AND....

....we're not moving to Australia. As expected, I pouted for about 2.4 days, and then I put on my big girl panties and started moving forward with life in fabulous Spring, Texas. I love my life. I really, REALLY do. God has been so good to me and has blessed me with FAR more than I deserve.

And just as I suspected, having a solid answer has brought a ridiculous amount of peace. Thank You, Lord, for Your unfailing love.

...AND waiting....

...and waiting....

Hey, guess what? We might be moving to AUSTRALIA!

Nah, we're probably not really moving.

But you know, we need to prepare ourselves because we might be moving.

I really don't think we're moving.

But if we're moving, we have a lot to do....we need to find schooling and housing, and get the house ready to sell!

Don't jump the gun now...there's still a lot to be decided, and we probably aren't moving.

But if he gets the job, he'll have to go in a couple weeks.

But we're probably not moving.

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to go take a nap now.

...and waiting....

We have up days and down days in this whole waiting process. Today I'm having a little bit of a down day. Well, not really a down day, but more of a down-to-earth day. We've tried to keep our hopes from getting too high, knowing it's early in the game and anything can happen. That is MUCH easier said than done. Some days it feels like we're dreaming even just to have the opportunity presented to us because we know it would be such an amazing adventure. Some days reality sets in and we realize Australia may not be God's best for us. Since we are praying for God's will and not ours, we have to be still and trust that He is working toward whatever direction will be best for us and our family in the big picture. Again, easier said than done.

I told Jason this morning that my prayers have become very schizophrenic. "God, please only do Your will for us in this situation. But PLEASE let Your will be Australia!!!" I'm really glad God has a sense of humor and that He loves me so much!

And have I mentioned that I HATE WAITING???

Waiting...

We are still waiting for a solid answer on Australia. Jason's boss is talking more about "when" than "if", and we tend to think that if the answer was "no" we'd already have heard that, but we're hesitant to make any physical moves in that direction until we have a more concrete "yes." Meanwhile, we continue to pray only for God's will.

As for me, I'm at this weird place where I know there are so many tasks and errands and appoinments I'm going to need to make in a very short amount of time, but I can't actually start doing anything because we don't even know for sure we're going. Considering that I am about the furthest thing from a task-oriented person God ever created, this is overwhelming in a way I can't even explain. It literally paralyzes me to where all I can do is sit here and stare at the ginormous pile of to-do's and wonder where in the world to start when the time comes. I have a million and fourteen questions and only about 3 half-answers. UGH! Someone needs to tell these people that I did not pray recently for patience!!!

On the upside, God is doing little things every day that seem to be preparing us for the move, IF it happens. On Tuesday, I took Courtney for her follow-up visit to the opthalmologist. Her eye is looking lots better, and we're backing off the steroid drops gradually over the next couple of weeks till we see him again. He said this is something we will have to stay on top of, because if it comes back, we will have to treat it immediately as it's a degenerative condition in itself, and could still be an indication of something else we just don't see yet.

But get this....He just happens to have a connection with an opthalmologist somewhere in Australia whom he's been emailing back and forth with for the last couple years. He's going to contact this Dr and find out what city he's in, and if he's not in Perth, he's going to ask for a referral to a good pediatric opthalmologist in our area that he can confer with while we're there. Coincidence? I think not. :)

Thought For the Day

If we move to Australia, I am going to throw away ALL of our socks and buy new packages to take with us. I am not going to open said packages until we arrive in our new home there, lest any of these new socks decide to make a break for it and leave me like I am now, with 5,000 singles that have no match no matter how hard I look or how many laundry cycles I do thinking the match will turn up eventually.

Why yes...I am doing laundry today. How ever did you guess?

Our own weird version of "24"

My phone and inbox on Facebook are going nuts, so I'm going to blog about it so that I only have to say it ONE more time. :)

About six weeks ago, Courtney (my 12 year-old) came down with what appeared to be allergic conjunctivitis--basically, an eye infection from allergies. It took two visits with a pediatric opthalmologist and three different types of drops to clear it up, but we kicked it.

Last week, it seemed to come back, so we started the drops again. After several days of each of the previous three drops with no results, I took her back to the opthalmologist yesterday afternoon, thinking it was probably good-old fashioned bacterial "pink eye" this time and we just weren't using the right kind of drops. He looked her over and discovered that it wasn't an infection at all, but iritis, which is an inflammation of the iris. Then he dilated her eyes and found that her optic nerve was also inflamed. This was a pretty good cause for alarm because that is often an indicator of bigger things going on in her body, especially in children. I was given a big long list of things it could be...from irritable bowel disorder to Lyme Disease to tuberculosis to sarcoidosis....but the biggest concern was MS. Before we left his office, his staff had made appointments for this morning for an MRI, chest x-rays, and a whole big mess of bloodwork.

I think the Dr. thought I was in denial or something because I just wasn't worried. (If you read my post from yesterday, you'll see why I really believe I wasn't worried. God is good.) I'm not going to say I wasn't scared for brief moments about all the possibilites, but I just kept coming back to an overwhelming feeling of peace about it. I wasn't certain the test results would come back clear, I was just ok with knowing God already knew and would take care of us.

So Jason and I loaded her up this morning and took her to Houston NW Medical Center to have all these tests run. We figured, given the holiday weekend, we wouldn't know anything till we go back to see the opthalmologist on Tuesday. This afternoon, though, he called me to tell me that both MRIs and chest x-rays came back perfectly clear. Praise God! We still have to wait for the blood work to be sure it's absolutely nothing at all, but the MRI was the one he was really worried about.

The plan now is to continue giving her the steroid eye drops (which are already working like a charm) every 2 hours until we see him again on Tuesday morning and pray this never comes back again.

With all that said, it has been a ridiculously crazy month at our house, and I'm ready for a break! Maybe a break in Australia.....hmmmm.