I WAITED TOO LONG TO BLOG!

Sooooo much has happened in the last month. Let me try to remember everything.

July was a pretty good month. Our besties Matt and Elise went to Europe for a little while and scouted out St. Andrews for us. They brought us back some souvenirs and some good advice. And apparently, there are rabbits running wild in St. Andrews. RABBITS. Can't wait to run around in the parks with all the rabbits!

Matt and Elise!

Saw the eye doctor. I still have active uveitis. It's been 4 months straight now. Not really sure what to do about it anymore. I told my ophthalmologist I was moving to Scotland. Actually, her tech told her about it while she was printing all my records. It was pretty funny. She actually stopped and talked to me like a normal person for once. She gave me a bunch of samples and good advice. I will miss her, I guess. I'll mostly miss all the fun nurses. "Hey Carmen. Still got uveitis?"

My last few days at Chick-fil-A were especially difficult. I tried to pretend like I wasn't leaving, but by the last day, I was crying about everything. Every half hour as someone would clock out, I would hug them and cry and Sam would take pictures of me with the store's iPad.

Josue, after he made me cry!

all my kitchen ladies!

I'm really heartbroken about leaving this place. I've grown so much, as a leader, as a believer, as an adult. Working here has made a huge impact on the woman that I am, and I can't express how grateful I am for the opportunity to be a part of it for just a short time.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of being the Matron of Honor in Jolynne and Jonathan Chapman's wedding! Laura-Leigh (our college roommate) and Lauren (Jo's seminary roommate) and I drove 9ish hours up to Murray, KY Thursday, met up with Tricia (college friend), and spent the weekend running around Kentucky and being the best bridesmaids we could be (and having a pretty dad gum good time). We decorated, we went to Walmart, we hugged Jolynne's cute parents and got all pretty. We spent most of the weekend crying though. Crying about how sweet everything was, about how I'm moving, about how gorgeous Jolynne was, and how lucky they were to be so happy. We sent them off to Puerto Rico, and we drove the 9 hours back to New Orleans...

making butterbeer!!

she's gorgeous!

...and got home at 4am. I got about 4 hours of sleep and then went to church, deliriously tired (but with amazing bridesmaid wedding leftovers hair!). We had brunch with Matt and Elise, I took an epic nap, and when I woke up, Clay had packed everything into the car. EVERYTHING. It was becoming real.

It became even more real as we spent our last evening at the Solomon's. It wasn't pretty. But we will see them again. I'm not worried about that.

Doesn't change the fact that I'm still sad about it though.

Met with my rheumatologist and he seemed legitimately sad that I was leaving. Love that guy. He gave me all my paperwork and had some nice things to say about me :)



We had one last breakfast at my CFA, I gave them back all the blue pens I had been accumulating and we were off!

We've spent the last 4 days packing, packing, and more packing in Panama City Beach with the Turners. Giant suitcases, checking weight limits. I even got to go back to Graceville and see Emily and wander around BCF like the good old days. We took a billion pictures and just played around like we used to in college, before we grew up and got jobs and whatnot. I miss when the living was easy.

cutest dog ever! Nick!

But here's the fun part. Let me tell you how much God has come through for us in the last few days:

• We got our visas approved in 7 days. SEVEN. We were thinking it was going to be weeks. I was having stress dreams about getting rejected for visas and having to go through repeal processes and losing the massive amounts of money that we paid for them. Nope. Seven days. 
• Our finances are a miracle. We somehow have saved enough to live on for a year in St. Andrews without having jobs. These past 4 months, I spent many sleepless nights wondering why God was allowing me to have uveitis and how it was sucking all of our savings with doctor visits and prescriptions and taking time off work. But God told me to trust him and he provided for us beyond what I could have expected, in ways that he has been lining up for the last decade. He has been preparing for this since before Clay and I even met. I just think this is amazing!

We're saying goodbye to the Turners tomorrow and heading up to Atlanta for our final hoorah. I'm always sad leaving my family. I wonder how bad tomorrow's going to be?

I found this great picture! I love them!

are these my glasses??!

Carm

Welp...

It's about that time, I guess. Time for me to write about all the boring things happening in my life. Get ready because I feel a word-vomit coming along.

My eye is still crazy. She hasn't gotten any better, and she just stays the same weird almost-circle and doesn't focus long-distance. I apparently have scar tissue in my eye that is 1) keeping my eye from adjusting like it should and 2) making things all blurry. As long as I don't lose lefty, I should be able to survive, I guess.

