Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Tenerife Couples-Trip: Arrival & Masca Valley

2023-02-02Tenerife Standard

[Photos taken 02 – 03 February 2023, posted online 30 September 2023. Warm fall this time around, wondering when a storm will tear the pretty leaves off the trees.]

After the successful ladies-only trip to Tenerife in November of 2021, we decided to repeat the trip, but this time invite the lads along.

Since we were looking for peace and quiet, we found a good Black Friday deal at an adults-only hotel, granting us “platinum” status, meaning we had access to a nicer breakfast area, a roof-top pool, and happy hour.

We left now formally-adult Anna (19 years old!) in charge of her siblings, which I will admit to feeling slightly guilty about, but it all worked out.

On our second day, three of us went and e-biked 32 km, visiting Masca Valley. It was a lot of fun!

Thursday 02 February 2023

Cross-Country Ski Lessons, Socials & Gymming

2023-01-14Finnur's family, Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 14 January – 01 February 2023, posted online 16 September 2023. Low pressure area spreading rain and wind this weekend.]

I managed to squeeze myself into beginner’s cross-country-skiing lessons on short notice (somebody dropped out). Three of the lessons happened on time, before the weather turned, and I missed the later two when the finally happened.

Aside from that, we attended a fun sewing-club new-year’s-party, there was baking, gymming, more gymming, a date night, a birthday cafe, a minor eye operation, and a trip to the summer house, among other things. There was also snow, rain, wind, aka the usual.

Saturday 14 January 2023

First cross-country-skiing group-lesson time, the calm before the action!

Lake-Skiing, Late-Yuling, Iliza-Seeing & Gymming

2023-01-07Finnur's family, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[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

Selfie while standing on a (rapidly thawing) frozen lake. — On Hafravatn!

Downtown-ing, Snow-pushing & Socializing

2023-01-01Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 06 January 2023, posted online 03 September 2023. The first storm of the fall came this Friday, bringing an abrupt stop to the lovely weather of July & August.]

I spent the first day of 2023 scouring the internet for a café that was open in the capital area. I found one downtown, and that’s where I spent most of the day.

The following days I kept a close eye and shovel on the public parking spot opposite our house, gym-routines restarted, the ginger-bread came close to demolition, and we had dinners with friends.

Sunday 01 January 2023

By the massive downtown yule-cat, swiping at unsuspecting tourists!

Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023!

2022-12-31Finnur's family, New Year's Eve, Us Standard

[Photos taken 31 December 2022 – 01 January 2023, posted online 3 August 2023. The weather is possibly changing… it’s been about the same for a month, hardly a drop from the sky, and pretty warm.]

This time around, the annual New Year’s Eve potluck party in Finnur’s family was hosted by his youngest sister and family. They’ve recently moved into a much bigger house, and it so happened that the town’s bonfire would be essentially in their backyard!

Saturday 31 December 2022

Happy 2023! The annual tradition of starlight-writing lives on…

2022 Yule, Anna’s 19th Birthday & Ginger-Bread

2022-12-24Christmas, Us Standard

[Photos taken 24 – 30 December 2022, posted online 01 August 2023. Just drove one brother & family to the airport, they’re moving to Sweden!]

With my iffy health, we had to cancel having mom and brother over for Christmas Eve dinner and present openings. Instead, I lay in bed for most of the day, but then rallied and spent the evening downstairs, tucked away in the corner, as far away from everyone as possible.

The day after, it was Anna’s 19th birthday. She spent the morning making desserts, and we had a present opening ceremony before Finnur took the kiddos to the annual Christmas Day feast at his parents’ place, while I returned to being mostly horizontal.

The second day of Christmas was suitably low energy. Much to my consternation, I was still vertically challenged the following day, and Finnur’s youngest sister went with the gang to a year-end comedy show.

Finally, after a week of barely staying vertical, I got better, and walked outside for the first time in forever. I went into work for one day, then took another one off and we finally made a ginger bread house. Which brought us to the last day of the year…

Saturday 24 December 2022

Tidy children in front of a tidy tree hiding a treasure trove of gifts.

Yule-Photos, Yule-Parties & Yule-Performances

2022-12-11Christmas, Families Standard

[Photos taken 11 – 23 December 2022, posted online 31 July 2023. Week 3 of summer vacation is beginning, and I’m hoping I’m over the “constantly-napping” phase of summer vacation!]

This year, I colluded with my siblings and spouses to make a photo-book for mom of her descendants. We met up at my oldest brother’s place, where a green screen was put up, and photos were snapped.

In the future we’ll be avoiding green screens, as it’s REALLY HARD to work with hair and green screens, but middle-brother found a pretty good solution in post-processing…!

I also did another photo-session for another grandmother, then it was onto the last sprint before Christmas.

There were haircuts, Finnur took off for a week to work in the UK, I attended a choir-concert, Emma’s swim department demo, there were a couple of work-parties, I met girlfriends for brunch, went to a dinner and play with mom and two brothers (one fell ill), snow started falling with a vengeance, parking lots were cleared, there was a day with two birthday parties, stress was released at the gym, birds were fed, and then my body caved in and I fell ill, and had a hard time staying vertical over Christmas. Bah-humbug!

Sunday 11 December 2022

So, the quickest way around replacing a green screen without it showing too much, is to replace it with another green background! Here are the siblings.

Kleifarvatn Hiking, Yule-Outings & 7 Habits

2022-12-03Families, Hiking Standard

[Photos taken 03 – 10 December 2022, posted online 27 July 2023. Been a cloudy few days, very low energy, possibly due to volcano smog permeating my brain. Finally have blue skies again today.]

And then it was December, again!

There was one more organized hike left in the year, this time around Kleifarvatn (lake). It was a super still day, and it was really nice to see the sun come up.

The social calendar filled up with all sorts of yule-related outings, like concerts & buffets, as I also attended a two-day “7 habits” seminar/workshop at work, and two kids played at musical school concerts.

Saturday 03 December 2022

Yours truly enjoying the sunrise-in-progress at 10 am.

Misty Hiking, Delayed Confirmation Party, & Northern Lights

2022-11-12Confirmation, Hrefna's family, Uncategorized, Us Standard

[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

Me on top of top #3 of Three-tops (Þríhnúkar)!

Hello Controlant!

2022-11-01Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[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!