Waterfalls, School Visits & Confirmation Parties
[Photos taken 18 – 31 March 2023, posted online 02 December 2023. Frozen days ahead of us, but little snow predicted, hardly any snow this season so far.]
We actually went on an outing to the lavafield-waterfalls (Hraunfossar) from the summer house with friends who like sight-seeing. The rest of the month passed in a blur of confirmation-related events, junior college school visits with Bjarki, hosting dad & Shirley for an evening, Anna’s school project, and gymming.
Saturday 18 March 2023
Emma’s 10th Birthday Parties, Gymming & Summer Housing
[Photos taken 11 – 28 February 2023, posted online 14 October 2023. There’s a bit of white stuff on the ground, it won’t last.]
We had no sooner arrived from Tenerife than it was time to prep for Emma’s 10th birthday! She ended up getting three parties, one with each family-wing, and one with her classmates.
As February went on, I took an annoying number of selfies in the gym, the weather did all sorts of things, yule lights came down as the daylight stayed for longer, the yard got a bit of attention, and we managed to make sure the summer house was ok. Then February was over!
Lake-Skiing, Late-Yuling, Iliza-Seeing & Gymming
[Photos taken 07 – 13 January 2023, posted online 09 September 2023. Fall is in the air, it’s getting wetter and chillier.]
My social media got filled with people on cross-country skis in glorious weather, so I gathered up my courage Saturday morning, found the skis I’d bought the previous season, and headed out to a nearby lake, where a group of people were maintaining tracks. I found out that I was about the slowest person there, but I still made it around the 4.5 km around lake, phew!
We went on to finalizing Yule two-days late, with tea, yule-tree-disposal, and the breaking of the ginger bread house. In the following week, I got myself a new covid shot, we went to see Iliza perform, and I kept visiting the gym!
Saturday 07 January 2023
Misty Hiking, Delayed Confirmation Party, & Northern Lights
[Photos taken 12 – 30 November 2022, posted online 21 July 2023. Gosh, darnit, my eyesight is changing really fast these days, I get the feeling that in the olden times I should be dead by now!]
Tearing me out of my “just started a new job” stupor was a day hike to Stardalshnúkur & Þríhnúkar on a rainy-misty day, but the clouds cleared at good moments, and good memories were made.
We attended a covid-delayed confirmation party, I tried to find a new gym/work balance, Finnur took photos of northern lights, yule-tide outside lights were put up as the darkness grew, yule-tide shopping began, and life kind of went on as usual.
Saturday 12 November 2022
Hello Controlant!
[Photos taken 01 – 11 November 2022, posted online 19 July 2023. The weather finally turned summer-like in July, and I’m officially on summer vacation, whoohoo!]
I started working for Controlant on 1st November. It’s an Icelandic startup from 2007 that was in the right place, with the right connections, at the right time, when Covid-19 hit, and Pfizer needed a way to monitor in near-real-time the temperature of the covid-vaccine that needed to stay below -80°C / -112 F at all times, before use.
The Contolant logger and monitoring-platform was chosen, and delivered great results, coming close to eliminating transport losses due to temperature issues, which generally hover in the 20-30% range (!!!).
I’d had my eye on the company for a while, and actually remember speaking to one of the founders briefly about it in the teacher’s lounge when I was teaching at the University of Iceland some 10 years ago, and he was still a graduate student!
Anyway, when I joined I was employee number 4-hundred-and-something, and now it’s up to 5-hundred-and-something. It’s interesting times!
As a side effect, my brain was completely fried for a while, as I tried to learn a lot of new things, and I barely took any photos besides of me going to and from work, it seems!
Tuesday 01 November 2022
Do. All. The. Things. Part. England
[Photos taken 22 – 26 October 2022, posted online 01 July 2023. After a mostly miserable and fall-like June, we might get a week of nice weather starting tomorrow.]
The younger kids got two days of winter-break towards the end of October, so we decided to journey to England and say hi to (grand)dad, Shirley, and Anthony.
I made the unilateral decision that Anna would not be traveling with us, since she was busy at university (they have four 12-week courses, followed by one 3-week group-work-course). Thus this was the first trip abroad with just Emma and Bjarki tagging along.
Saturday 22 October 2022
Do. All. The. Things. Part 3
[Photos taken 15 – 21 October 2022, posted online 24 June 2023. Perpetual clouds covering our area these days. Thankfully it’s fairly warm out.]
By the third week of my in-between-jobs month, I began to run out of Do. All. The. Things. steam.
We did manage to invite my immedate family up to the summer house for an overnight stay, and had a nice time. Getting back to town took longer than anticipated, but all went well.
I kept up failing at interior designing, went on an evening hike, started working my way through our very out-of-date CD pile (not to mention the floppy disks!), windows got cleaned, gym was visited, and Anna occasionally got a little help with her university homework.
Saturday 15 October 2022
End-of-Summer Deck-Building & Biking-to-work
[Photos taken 02 – 16 September 2022, posted online 20 May 2023. Rainy and windy days, but at least it’s rather warm.]
The weather in September was surprisingly nice, almost Indian-summer-like. This prompted us to finally buy an outside couch for the summer-house, as there was no good way to congregate on the deck otherwise.
Back in town, Finnur put this summer’s deck-building-with-his-dad to good use by helping my brother build a deck at their place. Thankfully the weather co-operated, and they could work long into the evening, as the days were still fairly long.
I found biking to work to be a nice thing to do, and began working slightly shorter days as my work was winding down, having resigned a month prior.
Friday 02 September 2022
Naming & Restart of School + Hiking
[Photos taken 20 – 31 August 2022, posted online on 07 May 2023 from Denmark! Yup, Controlant‘s amazing Annual Ball was held yesterday at the Circus building. So. Much. Fun!]
It was time to name the newest member of the family, and it was a lovely event. A few days later, school started up again, and life began settling into a rythm again.
The weather was good enough to do some staining at the house in the country, and at the very end of the month I went on a hike with the hiking group. In between we met with friends, and life started feeling very normal again.
Saturday 20 May 2022
Summer-Vacation-2022 Count-Down
[Photos taken 01 – 15 July 2022, posted online 04 March 2023. We’ve had our first spring this past week, but there are frozen days ahead.]
After the mad-dash that was June, July was very low energy. I had to get through two weeks of work before starting my summer vacation, but was sadly not really enjoying work very much, so it was a pain. I therefore found myself working from cafes a lot, especially since I was often on the hook for driving Emma to her afternoon horse/art-&-animals camps.
Meanwhile, I tried to tackle a few long-standing home-improvement projects like getting a new sofa and chair, getting rid of the old furniture, prepping future paint-jobs, weeding, oiling wood, and making it out on the occasional jog.
Happily, we got a brand new nephew for a visit, and I managed to meet up with an old friend! We also did make it up to the summer house, but the biting midget-flies started coming out in droves, so staying there was a little anxiety inducing (60-ish images).
Friday 01 July 2022
