sounded like a helicopter fly by my ear. I then proceeded to watch this HUGE bee---no, DINOSAUR--- land on my UT shirt across the bathroom. A bee? Are ya kiddin' me? If it's not centipedes, it's humongus flying insects.

And since Gabby and I like food-related posts around here (I think you can HEAR us getting fatter), I made banana bread for the first time tonight and got to enjoy it with the lovely Kittrell family. I am just thankful it didn't turn out to be a banana-flavored brick. Props to Food Network for a scrumptrulescent recipe.

And last but not least, go Vols.

Food time!

Ok, so I've decided to pursue new culinary arts since I'm the main chef in the Dalton household (I think that's blasphemy to everyone who knows of James's skills... haha). Last night I was going through the Betty Crocker cookbook and saw a dessert that I'd seen on Food Network, so I decided I had to make it. I made two last night because we only had two containers to bake the dessert in, and I used the remainder of the mix this morning and had a tasty dessert with my lunch. I decided to photograph the experience for added salivation. Here it is!

Welcome to Baby Lava Cakes and 400 calories of pure goodness:

Here it is as a whole lil' cake

Here is the first peak into the yummy goodness inside

Here's a better view of the gooeyness... mmm...

Look at that lava pour out!

Good to the last bite

Quite easy and verrrrry tasty. Hope you all are drooling by now :)

UPDATE:
Ok, so I guess I'll type up the recipe for you to appease the hungry readers out there.

Lava Baby Cakes
Prep: 15 minutes Bake: 13 minutes Oven: 400 degrees F
Chill: 45 minutes Makes: 6 servings

1 3/4 cups (10.5 oz) semisweet chocolate pieces
2 tablespoons whipping cream (I used half-and-half b/c we didn't have any cream)
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Powdered sugar (optional)
Raspberries (optional)

1. For filling, in a small heavy saucepan combine 3/4 cup of the chocolate pieces and whipping cream. Cook and stir over low heat until chocolate melts. Remove from heat. Cool, stirring occasionally. Cover; chill about 45 minutes or until firm.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium heavy saucepan cook and stir the remaining 1 cup chocolate pieces and the butter over low heat until melted. Remove from heat; cool.
3. Form filling into 6 equal-size balls; set aside. Lightly grease and flour six 3/4-cup soufflé dishes or six 6-ounce custard cups. Place dishes or cups in a 15x10x1-inch baking pan; set aside.
4. In a mixing bowl beat eggs, egg yolks, granulated sugar, andd vanilla with an electric mixer [we're missing our mixer beaters right now, so I just did this by hand and added 2 minutes to the time] on high speed for 5 minutes or until lemon colored. Beat in cooled chocolate mixture [the butter & chocolate one you made 2nd] on medium speed. Sift flour and cocoa powder over mixture; beat on low speed just until combined. Spoon 1/3 cup batter into dishes. Place 1 ball of filling into each dish. Spoon remaining batter into dishes.
5. Bake in a 400 degree F oven about 13 minutes or until cakes feel firm at edges. Cool in dishes 2 to 3 minutes. Using a knife, loosen cakes from sides of dishes. Invert onto dessert plates. If desired, dust with powdered sugar and garnish with raspberries. Serve immediately.

Make-Ahead Directions: Prepare as above through step 4. Cover and chill until ready to bake or up to 4 hours. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking as directed.

Nutrition facts per serving: 621 cal., 47 g total fat (27 g saturated fat), 285 mg chol., 291 mg sodium, 50 g carbo., 3 g fiber, 8 g pro. 26% Vit. A, 8% Ca, 16% iron

Chef's notes: I prepared these last night starting at 4:30 p.m., served them at 8:00 after dinner, and had one left over which I ate at noon today. The cake rose a little more after sitting overnight, but tasted pretty much the same. I think the filling wasn't quite as runny as last night. I filled the dish 3/4 of the way up and it only rose a few centimeters, so don't worry about it baking over the top. Beware of using Corningware soufflé dishes if you don't have a rubber pot holder! After inverting on a plate, those things are too heavy to pick up with a normal terry cloth pot holder. If you have ramekins with corners, those might work well to hang onto. The cakes hold together well, and our first attempt at freeing them from the dish didn't destroy them. For those "balls" they tell you to form with the filling, I just cooled the filling in a 10-oz. Pyrex bowl and used a spoon to scoop up the filling. I didn't touch it with my hands, and it warmed up very quickly anyways. You can just scoop it out with a spoon like ice cream and plop it in the middle of the cake. If you'd like to only make this for two people, these are the proportions I used:

1/4 cup chocolate pieces for the filling; 1/3 cup chocolate pieces for the mix.
1 tablespoon whipping cream (or half-and-half)
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1.75 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1.75 tablespoons cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
Powdered sugar (optional)
Raspberries (optional)

Happy baking!

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!