Saw the rheumatologist Monday for what I thought was going to be the last time. He gave me some advice for when we move to Scotland, wrote me a TON of prescriptions for prednisone, just in case I have a flare up in the future, and told me to start tapering off. Yippee! He also sent me in for bloodwork (round 4) and we made an appointment for follow-up the Monday we leave New Orleans. Like, literally, the DAY we leave New Orleans. He said he was really disappointed because he wanted more time to figure me out. I love that guy.

lovely view from the blood work lab.

familiar sight.

My eye doctor, on the other hand, has no idea I'm leaving the country, which I think is just hilarious. If she says, "I'll see you in a month," one more time, I may hysterically laugh in her face. But hopefully, I can get off all these weirdo drugs and start being a normal person again.

Did I mention earlier that I have moon face? Maybe I just told my mom about it. Anyway, it's a common side effect of prednisone (which I've been taking a pretty high dose since April) and it just means I have a round, chubby chipmunk face. Other people haven't noticed (or have been nice enough not to tell me) however, my mom told me to "take a picture of my fat face and put it on my blog." So here you go guys.

NO. I just took a picture with my webcam and I don't even look like myself. Here's a picture of an actual chipmunk and you can just imagine.

Update on Scotland. Does anybody out there know how stressful it is planning an international move last minute? We are really down to the wire here. We had some issues with visa applications and we're finally going to get biometrics (fingerprints and pictures) and send everything in next week. NEXT WEEK. We are wanting to leave the country in a month! So if you're feeling generous, you should pray that the immigration people approve us in 5 days (which is how quickly they process about 31% of the visa applications).

We are also in the process of hopefully securing a temporary place to live while we look for jobs and a flat. We've got a pastor in St. Andrews putting out some feelers in his congregation to see if there are any options for us. Gotta love the community of believers. God is really looking out for us.

I am also applying for some jobs at the University. They pay pretty well, compared to the minimum wage at the seminary. I might even make about as much as I'm making now! It's a long shot, since I am not currently in the country and won't be able to interview for all of them, but I'm hoping my beautiful moon face and stellar Chick-fil-A experience will win them over.

Speaking of Chick-fil-A. I am going to ugly cry over the next few days. My coworkers are starting to realize that next week is my last full week and they're getting all sappy and hugging me. I'm only working 8 more days. My operator Tom even told me he was probably going to cry after I left. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO HANDLE THIS?! I love my job and my coworkers. Even though I deal with a lot of stress and it's not always fun and rainbows and kittens, I really enjoy it and am going to miss being there immensely. Chick-fil-A has been my life since 2006. I hope this isn't the end. Maybe corporate will let me work there if we come back to the states? Or maybe Tom will do what he promised and let me run the store while he goes fishing every day? :)

I'll leave you with some throwback pictures. I found them on my webcam app while I was deciding not to post moon face picture:

Apparently, Emily and I should never been in class together because all we did was TAKE PICTURES!! This was one of like 25!

I will see you soon, Memome!

This was taken 8 days before we got engaged. Can't you tell it was a while ago? I mean, Clay looks a little different.

This was when I was trying to take pictures of myself for my passport. Shy Eye was still in full force. This is also one of about 25 pictures of these attempts. 

here's a little of the moon face. ok, it's not that bad. but this is not the worst picture.

Enjoying the last little bit of time that we have in New Orleans. It's amazing how much you enjoy the city you live in when you're not in seminary anymore.

Carm

The Eyepocalypse. It's slowly coming to an end. 

Emphasis on   S  L  O  W  L  Y.

I guess I should write about it since I posted on facebook about my eye and scared everybody. I’m fine. I’m actually a little better than I was before. Imagine that.

People keep asking me if I can see out of my crazy eye. Yeah. I can see. Can I see WELL? Not exactly. My vision up close has improved A LOT. My distance vision? Not so much. My pupil is still giving me problems. Mr. Rheumatologist told me it was "sluggish" in its response. I've found that if I have both eyes open, I rely on my good eye to see, and my bad eye just goes blurryville. But if I close my good eye and force my stink eye to actually do something for a change, she tries her darnedest to see what I need to see. I tested it out at work the other day to see if it would focus, and i decided to look at the office keyboard. All the little letters were going skinny and tall, and then short and fat, and then skinny and tall, and then short and fat. At least I know she working in there. Ms. Ophthalmologist told me that it's "too soon to tell" if it will ever go back to normal and it may not ever. Not exactly the news you want to hear. She DID tell me I could wear contacts again. That was fun after not wearing them for 2 months. Felt like walking around in a fishbowl. Hopefully over the next few weeks, my vision will keep improving.

