time for a change

Don't worry, you've come to the right spot!

Since being on "forced holidays" I've been trying to think of a few "projects" or things to keep me busy. Mostly things that are free or cheap because we are temporarily a one income family! For a while now i've been wanting to make changes to my blog but I was also debating on maybe starting a new blog since being married but then again I wanted to keep everything all together so I decided that some big changes and a facelift would do! So now we're www.blfowler.blogspot.com...for the last few years I was writing about teaching and my single, traveling life but now i'm a old married lady and want to include my hubby! I've also opted for a new title. When we got married the top 2 questions everyone asked was "when are we having kids?" and "where are you going to live?" The answer to the first one...not anytime soon and the second one...we don't know. But no matter where we live, we have a lot of friends and family all over the world and I hope we can use this space to keep our family and friends updated on whats going on with us!

On the visa front, I got a phone call from immigration yesterday! I have officially been cleared to have my medical checks! After we get these results and send them to immigration our application will be sent to a case worker and a decision will be made, hopefully! Now I just have to wait about 9 days as that was the earliest medical appointment they had available. But things are moving along! God has had his hand in this from day 1, and in the last week since my last day of work He has been doing big things! We are very blessed and can't wait for the day when its all finalized and I can return to work. Please keep praying for us!

Alright, time to get back to my house wife duties of the day and maybe another project!

big week

What a week we've had! Last weekend was our long 4 day Easter weekend, which was wonderful! We were able to rest up, spend time with family, BBQ with friends, do a lot of laundry, finally finished a book I've been reading for too long, and we even made a day trip to Sydney and visited the zoo! It was a much needed weekend and we enjoyed every minute. Tuesday I went to work for my last day. Its a bit difficult explaining to my kids why I wouldn't be at work for a while...I tried to tell them I would be on holidays, but wasn't going anywhere. That didn't go so well so then I tried explaining that (short version) I can't come back to work until I get a piece of paper saying I could work in Australia again because I'm from America. That actually worked, sort of. One of my little girls said "well, I don't like that!" I laughed and said neither did I! On Wednesday I finally received my FBI background check from the US. What a happy day that was! There are a lot of steps in our immigration journey and I kind of feel like I need to celebrate every time we make even the slightest movement! I already had plans on Thursday to go to Sydney to visit with some of my parent's friends, who were visiting from home so I decided I would hand deliver my FBI check to Immigration and hopefully be able to beg that my application go through faster so I could go back to work. My attempts were unsuccessful, which didn't really surprise me. But it wasn't a wasted trip because I was able to spend the day with my parents friends. It was so nice to get hugs from home and even just to be around people who sound like me! It may sound silly, but you move somewhere were you sound different from everyone else and you will miss hearing things like Y'all! We had a fun day, we did a lot of sightseeing around Sydney and I took them to a few of my favorite places. It was a good day, made a me a little bit homesick but thats ok. Later that evening my hubby and I wrote a formal letter to immigration requesting that our application be processed quickly, which we were advised to do by our lawyer. Apparently applications that are "process ready" meaning all the paperwork is turned in can be shoved through quicker in certain circumstances. If I've already explained that, please excuse me. So, no we wait...or continue to wait because we've already been waiting over 8 months! Its hard not to get impatient and frustrated at times. We are just very worn out and tired when it comes to this process. Everyone tries to give you their opinion or advice, even people who we know have been through it. But everyone situation and circumstances are different and the immigration process has even changed itself over the years. What we really need from them is support and encouragement while we wait. Its just hard because this is controlling so many things in our life right now, mostly my work situation but a few other big things too. So we just keep waiting. I know God is teaching us so many lessons through this experience and I guess the biggest is patience! On a random side note, I'm thinking of changing up the blog a bit. I really wish I was design/computer smart, but i'm not! We have so many things and changes going on, I feel like this needs one too. So we'll just see how it goes!  

Home sweet home

When we went home for Christmas I had so many people ask about where we are living. So here you go, several months late!

We are renting a tiny flat by the beach. When I say tiny, I mean tiny! But it's ours and it's super cheap and our landlords spoil us! We love living less than 5 minutes from the beach. It's not our style but that's ok because one day we'll have our dream home.

