Saturday:
The children came to me at about one o’clock and started to cut, draw and paste a picture. Than it got rather hectic and I decided to drive with them down town to the car wash as my car is really dirty after the countryside trip. It still is as there was a one hour row, so we just turned back home. Monika went with the older ones to cinema and when they came back we all went to McDonalds. By then the dear little ones were tired and grumpy and it wasn’t as much fun as we had hoped. So, back to Margrét they went and the rest of the evening was quiet with a rather exhausted grandma.

Sunday
No we wait for them again and Ragnar and family will also come to let the kids meet each other.
Should I bake a cake or buy one?
I bought one, that is to say, my husband did and the kids ate. They also played, made noise, like yelling, crying, shrieking, fought and finally a part of them fell asleep. Look at my pictures, you can see all of them on one of them.

Monday:
worked, came home and slept for three hours. Ready to go to bed again.

Last week

The last week was a full week. Monday and Tuesday there was heavy fog which is very unusual for icelandic weather conditions.
Monday
Monday afternoon I had a meeting at Marinós home, introduction of still new people, talking about the summerwork to come and things like that. He is going to get a new timetable, he is going to lay the table each day,learning to change his bed covers. Otherwise everything is fine as are the folks working there.
After that I had to hurry home as Gerður and Ottar came for a visit and a couple for dinner. In the evening I went to “a new born baby” visit and was very proud to find that house through the darkness and fog in a suburb I had never been to before. To finish that day I fetched Monika from her evening shift at the old people’s home.

Tuesday
Tuesday evening Valur and me went to a lecure in the icelandic gene institute (íslenska erfðagreining) where they have a huge project going in the genes of people with autistm and their families. It is well on the way and some results will be published in the end of this year. They got four groups to work with: the people with autism; their close families and the larger families, going back to grandparents and sideways to the siblings of the parents and their children; students at the university of Iceland; normal pupolation. They take blood of all the people with autism and the closer families (1700+ samples by now), send questionaires, and again take blood of some of the other groups. Then they compare the genes and look where differences are. These results then will go to other specialists who will work to look at the functions which are connected to the gene(s) in question. That, maybe, will be followed by some drug to overtake or steer the function of this malfunctioning gene. As one example: With one family there has been found a bit of one gene missing which is known to fine tune the reactions of the brain by producing an encyme. If this missing bit is found to be missing at the gene information of many people with autism there would be a point to start working with. But it is known that autism must be a cluster of different changes in different gene strings, so there will never be one drug to help. But… at the end of this year we will know more.

Wednesday
Wednesday evening I went to another lecture about CAT (Cognitive affective training). That consists of a bunch of materials to teach people with autism to understand their own feelings and those of other people. A very interesting way of working which we Must get for our class.

Thursday
Thursday evening found me in the countryside. Heike arrived for Jakobinas birthday from germany, Margrét fetched her from the airport and together me and Heike drove to the east. There we had a nice and relaxing evening

Friday
and the next noon I collected the children of Jakobina from their different places, schoolbus and playschool and went back to Reykjavík, while the young women, five of them, went for a long ride (see photos of birthday.) The children all slept at Margréts place where I will fetch them later.

Saturday

Yesterday there was a horse in our house. I promised to tell nobody, Jakobína is afraid that people would think we are crazy. Yes, we are. But please, don´t talk about it.
Jakobína arrived with children, girls, the dog Rósa and two horses in a trailer at noon. They planned to ride these two horses on a horseshow in town, as an exercise for both horses and riders. So the question arrived where to give the horses the final make’up. There were some options but we took the quickest one: the lower floor of my house. Margrét, the hairdressingwoman arrived with her little bag and then there was combing, brushing and grooming. The horses, one at a time, behaved beautifully as ladies should do in a beautishop and didn’t leave any manure. The show also went nice I have been told. No, I don’t live in the country. We have a very usual house in a usual house street but a rather big garden with a garden door and there in they went. In the meantime my husband was feeding lots of grandchildren. It was a very happy saturday. (look at the photos if you like.)