What's reeeeeeallly funny is that my eye doctor told me as she was running out of the room, "I want to see you again in two months! Byeeee!" I didn't have the heart to tell her, "I'm gonna be in Scotland in two months! Byeeeee!" I guess we'll figure this out later.

This is Dr. Fitzmorris, my eye doctor, checking out some old lady's eye pressure.

Well...after almost exactly 48 hours of wearing contacts, though, I was getting ready for work and I looked at my eye and HOLY COW, it turned red again! And it was all hurty and stuff! I immediately took the contacts out and began the panic process. I ended up calling the eye doctor, scheduling another appointment with them, and starting back on those blasted eye drops. And literally 24 hours later, it was fine. No pain, no pressure, no bright red ring around the blue part (which looks really really scary, by the way). So I called the eye doctor AGAIN, cancelled my appointment (after some awkward crying and making the nurse feel reeeeeeeealllly bad about how expensive my bloodwork was) and they are weaning me off the eye drops. Flare ups are apparently normal and it may keep doing that the rest of my life. Greeeeeeeat. 

But good news! I am privileged to be the Matron of Honor in my dear friend Jolynne Fross' wedding at the end of July. She was one of my roomies in college and now we're lucky enough to live close to each other for a little bit before life happens and goes all nuts. I love her! And I love planning someone ELSE’S wedding. It’s so much less stressful than planning my own was. And I've been waiting for her to get married for everrrrr. I'm sure she has too :)

Love this girl!

But speaking of stress: Scotland! We really need to plan for this giant move that's about to happen. Right now, we've paid our deposit and we're waiting to hear back from the University (did I mention it's been almost 4 weeks??) I am getting a little impatient because there's not really much other planning we can do until we have visas, but we can't get our visas without this little Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies number, which the school has yet to assign to us. Can't book hotels or plane ticket dates or train tickets or anything until we know for sure that we're actually going to be in the country at that time. Clay even called them and asked them what was going on, and they said they were working tirelessly to get to everyone, but that we would need to be patient. So... we're waiting. 

In the meantime, I am compiling every single bit of rewards points and credit card points and survey points that I have to try to get us a place to stay for a few days while we look for a place to live. Here is our tentative plan:

Hopefully GET OUR VISAS.

Apply for some sweet student loans. Or win the lottery.

Quit my job at the end of July. Cry and cry and cry.

Jolynne’s wedding weekend July 25-27

Leave NOLA after Jolynne's wedding. 

Stay with my parents in PCB for a while. Go to the beach and get a little tan. Spend time with the best sister of all time. Give little Yaris to them.

Go to Atlanta. Spend time with family and friends and go see the Braves a few times. Yes, I said TIMES!

Fly to Scotland the 2^nd week or so of August (depending on how flights look).

Get there? Go… live somewhere?

That's the plan.

I got new glasses!! I love Natalie Gainey!!

What's your post about?

That's what Clay told me to name my post. 

Well… good things and sad things always happen.

We spent last weekend at the beach with Matt, Elise, Trevor, and Kate, some of our dearest and bestest friends. We went to Pensacola with Matt and Elise last year and had a hoot and a half, so we were excited to be able to do this again. We basically sat out on the beach, or ate and ate and ate. It was magical. We also got to have brunch with the wife of the late Larry Butler, Kenny Rogers’ producer. It was pretty surreal, especially looking at an actual Grammy and autographs and pictures and all kinds of records and whatnot on the walls. My personal favorite was an autographed page of lyrics from Johnny Cash and Julie Andrews.

JULIE ANDREWS! IN THEIR HALF-BATHROOM!! If you didn't know this, Julie Andrews reminds me of my mother, and my childhood. So everyone should watch this and sing along: Watch me!

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from our fun trip. We had such a great time. Thanks to Sam Ritchie and Kellie Crumpton for buying me the disposable cameras for my honeymoon 3 years ago that I ended up using on this trip. 

But the sad part is that Trevor and Kate are moving to New York. Like, today. Like, they literally got in the truck with Bella and drove away today. We love them. But Kate got accepted to the Master’s program at Pratt. So she has to go be an amazing master of art history and arty things. We love them. That’s why we gave them Bella. And she gave us wieners. WIENERS!

God is so good. My last couple of posts were a little heavy on the "people are telling us we shouldn't go to Scotland because my eye is falling out and I wrecked little Yaris," and some readers got all mad and wanted to revolt. Let me just tell you how God is making everything SO CLEAR.