Immigration

I feel like I should re-title my blog...the ups and downs with Immigration. For the last year and a half, especially the last year immigration has been on my mind pretty much every day. I feel like i've become and expert on something I have no interest in becoming an expert on! I am thankful for my understanding and incredibly patient husband who has been by my side every step of the way and our wonderful immigration lawyer who answers every one of my (sometimes frantic) emails. Never in my life have I every had to think or worry about where I live and actually being able to stay and live there. So this was a new ball game for me. I guess its something most people don't every have to go through. Yes, I had to occasionally get travel visas to visit other countries back in my traveling days but never anything quite as extensive, difficult and overwhelming as this. As I've mentioned in previous post, as of the 11th of April I will no longer be able to work until my visa is granted. And right now in order for my visa to be granted we are waiting for my FBI background check to be sent back to Australia for the US. I made a static filled phone call to the FBI this morning and the lady informed me my background check will be mailed on April 6th even though it was processed 3 weeks ago! Thats another week away! As much as I wanted to ask her why...maybe raise my voice or cry...who knows, I resisted and said thank you and hung up the phone. At least for the next week I can stop waiting for the mail to be delivered. I know in all of this God has a plan and he is teaching me many lessons. Honestly I think God is giving me exactly what I need. I need a break from work. Even though its a unpaid/forced break, its still a break and I desperately need some time just to do nothing. For so many weeks now we've just had so many thing going on. Most days I feel great about things. I know that God is in control and he's given me so much peace, but some days are just hard and everything catches up with me and hits me like a ton of bricks. I feel like I've been having more harder days lately, which I hate. But as my sweet husband says, I (we) have a lot of big things going on, a lot on our plate that not everyone knows about, and I need to give myself a little more credit and not be so hard on myself and that its ok to have a bad day. He is probably right. Gosh, I love that man! I don't know what I would do without him helping me though all this...well actually its because of him I have to deal with immigration in the first place but he is TOTALLY worth it :) I know that this is just a season. One day (hopefully very soon!) I will be granted my permanent residency visa and we will get to have our celebration dinner at the top of Centre Point Tower in Sydney (my request!), I'll be able to go back to work and I can breath a BIG sigh of relief because finally the biggest hurdle on the Australian end of Immigration will be over. Now I know immigration will always be a factor in our life and I knew that when I married an Australian. And one day maybe we'll have to deal with this on the American end for Ben and I pray if/when we do I will have learned a lot from this go round to help me the next time! Its just a season, it will pass. Right now I'm constantly praying for strength to get through this season and patient while we wait for the next. But everyday thankful its in God's hands.  

sick days

My hubby and I have both been home sick the last few days and boy does that make for an interesting few days! Thankfully we're both on the mend. For me sick days lead to a 'Lindsey nest' on the sofa complete with my new memory foam pillow (which I am in love with, its amazing how much a pillow can change how well you sleep!), blanket, cup of tea, and my laptop. I've spent more time on Pinterest in the last 2 days than I probably should but its so addicting and I love it! For some silly reason Pinterest makes me feel at home. I love all the crafty things, the tons of holiday decor ideas, I love all the beautifully decorated houses that scream southern living, I love, love the countless teaching ideas and don't even get me started on the yummy looking recipes! I think Pinterest is a southern girls best friend. I'm from the south..we decorate our homes for every holiday, we monogram everything, we love looking our best, including our big hair (which had to be the first thing to go when I moved to Oz, courtesy of my cousin). I love being a southern girl and I miss it terribly, somedays.

Pinterest is also wonderful at making me miss teaching...terribly. There are SO many ideas its crazy! I think my teaching ideas board has the most pins of any of my boards. I've definitely gotten sucked into reading teaching blogs this week and pinning tons of ideas for my classroom I hope to have again one day. I'm very thankful to be in a school and very thankful for my job, but its not teaching and I'm a teacher. I've known since I was little that I wanted to be a teacher. I used to spend my allowance at the teacher supply store and turned our playroom into a classroom. I did such a good job that once we had a repair man or someone come to our house once and asked if my mom home-schooled us! There are not a lot of things that I think i'm good at, but i'm good at being a teacher. Its my passion, its what I feel is my calling in life, and its what I love and miss everyday. But God is good and I know I'll get to teach again and when I do, watch out because i've got a ton of new ideas, thanks to Pinterest!