Friday

So much did I plan to do today and so little did I accomplish. Nice lazy day. I slept very long, read the papers, spent a long time chatting with Margrét and Monika, together and alone, I did dust some and cleaned the bathroom and did some whashing – ok, I put some dirty things into the washingmachine and it did the rest, then I read and slept some more. Margrét brought Marinó for dinner and herself and her two kids and a friend of them and they all ate here and half past nine Valur and me drove Marinó home and I fetched my car from Margrét’s place on the way back. The only thing I regret is not having gone for a walk as I had promised myself in the morning. So some calories stayed unburned.

Work from eight to half past twelve and my working week is finished. Did teach, go out into the slub, talk and work in the office and didn’t get away before past one. Margrét is still on my car as her’s it at the garage. Coffee and lunch at home and then I drove Margrét home, Monika to work and me to my painting class and finally finished my “horses in landscape” picture and fiddled with another one which is coming well along. Shop, home, fish, potatoes and salat for dinner and here we are. In the evening I dress into something comfortable, fall into my easy chair in front of thr TV and sew or knit. My needlepoint cushion is getting along fine and I love it. The phone beside me, so I stay in touch with the world, today my daughter in law, the ears of the baby are fine again, and with my mother who is coughing on the phone and has newly developed an allergy for akazia-trees which stand in full flower at Lisboa at the moment. And on friday before eastern I will listen to the requiem of Mozart at the Gulbenkian hall, as she told me. So, looking forward.

Wednesday

The same again as yesterday, to work eight o’clock and a quite exhausting day it was, due to sickness of half of the staff in our class. I never get sick and jump in for them that do. I get extra hours paid but still I am tired. Margrét fetched me at four and to the shop we went, buying food once again and now I wait for a guest and then this day is finished, too. The guest: My oldest son’s mother in law and I am so happy how lucky my children are and I am with all my children’s in laws and: all the mothers are teachers! Two of them I got to know and like a lot through wedding preparations. I have not yet got round to speculate deeply if there is some psychological connection in this teacher mother fact. Anyhow, we are a big family and getting bigger.
16.02., my oldest son has birthday today, I will not tell you how old he is –how old must I be, to have such an old boy…

This morning I woke up at half past eight, had my porridge aso. Cleaned the kitchen and arrived at work at ten. The poor sweeties were completely crazy today (as yelling, bawling, throwing materials around) so we spent some time jumping on the trampoline, going under chairs and over the broom and around the table… to let some steam off. One teacher had birthday and brought this extremly delicious cake for us. Later there was a teacher's meeting and I spent sometime in between at the computer, writing reports and the like.

When I came to the parking lot at about four, my car had a flat tire. A big nail smiled at me: Got you! I phoned a service and a very young man arrived half an hour later and though he tried badly he was not able to get at my sparetire which is, as I know now, under the car. So I had to wait again for the next service man, who came still half an hour later and did his job nicely. Meanwhile the rain was pouring and as I find it unpolite to sit in the dry car while somebody is changing my tire I stood in the rain too and got extremely wet and cold. Following this adventure I went to the tirefixing shop and had everything fixed again. All this took about two hours.
In the meantime I was in phone connection with Jakobina on the way to town who asked me to take care of her children, which I had to decline as I wasn’t at home and Margrét whom I had promised to fetch somewhere after work. She got another ride. So Jakobina left her kids with Margrét where I than fetched everybody and the storm wind of five children blew through our house while I fried bred and eggs. Jakobina and Alisse arrived soon, with a horse trailer with a horse in it, everybody had coffee and something to eat and something to talk around yelling and eating kids and then suddenly there they all were gone and a blanket of silence once again descended on our home. And now it is eight o’clock, time for my easy chair and needlework.