• Medical bills are almost paid in full. Just chest x-ray here, eye exam there, 'roids, 'roids, 'roids. The only big one left is the bloodwork, but it is FARRRRR less than what we were expecting. One bill literally has 85% of the original cost mysteriously cut by something called "insurance discount." AND I made the full amount ALMOST ON THE PENNY in overtime last pay period.

• Parents told us not to fix little Yaris because she's going to them in August. Not a pretty gift to give your parents as a thank you for raising you but really. She's not as bad as that station wagon that we drove in Georgia.

• With some very generous donations from our church and family, we were able to pay the down payment on Clay's degree to secure our spot without touching our savings account. Even with all the medical bills, we haven't touched our savings and have continued to press on toward having a significant chunk of money for our visas. I can't tell you how much this blows my mind. I've monitored our bank account for weeks now, and I don't know how it's all happening, but God is miraculously working everything out for us. THIS IS HUGE.

Faith. God isn’t making it super easy, but He’s making it very clear.

However. If anyone has some expert advice on the following, please, by all means, butt into my life:

• Cheapest way to move our things to Scotland (take on the plane, ship, mail, etc)
• where to live, and where to live while we’re finding a place to live
• finding me a job in Scotland
• finding a cheap train ticket from Manchester to Leuchars
• anything else really that you would like to tell me in general

because no, I still don’t know any of it.

I'll leave you with this funny little story. Remember last time how I said my pupil was all weird? Well. I went to the rheumatologist today and he told me my sluggish pupil was the result of possible scar tissue, and then he said, "Are you taking any dilating eye drops? Nooooo, I'll let your eye doctor tell you what to do." Soooo, being hasty, I pulled out my dilating eye drops, popped one in, and then things got reeeeeeaaaallly crazy. 

Do you see it?

aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Shouldn't have done that. Whoops. 

Carm

Well, I waited too long between posts. Sorry everybody! SO MUCH IS HAPPENING!!

Mixed Connective Tissue Disease. Apparently, I've got a little of that in me? When I went to see the rheumatologist a few weeks ago, I missed when he told me this. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention? I remember him saying, "Hey, one of your blood tests came back barrrrrrrrely positive, so I'm putting you on hydrochloroquine and I'll see you in 3 weeks." I think that's how it went.

Anyway, remember last time when I said I was an interesting case? Well, this is why. It's considered an "overlap syndrome" because a lot of different symptoms show up with it. BUUUT, the prognosis is good because it responds to corticosteroids and is generally treatable. Good for me, because at this point, I'm not even showing symptoms.

Common symptoms include: fatigue, cold, numb fingers, muscle and joint pain, and SAUSAGE FINGERS. I know I shouldn't laugh, but literally, EVERY SINGLE GOOGLE SEARCH PAGE lists "sausage fingers" as a symptom! I just can't help but giggle.

Aaaaanywho. Went to see the eye doctor again and for the first time in a month and a half, she was pleased with my progress and told me to come back in a MONTH. HOWEVER. My pupil is a different shape? Nothing to be alarmed about, but it freaked me out when I first noticed. For those of you who love Google, you've probably googled all the crazy things I've been writing about. I'm guilty of this as well. But apparently, pupils change shape a little as the inflammation is healing. I swear, some of these Google images show Starship Enterprise-shaped pupils. But it's nice to not have to schedule my life around appointments.


Wake up. Put on glasses. Eat Breakfast. Eye drops. Multivitamin. Prednisone. Hydrochloroquine. Live a little. Eat Lunch. Maybe work some. Eat Dinner. Another Prednisone.  This is my day. Not too shabby.



Except for my glasses. Had these since 2004. Soon to be fixed by the amazing Natalie Gainey.

In other news, our last day at The Lord's Church was last week. It's a really bitter sweet time for us. We've been there since 2009. They've been our support through our ENTIRE engagement, walked through almost the whole three years we've been married, and helped us spiritually, emotionally and financially through school, fires, moves, car wrecks, and all kinds of other disasters. We COULD NOT have made it through the last 3 years without them. Wouldn't have been possible. I got to hug everybody again at church and it broke my heart thinking that I won't be able to hug them again next week and watch our students grow into adults. I gotta stop writing about this. It's the prednisone. It makes me cry.

Lots of things are on the horizon. Good to know God is in control. And good to know someone out there made a recipe for homemade girl scout samoas, because I made these beauties. You're welcome.