People Meets, Gardening & Vaccination #2

2021-05-07Uncategorized Standard

[Photos taken 07 – 21 May 2021, posted online 04 August 2021. Steady stream of covid-19 cases being diagnosed, situation is wait-and-see how sick the vaccinated folks get, and if the health system will cope. We went horse-back riding yesterday!]

As Covid-19 cases started going down after Easter (during which restrictions remained tight) the restrictions loosened enough for a gymnastics meets (every audience member masked, registered, and 2 m apart), and small parties were again a reality.

The garden kept demanding attention, and I got Pfizer dose #2. (55-ish images total)

Friday 07 May 2021

Emma after completing her gymnstics ‘meet’ (exercises shown on all apparatus, but no scoring).
Screenshot of the number of domestic infections in Iceland from covid.is/data . The big difference between the April bump (strict restrictions) and the late July bump (loose restrictions) is 85-90% vaccination rate of 16+ year-olds. We are waiting-and-seeing how many people land in hospital this time around.
Hairdo completed before the meet.
So. Many. People. In. One. Space.
Emma doing a warmup. She’s very tall for her age.
Animated gif, wait for it to load. On bars.
With her medal and certificate.
Parents maintaining polite distance.

Saturday 08 May 2021

The stretching room got opened at the gym.
Yours truly walking up the hill to the annual-but-delayed “new-year’s” sewing club party. (Yes, two of us live right next to each other!)
Finnur being dashingly handsome. Ironically, he’d only just bought a new (darker) suit when the call came for summer colors, so the old suit it was!
Pretending it’s not quite so cold outside now that the sun was disappearing.
Such a fabulous group!
The hosts went totally overboard, it was great!

Sunday 09 May 2021

The sign in sheet at the library had been upgraded to include a google form online.
May the Fourth had just passed!

Tuesday 11 May 2021

Exactly three weeks after my first Pfizer covid-19 shot, I was summoned back for shot #2. By this time I’d stopped micro-dosing the cancer drug for my psoriasis, as it wasn’t clearing the psoriasis effectively, and the side-effects (weakness, lethargy, occasional nausea) meant the dosage couldn’t be increased. Instead, the doc put in an application to start a biosimilar drug (Adalimumab).
With bigger shipments came more crowds, so they’d moved the vaccinations into the big (old) hall. The process was just a smooth and impressive as before.
I didn’t dare take any photos inside, but did sneak this one as I was walking out the door after waiting in my seat for the required 15 minutes post-shot.
Thumbs up that I made it out for a jog.
Bjarki with s’mores that Anna made from scratch. Yes, she made the marshmallows, the biscuits and the chocolate sauce!
Emma excited to try hers.
Mine, all mine!
In healthier news, Emma’s carrots were growing.

Wednesday 12 May 2021

I began the day working from home (like usual) but around 2pm, the second Pfizer shot kicked in, and I straggled off to bed. This is 101.1 F, and was about as high as my fever went.
Weird to be sick knowing it’s going to blow over quickly. By late evening I felt quite a bit better, and the next day I was fine. Anna was the hero of the day, shuttling her siblings to and from music class and sports practices, and then procuring sushi for dinner. Finnur had driven off to house #2 to do some maintenance because the following day was a public holiday.

Ascension Day – Thursday 13 May 2021

At my new favorite café, where this is being written. They never posted a “please don’t stay too long” notice, which won my loyalty.
Weeding and clearing dead leaves, even though it was still freezing at night.
That afternoon there was another party! Here are the younger cousins.
They have a trampoline!
Latch ditch effort to weed and put out all the black bags with weeds, dead branches and leaves, for the township to collect, as they do every spring.

Friday 14 May 2021

Sunset-ish around 10 in the evening.

Saturday 15 May 2021

Seen worse.
Harvest! So good!
More of Anna’s baking. We are being spoilt!
I decided on a whim to buy a lot (3 car-fulls) of bagged earth instead of a whole wagon-full like last year. It was a bit more expensive, but so much easier to handle, as last year I was shoveling dirt for hours to get it off the street.
Two boxes upgraded to four! We would find that the imported earth was a lot looser and friendlier than the muddy Icelandic stuff we got last year.
Sugar-snap peas getting a more permanent home after being shuffled in-and-outside for weeks. It finally looked like only minimal freezing at night-time.
Ready for summer flowers… if only the weather was permitting. It was still way too cold for them.

Sunday 16 May 2021

Anna planting and planning in the lovely weather.
Veggie garden plan.
Finnur somehow agreed to do a recycling-run with the pile in the garage. He found a black-bag in the pile that was full of random stuff from two years ago (last-minute yule-time tidying-up) for me to scour through. Here’s an example of Emma’s rainbow phase.
Photo-booth photos from the Google office in Boulder Colorado!
There was some Harry Potter phone game event, so I went out to walk a bit.
I walked past the back of our fence, and discovered that we had a major baby dandelion infestation on our hands in the two small plots back there. Uncharacteristically I decided to tackle the problem immediately, and actually carried through with it!

Monday 17 May 2021

After months and months and months of working from home, I went into the office… for a bit.
Stopped by Ikea on my way home and bought a few strawberry plants.
Juicy leaves. As it happened, I probably planted them too close together… they’re now a jungle (in August)!

Tuesday 18 May 2021

Post-work jog around the lake.
Golf course getting a bit greener.

Thursday 20 May 2021

Back at the library. Bjarki goes through manga books very quickly.

Friday 21 May 2021

Haircut time!
This was the month of May, gorgeous skies and chilly, as the winds came from the north.
Feeling more spry as I was no longer micro-dosing the cancer drug stuff. Yay!