Do you remember me?

Hello friends. I can't begin to apologize enough for my abrupt and lengthy absence these last weeks. Has my life been crazy? Um, yes. Have I withdrawn and tried to hide from those around me? Yep. Do I feel sorry I did so? Most of the time, yes. I can't believe it's only been 5 weeks since I last talked to you all. It feels like a life time. And what a 5 weeks it has been. Allow me to catch you up on the life of the Reed Family.

As most of you know, my husband, Shon, has been working on applying to optometry school for this fall. He applied to a handful of schools including Pacific here in Forest Grove and Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, TN. He received invitations to interview with all of the schools, but because of finances, he chose Pacific and only one other school, SCO. 

He was supposed to interview with SCO in mid December. I drove him to the airport, dropped him off with a kiss and a hug and headed home. As I was shopping at Winco, I got a text from him saying the flight had been cancelled because of a huge blizzard in his layover city, Denver. So back to the airport to pick him up. He rescheduled for mid January.

Mid January came. I drove him to the airport, dropped him off with a kiss and a hug and headed home. As I was (again) shopping at Winco, I got a text from him saying that the second leg of his flight was delayed for like 12 hours because of that huge blizzard that hit the east coast a few weeks back. So he had two choices. Fly to Atlanta and hope and pray that the flight from there to Memphis would not be cancelled, or come back home and reschedule yet again. He decided to cancel again, since there was no guarantee that he would be able to fly out of Atlanta until after the storm waned. Which could have been two days. I mean, not only would he be stuck in Atlanta for two days with nothing to do, but then he would also miss the interview anyway. So I headed (AGAIN) back to the airport to pick him up. He rescheduled for early February.

Now a lot of people (including me) would take this as a sign that maybe it wasn't meant to be. But then Shon said something that made me think. He said, "Yeah, it could be a sign that it's not meant to be, or it could be Satan working against what IS meant to be. Do I give up and never know what
could have been? Or do I try all the harder to get it done?" I guess I was focusing more on the negative, while he was determined to fight to the end. Pretty much a super condensed description of our lives. His final thoughts on the matter? "Third time is a charm."

The best thing I took away from these experiences was that I quickly became able to drive to the Portland Airport without using my GPS. I felt like a true Oregonian for the first time! Big deal, for sure!! 

Meanwhile, he had his interview with Pacific the Friday before his interview with SCO. That day was pretty much same old stuff for me. Of course, I thought about him a lot and shot him sweet little texts throughout the day, hoping he was doing well and sending cyber kisses. He got home thinking that he bombed the interview. I, of course, told him I'm sure he did fine and that it always seems like you did worse than you actually did. I was sure he had it in the bag. He said that the snot and junk running down his throat and out of his nose was probably not an attractive background for answering questions. I told him to stop being ridiculous. If anything, it would invoke sympathy in the interview panel. Haha! But seriously, all of us were sick that week and it hit Shon much worse than the rest of us. So he really did have the snot. But I swear this man can make mucus and phlegm look charming. Especially in a three piece suit. Wowza.....  

So early February came around and you can bet that our attention was on the weather around the country as the flight neared. So I drove him to the airport, dropped him off with a kiss and a hug and hovered close to the area for a while. And even though he had his layover in Minneapolis, he did not encounter any diverse weather! Woohoo! He got to Memphis and I was finally able to finish a shopping trip to Winco! Success!!!

Interview day went really well for him. Back home was kind of another story. Donovan was missing his daddy. :( The worst was when I found him sitting at the top of the stairs crying and saying, "Daddy home? Daddy airplane?" I had to keep explaining to him that daddy wasn't home, but would be soon. He had just gone on an airplane. We Face Timed daddy a lot in those two days. It made me all the more thankful for Shon and his help and presence here in the house. And seeing how Donovan missed him was heartbreaking and sweet at the same time. Hopefully there won't be a whole lot of moments when Shon has to be away for more than a few hours again. 

He felt a lot better about his interview with SCO. He loved the campus and the people. Everyone is so nice in the south and easy going. Everything was super chill, which appeals to Shon and his own calm demeanor. 

So that is where we sit. 

I will do more posts explaining some other happenings in the Reed Family a little later. Don't want to overwhelm everyone with 5 weeks worth of info all at once. :) 

Our future is unknown. That's a little scary for me, but hardly unique. We've been there before. Where we wonder where we'll be in 6 months. I know that whatever our family decides, that it will not be a decision made without careful thought and prayer. This decision is life changing and we need to make sure we've taken the time to consider as much as we can. I know there are no guarantees regardless of all of our research and thought. But we will cross any bridges as we come to them. 

Stay tuned for some more updates.

Love to all!

Let's make today a great day!