 

You learn something new everyday

Its true. I feel like this is a major theme in my life now! Everyday I do learn something new; whether it be in my job, about my friends, about living in another country, my husband, being married, my relationship with God, and who would have thought i'm still learning about me, even after 27 years! This might sound all kids of cheesy, but I feel like moving half way around the world and starting a life in another country really has changed my perspective on life. I think of all the lessons and experiences I've gone through in the last 19 months and sometimes I wonder how i've made it this far.

My hubby and I talk sometimes about some of the differences between the US and Australia, most of them not major things (even though at times it may feel like) whether it be hanging our clothes on the line to dry outside, cooking with herbs from our landlords herb garden, how slow the internet is here, washing dishes by hand, having central heating and air, etc. I told him that even though a lot of those things are silly, I hope if we do move to the US one day that we can have a clothes line in our back yard, have our own herb garden and maybe even some chooks! Don't get me wrong, I still want a dryer and dishwasher and all those things I miss so much, but every once in a while it is nice to sleep on sheets that had been hung outside in the sunshine all day!

I have decided that no matter where we live when we have kids I want them to know everything about where they come from, after all they will be half Australian and half American! I want them to know what its like to hang clothes on the line and not just use the dryer! I want them to get to celebrate all sorts of American and Australian holidays, we will get to do road trips around Australia and the US, and Lord help us but hopefully they will learn to love flying because we will be doing a lot of it! At times its overwhelming thinking of being an international family, but we can and will make it work. I'm incredibly thankful for technology and know that no matter where we live our kids will grow up knowing part of their family via skype, and thats ok.

I think of how moving here for me has been and i've had moments of ups and downs. Some days are great and some i'm just down right homesick. Its funny when I first moved here I talked about how the culture shock wasn't bad and I wasn't very affected by it...yeah, I was wrong. I think it takes quite a while for culture shock to set in. I've been here over a year and a half and I still have moments of, whoa! I really hope we will be able to create a life for our kids where they don't have to go through some of those experiences. Although I know some of it will be necessary, I just want to protect them from as much of the hurt and homesick as we can, wherever we live. I hope they always feel like they fit in whether it be in Australia or the US. I hope we can teach them so much about both places that it just becomes a natural part of their life. I hope they love both of the places they come from just as much as Ben and I do. Being an international family affects more than just Ben and I, but at the end of the day its he and I. We have to make the decisions that are best for us and one day for our children. We can't worry about what will make everyone else happy, because lets face it, we can't and we shouldn't have to. Its about us, our 'one day' family and the plans God has for us, wherever he leads us.

 

Blessed

Where to start? I've been trying to figure out what to start with and all I have is- we are incredibly blessed. As i've shared in past post, we have a lot going on! One of the biggest things being my permanent resident visa which we are waiting approval on. And because of several things out of our control, I will have to stop work in April until it goes through. But I tell you what, our God is bigger than all of that! We have been praying so much regarding my visa and work issues (as well as some other big things we have going on...and no, we're not having a baby!) and God has been blessing us and answering prayers left and right. We have so many other things on our minds and God is continuing to open doors and showing us his way. I'm just so thankful. At the moment we still have not been given a decision on my visa, but we did receive some good information from our immigration lawyer, which by the way he has been another blessing! We've only had to meet with him twice, but he still keeps in touch with us and answers any questions we have. He informed us last week that Immigration is making some changes with visas that are "process ready" which ours will be hopefully this week as we are waiting on 1 last thing from the US. And hopefully because of our situation we should get it approved faster so I won't have to be off work for very long, if at all. Not for a minute do I think any of this is an accident. God is on our side and he is working it all out. I'm not going to lie there have been times when I get so overwhelmed and stressed out with everything going on and knowing I don't have control over any of it, but God has given me so much peace about it all. We still have a ways to go and several more things going on besides the visa but God is in the drivers seat and I'm so excited to see where he is taking us!