ummm

Sorry. I've got a nice post started about the grande Mosque. But it deserves a really big post. It's a really big Mosque. And so much to share. So I'm stalled. But that will come. In the meantime work is going well. Too well. Have been very successful in bringing in new work. Now the fun begins. Delivery. A whole new challenge. Will need to coordinate extra help from the other side of the world. And beg, borrow and steal some extra help from here.

But...another diversion this weekend in store. Taking our visiting engineer to Dubai. We have a few fun things coming up. Skiing. In Dubai. Imagine. Sure hope they have a ski outfit large enough for me. My two mile hike in the heat and climb up the 15 floors of stairs tonight was my ski conditioning and maybe will help with the fitting the ski clothes thing. One can dream.

Then we have booked rooms at Atlantis. We need to hang at the water park. There are very special summer rates going on. It's still a splurge. But I am finding it easier to justify these special splurges because the rest of life is still a little difficult. Maybe a lot difficult. In very strange ways. I don't know how to describe it. Daily life seems a struggle from wake to sleep. If and when sleep comes.

While I am growing more comfortable with my surroundings and know enough to show a visiting co-worker around, I still feel pretty isolated much of the time. I guess walking away from the new life I'd been crafting for the last six years is more than I had bargained for. Dear friends seem unsurmountably far away. It takes a very big effort on both parts to keep connected.

But I refuse to go down easily. Which is why the splurges and planning things like skiing and Atlantis. If I can't have "normal" I might as well have extreme adventure. I have not yet found a middle ground.

What a strange long trip it is.