Time for an update

The days keep smushing together lately and time gets away from me much too fast. One day it was the last week of classes, and now it's two weeks later! One more week before official vacation of two weeks begins. I was hoping to go home, but getting money out of clients is proving to be a monumental task, and it may simply not happen. How I will manage to make it through until July without seeing my little grandbabies is beyond my scope of comprehension, but I suppose I will muddle through! :(

The weather has been absolutely amazing here. Perfect really! I wish some of you would get your passports if you don't have one and take a vacation to see us. It may not be as tropical as Jamaica or anywhere else in the Carribean, but there are beaches, there are beautiful sunsets, there are camels and their babies wandering the deserts, browsing on the green (we've had GREEN since the rains came!), and WE are here! Free accommodations from us at least. The airfare (through Expedia) isn't so expensive really. Come on out and pay us a visit!! That might help get me through!

Business is booming for Nelson and we have managed to find a partner we like and trust to back us financially. As soon as it's processed, Joey will be traveling here to help Nelson and we have a wonderful young apprentice right now named Razwen (Raz, pronounced like Roz in English spelling) who is from Bangladesh. He's delightful although his English is horrible, but what luck for him that Nelson is married to an English teacher! So, although we've experienced much frustration with getting the business started (and aren't finished yet...we still have some collections to make, most of it from people with plenty of it floating around!), but it's looking up, Nelson is encouraged, and we are excited to get Joey here! I'm sorry to take him away from those of you who have stuck with him and continued to have him trim and shoe for you, but he can't make it in Michigan. Hopefully, in time, perhaps by switching off periodically for Nelson, they can still manage to make it home several times a year and can do some work then!

Since Nelson has started a lot of the race horses at the Club, we've been going to the races nearly every week. I have some photos that I'll put on Facebook and a few on here (give me a little time as I only took about 500 and need to sort them out!). Word is traveling fast that Nelson is a miracle worker and while he's been mostly getting a lot of special horses that need a lot of corrective work, he's been very successful. Mutawassel, a Thoroughbred champion from the UK, won a lot when he first arrived in Qatar. In recent years, he's been unable to race AND stay sound. Nelson has shod him 3 times now and he's raced 3 times, once in the money (5th), and has stayed sound as a dollar (or should I say a riyal?). It's a great thrill to watch horses he has worked on race in these circumstances. I think I might need to look into track racing instead of endurance racing! It's quite thrilling! Which leads me to my next topic...

I do have some unfortunate news though: I no longer have a horse. The financial aspects of starting the business and trying to traverse from Al Khor to where the horse is stabled were too much financially, and the time driving back and forth, and scheduling a ride here and there became a huge stress. We have shelved the horse buying venture at this time until circumstances permit me to buy a horse outright (as opposed to bartering shoeing services) and to board the horse here in Al Khor where I can go daily to ride or just play with a horse. I'm seriously wishing I had a dog right now though....not having an animal in my life is also a stress. But I suppose it wouldn't be fair to keep a dog unless we could afford to take him back and forth with us every summer. At this time, not doable.

We've also made some grand new British friends, Stephen and Kerry-anne Golding. Stephen got the job at the Federation that Nelson THOUGHT he wanted so many months ago. After seeing what Stephen is going through trying to straighten that place out and supervise those farriers there, I am glad Nelson didn't get it. But it's the first time ever that I have had a farrier's wife for a friend. It's absolutely amazing and I am stunned by the parallels in our lives, our reasons for being so far from home, away from our families, our similar interests and hobbies, and basically, we just enjoy visiting! In the past, we've mostly had Nelson's friends and/or my friends and we shared. Here, most of his friends are friends through my work. Not much in common except for me, or perhaps being the spouse of a teacher. Now, we have friends who are just our friends because we have so much in common...I don't think that has ever happened before. It's really cool! OK, friends out there...don't get all jealous. I can't wait for you all to meet these new friends...they will fit in perfectly with all of our friends here because they are so delightful. However, every single friend we have here has come to us for a special reason, and it amazes me how certain people are put in front of us at just the right times! Stephen and Kerry-anne have popped into our lives at a moment when we need exactly that kind of friend! We didn't even know we were missing them! :)

Well, I'll try to update more in the coming weeks. Not much planned except work, work and more work (the farrier kind). Getting Joey here is top on our priority list! We're so excited that I think he's sick of hearing about it! :) Wish us luck that all goes smoothly, the passport arrives without incident and he makes it all the way to Qatar and doesn't end up in India or Pakistan or God knows where else! :)

Stay in touch and drop us a note when you can. Notes from home are ALWAYS welcome!!

