Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Easter Holiday Meetups with Friends in Spring + Surprise Winter

2016-03-26Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from Saturday 26 to 29 March 2016. Started writing post late 31 March 2016. Bye snow. ]

Easter is the only holiday to come with a guaranteed five-day-long continuous holiday. I wish Christmas-time came wrapped in a similar package.

Since I was still on crutches, we didn’t do much of anything, but we did manage to meet up with some friends, use our hot tub for the first time this year, and then scratch our heads as winter suddenly appeared again as we headed back to work on Tuesday morning. (9 images total)

Saturday 26 March 2016

A small part of the expansive view our friends have out of their kitchen windows.

Walkabout to the New Road

2016-03-25Hrefna Standard

[Photos from Good Friday 25 March 2016, posted online 26 March 2016. Feeling better now.]

Yesterday I was wallowing pretty hard in self-pity, bored out of my skull, and very annoyed that my on-the-brink-of-exhaustion husband wasn’t up to doing much. Woe was me.

So online I went, initially to dig up some baking recipe to have something to do, but got sidetracked onto some list about things to do while in a funk, and number two was “Go Outside”. So, before I could talk myself out of it, I threw my big camera in a backpack, and went out for a walk. My target: The new road construction up on the hill to the side and above us.

I’d heard the explosions while I lay on the couch in January and February, and I figured I should be able to make it there, albeit, veeery slowly. So off I went. (48 images total, 1.2 km/0.75 miles walked)

I made it up the street and to my initial goal, the sign that says “Warning, explosions!”. There was nobody there that day though, so I could stumble about without getting into trouble.

Confirmation Party – The Arnar Version

2016-03-24Confirmation, Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from 24 March 2016, posted online 25 March. Progress?]

Today we attended the confirmation party of Arnar, the son of some friends of ours. It was a lovely party, and we had a great time. (Meanwhile, my brother Bjarni was competing in men’s physique, and he won his category! Yay for him!!!)

Usually I end up being a photographer at events like these, but since I can’t really walk about, I decided against taking my big camera. Alas, because apparently I can’t help myself, I still ended up snapping photos on my phone. (15 images total)

The newly confirmed boy with his mom and dad. His two younger brothers were patiently waiting on the side, while I snapped this on their camera.

Screwed

2016-03-22Bjarki, Finnur's family, Hrefna, Us Standard

[Photos from Tuesday 22 March 2016, posted online 23 March 2016. It’s hard to sulk with all this spring in the air.]

The day started out with terrible news from Brussels, so spirits weren’t exactly running high when I showed up at the hospital after lunch. The aim was to finally get a screw removed so that I could begin to put full weight on my foot, and begin to get rid of my crutches. Yes it’s been 10 weeks since my breakage!

But no, the doctor decided not to remove the screw. Perhaps it’ll go next week, or the week thereafter, I’ll have to wait and see. I will readily admit that I’m disappointed, and wallowing in self-pity a little bit. Hopefully it’ll pass soon.

The culprit was the shrinking-but-not-fully-healed hole/dip in the big scar (photo is from the England post), formed by a large chunk of clotted blood which got lodged there somehow. Apparently doctors don’t like cutting into legs that have open wounds still (it’s open enough to discharge liquid if squeezed). So, the hole got cleaned, bandaged, and I have strict instructions to leave it be. No scratching or whatnots. Sigh.

Feeling a little lost, and not quite up to going back to work with my metaphorical tail between my legs, I got Finnur to pick me up, and spent the rest of the afternoon working in his office. It was a nice change, although apparently I disturb Finnur’s otherwise very peaceful office-existence! 🙂

Meanwhile, Bjarki went to spend quality time with his grandparents, and he’ll spend the next few days at the summer house with them. I hope they have a lovely time! (7 images total)

The happiest photo of the day: Bjarki with his grandma filling up plastic eggs for the Easter egg hunt this coming Sunday. These are the eggs we brought back from the US after numerous fun Easter egg hunts there.

Blog Date Rearrange and Facebook Page

2016-03-21Hrefna Standard

[Written on 21 March 2016, for realz!] I’ve just completed posting stuff from November 2015 on the blog, so I used the opportunity to change all the blog dates of posts posted since 29 January 2016, from their posting date, to their actually-happened date. This mostly means all of November and December 2015 are nowRead more

A Weekend of Dinners

2016-03-18Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from Friday 18 to 20 March 2016, posted online 22 March 2016. Stuffed to the gills!]

Three nights of dinner engagements make for a busy but a fun weekend!

Friday I went to celebrate the 40th birthday of a friend of mine, Saturday we visited Solla and Gunni, and then on Sunday we visited Guðrún and Snorri.

