Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

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!

Tuesday 01 November 2022

I decided to bike to work, it’s so close it’s hard to justify driving there unless you are going somewhere else too! I had some fun trying to figure out how to navigate around the construction area on the way.

Do. All. The. Things. Part. Halloween.

2022-10-27Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 27 – 31 October 2022, posted online 02 July 2023. Seems like we’re about to get a whole week of no rain!]

Learning from last year’s fiasco of no-pumpkins-left-on-the-day-before-Halloween, I went out and got some a few days earlier. Finnur returned from the UK, Hannah Gadsby’s show finally happened, we went to the summer house with guests, and then had a lot of fun cutting designs into our pumpkins.

My upcoming new workplace sent a message asking for a profile photo, and I got to set up my work account a few days early and start poking around. I quite liked that.

Sadly, the Do. All. The. Things. mania petered out with a whimper, and I found myself returning a chunk of stuff back into the closet with the doors, having exhausted my decision muscle. But, some stuff got done, and I could finally cross it off my chronically ridiculously-long to-do list.

Thursday 27 October 2022

Four pumpkins being safely stored by the garage door, where it’s pretty chilly.

Do. All. The. Things. Part. England

2022-10-22Hrefna's family, UK, Us Standard

[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

Parked at Keflavik airport, which is terminally under construction. It was freezing outside, as evidenced by the frost on the ground. Brrr…

Do. All. The. Things. Part 3

2022-10-21Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[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

En route to the summer house. The wind was blowing water off the top of the ocean.

Do. All. The. Things. Part. 2.

2022-10-10Uncategorized Standard

[Photos taken 10 – 14 October 2023, posted online 17 June 2023. This day marks 29 years of togetherness with Finnur!]

The month between having jobs had me itching to Do. All. The. Things. that typically are easy to not-do due to one thing or the other.

This week included lunch with mom, summoning electricians, getting a piano-tuner, and attempts at interior decorating, in between the usual shuttling of children, and hanging out at cafes to recharge mental batteries… and plan.

Monday 10 October 2022

Having lunch with mom! We tried the cafe Hygge, and it was indeed quite hygge.

Do. All. The. Things. Part. 1.

2022-10-01Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 09 October 2022, posted online 11 June 2023. Have just returned from a fantastic whirlwind visit to California.]

I had accepted a new job, that would be starting on 01 November. I therefore had a month to Do. All. The. Things. The first thing on the agenda was getting a new computer (as my old one kept flaking out), and attending a birthday party.