[Photos taken 01 – 13 January 2024, posted online 26 June 2024. Hopefully the last wet day for a few days today… oh, and the eruption is over.]
January is typically a slow month, with energy restored after lounging over the holidays. This time around I’d signed up for a nature-running course (!!!), and began prepping for a fancy party that we were hosting at the end of January. Life could have been calmer.
We also bought an “adult” guitar for Bjarki, I resumed gymming, and we put all the yule stuff away. We even managed a dinner or two with friends!
Monday 01 January 2024 – New Year’s Day
Fancy dinner table, for a new year’s feast. Lucky us!
Tuesday 02 January 2024
The roads were covered with solid ice as I headed to work.
First squats in a while revealed crystallized joints from excessive sugar consumption and lack of movement.
Emma’s home-made squish-balls. Some died an early death, the smaller ones lasted the longest. The containers themselves sprung leaks as time went on.
The insides were probably a similar material as you find in diapers, water-sucking-plastic of some sort.
Wednesday 03 January 2024
Pretty sky from the sixth floor at work. This is taken at 11:45.
After a few visits to the guitar store, it became clear that Bjarki kept gravitating to this particular guitar, so we decided this was it.
Made in Mexico.
The guitar in its new home. And yes, our home-amp is tiiiny.
That evening I went to the introduction to the 2x-per-week in January “nature running” course I’d agreed to participate in when a friend suggested it in November. January was such a long way away then!
Thursday 04 January 2024
I made good use of the January sales, and got trail-shoes, socks, crampons, a very pink rain-proof-running-jacket, a humidity meter, and a humidifier, as the piano was getting parched, and playing double notes.
Testing the new shoe-crampon combo by going out for an evening walk.
So merry!
I stayed upright, and the soles of the shoes were just hard enough that the crampons weren’t poking upwards.
This icy mess was no trouble at all with the crampons! Overall a big success.
Saturday 06 January 2024 – Þrettándinn (The Thirteenth)
At 10 in the morning one hill or so over from where we live. There were quite a few people attending the nature-running-course, and we had two extremely energetic and peppy instructors.
By 10:20 we’d walked over to the lake nearest to our house, the path around it is 2.5 km long, and the plan was to go two rounds. The slow sunrise was gorgeous.
How we started.
Sunrise still in progress as we took the clockwise route.
Quick status check on the opposite side of the lake, as well as a few pointers.
These did well.
As usual I found that I was severely overdressed. The frosty hat shows how sweaty it was!
One of the instructors is a physical therapist, so there were both warm-up and warm-down exercises, very good stuff!
Siblings at the annual “thirteenth” celebration, which marks the end of yule.
All. The. Carbs!
Attendance was good!
The view out of our living room window that evening. The “thirteenth” is the last day you can legally shoot fireworks each fireworks-season.
Sunday 07 January 2024
With the end of yule comes the packing of decorations, and tree-discarding.
I’m not sure if I feel sorrier for the tree or the car?
Like last year, tree-dumpsters had been left in a few strategic places.
Better get the vacuum cleaner!
It was time to crush the ginger-bread house. The only catch is that the kids have to agree to let me take a photo of the three of them first!
Action shot!
Monday 08 January 2024
Documenting the ice half-way gone.
I hung Bjarki’s old guitars up on a wall so they would stop being in everyone’s way on the floor.
Tuesday 09 January 2024
Early-morning gym-documenting.
In downtown Hafnarfjörður to visit the now-closed (oh no!) ‘Gatsby’ dress-store. We would be hosting the big annual sewing-club party (with spouses) at the end of the month, and the theme was “Hollywood”. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to check the opening hours, and only had 15 minutes before they closed. The store-owner told me to come back tomorrow!
Wednesday 10 January 2024
In between me showing up in the dress-store late on Tuesday and me arriving again on Wednesday, they posted a major sales announcement! Thus this dress cost something like $50?!
Thursday 11 January 2024
The next running lesson was after work on a Thursday. We warmed up while looking into what used to be the old Boot Camp training house, but now houses a swanky social center for adolescents run by the city.
With my partner in crime. The rain jacket came in very handy!
Green grass! Wet grass!
Stopping in the forest to do balancing exercises.
It was plenty dark, but also very nice.
Friday 12 January 2024
A sweaty version of me.
Arriving downtown to meet up with some fellow EEs from undergrad.
Pretty!
I’m tempted to make a gallery just of bathroom photos from restaurants. They seem to be a playground for designers!
Great attendance!
Saturday 13 January 2024
At the “Pearl” shortly before 10 am in the morning. It was time for another nature-running-outing!
Warmups in progress.
It was very easy to spot me.
Rare fog in progress.
The forest in Öskjuhlíð is now so tall that they’re threating to cut parts of it down so that planes can land more easily on the airport by it.
Mid-jog stretching.
Action shot! It was somewhere around there where I jumped sideways to avoid a puddle, and strained a muscle in my calf…
We headed to the artificially white beach by the ocean, Nauthólsvík. There was a large sea-swimming group in the un-warmed-up sea! The running group headed right.
Warm-runoff-water is pumped into the secluded area, hence the “smoke”.
Being outside makes you feel weirdly heroic, but my calf had really started bothering me, and as the group prepared to continue onwards, the physical therapist instructor told me I should take it easy and walk back to the cars.
Cool cats being cool.
The entrance to the Pearl.
I took photos of the artwork as I waited for the group to arrive back. I was stranded because my friend had given me a lift there!
Creepy art is creepy.
The fog lasted well in to the afternoon.
I stopped by a furniture store, and discovered that a comfortable chair that was everywhere at work was on sale… We needed extra chairs for the party, and our old kitchen chairs were quite literally on their last legs after both being glued and screwed!
Ah, the season of open wounds in the roads was upon us.
