I SURRENDER!
I've completed all my "skills assessment" paperwork and was finally ready to send the packet when I discovered a beautiful catch-22. In order to pay the fee to process the paperwork, one needs to have either "a bank check in Australian dollars drawn by bank outside Australia that has bank clearance arrangements with an Australian bank" or "a money order issued by Australia Post" or" a bank check drawn by an Australian bank": or a "personal check drawn on an Australian bank account". So far the only bank I can find in the USA that has any "clearance arrangements with an Australian bank" is Citibank-which won't let you buy a bank check in Australian currency unless you have an account with them (we don't) and all the other options require either living in Australia or finding an Australian bank nearby...which seems to be damned near impossible (unless you live in Singapore, ironically there are several Australian banks there). So... I give up. I'm going to stop trying to muddle through all this paperwork myself and beg Mark to pay for a Migration consultant to help us. Sigh.