The end of another semester!

Somehow the end is here again. We still have exams to "invigilate" tomorrow. That word still makes me laugh, but is better than "proctor," which makes me think of doctors and prostates! Grading will occur on Sunday with days of follow up, finish up, wrap it up, suck it up. Then 3 weeks of busy work (committees, professional development, presentations, meetings, etc.), 2 weeks of "real" vacation (during which I can't afford to go home and visit right now), and then a week of prep and back to teaching on February 21st. Whew! Sounds like a lot, but it'll go fast. I plan to get in some riding, maybe even an endurance ride if they add a 60 km (no way my body can handle a 100 or 120!), and lots of sleeping in!

Anyway! This last week has been interesting although it seemed to drag on! I overdid the sarcoidosis treatment the week before last (forgot about pulsing and low doses of the antibiotics!). So, I had a few miserable days. This week I had a couple of really feeling great days (got to ride the horse even!) and the pain in my joints has eased now that the doses are down and I'm skipping days. Sheesh! That'll teach me not to pay attention to what I'm putting in the weekly "planner" for pills! :) I saw the "chest" doctor yesterday, "chest" being Qatarese for "pulmonologist." He agreed to ultrasound my liver and spleen which was my former doctor's major concern and send me to an opthalmologist to check my eyes (diabetes and sarcoidosis being an issue), opthamologist being the actual word for that! He wrote me prescriptions for the drugs I need to continue the treatment, but I may still have to buy them out of pocket as Hamad Hospital simply doesn't carry them. Now, how is it that I can BUY them over the counter (they cost plenty, too!), but the hospital pharmacy doesn't carry them? I don't know if the private insurance from work will cover them either. Oh, well.....hopefully, I will eventually be RID of the sarcoidosis once and for all! It's a good thing I'm proactive about our health care or we'd be in a real pickle!

We've been seeing more and more camels everywhere since the rains came, although we haven't had any major rain for a couple of weeks now. It's cooled off quite a lot, most days staying in the 70s and some nights getting in the 50s. I love it. The locals are freezing! Most of the time we walk around in our shirt sleeves, with an occasional long sleeved shirt or light jacket. It's perfect riding weather. Heck, it's perfect ANYthing weather! :)

Nelson keeps plugging away trying to get things going with the farrier business. We're waiting/hoping for Joey to get his passport so he can come and help! Also, hoping to find a business partner. I have never seen business treated so casually and leisurely....it has to be that "inshallah" attitude. But, we'll see what happens. Nelson has some really good clients in the racing side and has shoed a LOT of endurance horses. There's a race tomorrow and he's going to be available for "his" horses. Of course, I can't go. NOT happy about that! But maybe next time. There aren't near as many rides this year. Last year at this time, they had already had at least a half dozen rides! Word is that the camel racing got all the money in the budget this year, or at least most of it: 200 million QR plus for the camels versus 20 million QR for the horses, including the racing! Don't quote me on the numbers!

Anyway, that's my brief update....sorry it isn't full of culture and such. Hopefully, we'll have plenty to do over our vacation and I'll have photos and stories galore! Keep in touch, folks!

Wherever I am, you are there with me.....

Today we celebrated a new year with friends and family everywhere, even ones who were not physically present. I brought out the old tablecloth that I have been using for the last 3+ years for such parties and get togethers and was amazed to realize how old it really is. I think the first time we used this one was January 2007 (there are others that are older), but this is one that spans students I taught, fellow grad students, birthdays, graduations, Thanksgivings, Christmas....you name it. I realized that reading these names and messages from all these people over the last few years brings them again into my life for a special day, even when they aren't physically present. It's a huge tablecloth (the one we bought to put on the ping pong table in the activity room of our old apartment building) and has room for so many more names and holidays and just for fun BBQ New Year's/Nelson's birthday potlucks. We guesstimate there were probably around 40 people who came today plus one dog...my friend, Sophia, brought her family, including her huge Belgian shepherd named Caesar. Beautiful animal. It was the best beginning to a new year that we have had in a long time and we loved it. THANK YOU to everyone, past and present, who has contributed to the wonderful memories we've made in our lives! Photos on Facebook soon. Good night and Happy New Year!!

Official Happy New Year 2010

This post is just to see if 2010 will really show up in my archive list or if Y2K has finally snuck up and got us!