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!!