This coincided with spring arriving suddenly, so out of nowhere I was desperate to start tidying up and cleaning now that all the dust mites are screaming for attention. With a bum leg not much got done, but at least the Christmas Cards got taken down from the wall in the hall and album-ed, Finnur attacked the garage, and quite a few death traps got removed. 🙂 (15 images total)

Friday 18 March 2016

The birthday girl!

Fever, Snow, Coffee, No Snow

2016-03-11Us Standard

[Photos from Friday 11 to Monday 14 March 2016, posted online 14 March 2016. Now which date does this belong to, once I restore time?!]

It sounds like viruses are swirling all around these days. This past Friday one of them hit our humble abode, when Bjarki came down with a fever, headache, stomach ache, and an unending thirst for more computer time.

I will admit that I was pretty glad I had an excused to take Friday off from work, since I’d mentally (as well as physically) limped through Thursday. My work stamina is still pretty blah apparently.

The biggest thing that ‘happened’ on Friday was that Emma discovered we have a backyard that she can play in after daycare! It was not obvious to her before because it was always dark out, but now we’ve got happy brightness past dinner-time. Yay!

Saturday was a huge nothing-whatsoever-happened-day, but on Sunday the whole family (me included!) ventured out on a library/coffee house-run. We all desperately needed to get out of the house, but decided against actually infecting the friends that had invited us over for dinner, so downtown to infect strangers we went!

Monday rolled around with Bjarki still at home, but this time Finnur took home-duty, while I escaped to work (funny how that works!). Oh, and after two days of thaw, our backyard is now quite snowless for the first time in over three months! (15 images total)

Emma, having recently discovered this "backyard" thing of ours, where she can go out and play without us having to go out too (which we can't/won't).

Emma, having recently discovered this “backyard” thing of ours, where she can go out and play by herself, without us having to go out too (which we can’t/won’t because we’re lazy/it’s cold/feet don’t work). Taking photos through the window works though!

Back at Work

2016-03-09Hrefna Standard

[Photos from Wednesday 9 March 2016, posted online 10 March 2016. It’s good to feel on top of things for five minutes.]

I’m back at work!!! (Well, mostly.)

I decided I was getting good enough at sitting up, with my leg extended on a chair, to start showing up to work last week. My first day back was Wednesday 2 March, and I stayed pretty much the whole day (talking to people is fun!), but then left early both Thursday and Friday.

I must give major kudos to my company (Marel) for kindly offering to pay for a taxi to drive me home for up to two weeks, while I (literally) get back on my feet, and rebuild some mental stamina. This means I’ve been able to check out early if I need to, without impacting Finnur’s work hours too much. (He’s still driving me to work, it’ll be a few more weeks before I trust myself to drive.)

All in all it’s gone pretty well. It’s given me a reason to move about more, which is a good thing, and I can feel that my leg is getting much better at pumping blood. I think I may have stayed upright for some 15 minutes a couple of times today, without feeling too much pressure, which is a huge improvement over last week! (3 images total)

To document the one week anniversary of me returning to work, I had Finnur take a photo of me outside Marel. Those white things on the pavement are salt-bits.

To document the one week anniversary of me returning to work, I had Finnur take a photo of me outside Marel. Those white things on the ground are salt-bits.

Emma’s 3D Art & Rainy Windows

2016-03-07Emma, Us Standard

[Photos from Monday 7 March 2016, posted online 10 March 2016. Feeling speedy!]

Emma’s newest thing is to stack sticky things together. On the plane to and from England for example, she went through a whole sheet of stickers, and stuck them all on top of each other on a piece of paper, instead of spreading them out.

This wet and windy afternoon, she thus took it upon herself to fetch paper, scissors, and glue, and created quite a stack of glued-together paper-pieces. The mother (that would be me) dutifully documented the results of her hard work, as well as the rain streaming down the living room windows. (4 images total)

Emma (in photosmile mode) with her 3D artwork.

Dinner with Ragnar, Agnes and their Munchkins

2016-03-06Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from Sunday 06 March 2016, posted online 10 March 2016. It hasn’t even been a whole week!]

Ragnar and Agnes (or Agnar and Ragnes, as I usually miscall them, oh brain!) are old friends of Finnur’s. They’re good fun to be around, but live psychologically far away, so we never used to meet up with them much. (They live only 30 minutes away by car, but it involves driving across barren land towards Keflavik airport, making the trip feel much longer.)

Then, during a stroke of genius, we started planning our next meeting before the current one ended, some 6 weeks in the future. Of course, rescheduling happens, but once it’s on the calendar, chances are we’ll actually meet up sooner rather than never.

As it happened, it was Agnes’ birthday (!!!), but they still came over, and we all had a lovely time.

Some photos from my corner on the couch follow… (11 images total)

Agnes, the birthday babe, with her second born.