Last week I had my birthday and thank everyone who phoned and congratulated me in that or any other way. I even got a postcard, yes, some people still write postcards and such a beautifull picture it is. Otherwise I got roses and a bad weather overall from my husband (the later one I still have to buy). Monika gave me a cordless computermouse and such a keyboard which was a pretty splendid idea. How has life been before that? Margrét gave me a car wash. So I had a shiny clean car for some hours and some polish under the new snowmudsplashes.
The postcard told me, that the writer was enjoying my blog, so that I just had to sit down and write. Otherwise I have started to feel quite lonely here in cyberspace if it wasn’t for Monikas comments. So people, if you read me, put an xxx under comments!
For this week I decided to give you a brief overview over each day. So, today, monday:
I woke up eight o clock, had a bath, breakfast and coffee and cigarette and went to work, starting 9:30. There I started to supervise the morning brake of 4 sweet children, eating their breakfast, which they did nicely. In my following 20 minutes break I went out and had a smoke. We have to get away from the schoolbuilding, so there is a small walk included. The rest of my break I eorganizes shelves in the classroom. Benni very professionally helped me too move one rather sticky one and did it perfectly. After that I had a comfortable lesson of 90 minutes with one of my pupils. After a cup of coffee I had to go out into the sleety, icy rain for 30 minutes and try to supervise our children, all looking the same in little overalls and disappearing in scarves, gloves and caps. I survived that and on it went till half past one. Then, and now it get’s interesting, I went to an exercise room and spent 15 minutes walking on a runway and some time making some exercises. Then: shopping, noth9ng of interest, home, reading (and going to sleep over the book) making dinner, and so here I am. Yes for the “broken sword” players, I am stuck on some jungle island. And there I will leave it today.

Carrots

You wouldn’t want to know what is in my new fridge. Something ugly, mossy, smelling? No, quite the opposite, something very, very dead that should be alive. Before Christmas I bought this little baby carrots, imported from the US. Everytime I look at them, they look nice, a few grey spots, but that is it, very eatable. Now I leave them to look how long they will stay that way. In my opinion carrots this age should start to sprout, get dry and wrinkly and, waiting some more, get brown and smelly. What do they treat this carrots with that they are so completely dead? What are we supposed to eat? Why can’t food be as nature gives them? Salats, I just read, are whashed in chlorine, so they keep better. Oh, I long for summer and my home grown vegatables!
And, did you see my weatherpixie? I love her! Now I will not have to tell you anymore how the weather is in Reykjavík. But for our house, you can add some 2-3 degrees minus and draw away some of the wind.

Today I am proud.

Proud of my mom who told me that I wrote nonsense the other day, proud that she knows nonsense when she sees it and that she is reading my blog and thinking about it, too! The nonsense was, and I correct humbly –teachers also make mistakes- that the earth is nearer the sun in winter than in summer. It is not, it is on the opposite side and nearest in spring and autumn. Did I get it right now Mom? The reason I would talk about this subject in the first place, was why the sun goes higher in spring parabolic and not linear. In the end, as I understand it, and I might be wrong again, it’a a question of the curvation of the earth, And here I will leave it. If anyone of you can tell me if I am wrong this time again, please do so.
This week I spent a nice afternoon with the two year old son of my oldest, we read books together and looked at holiday pictures and were comfortable. I did work, eat, sleep, visit dear friends and the only thing that is changing daily in my life is the weather. One of my teeth is sore and I should go to the dentist but it’s not yet quite sore enough to take that step.
Yesterday evening I finished “Belladonna skjalið”, or “rule of four” in english, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It didn´t grip me, maybe because I got the icelandic tanslation. But the background, the campus of Princeton University, was uninteresting for me as the life speculations of rather young men. Anyhow, I didn’t get it and found it rather boring.
The book before “miskunnsemi guðs”, translated into icelandic from norwegian, (“Guðs barmhetigheit” by Kerstin Ekman) is quite readable but the main persons remain rather pale and the ending is such that you wait for the book number two. Ha, you know what I read right now on the cover?..is the first book of a triologie… ok. It’s the story of a young midwife in the northern corner of Sweden, where Sweden, Norway and Finnland meet, starting at about 1917.
Now I will go into my kitchen and think about food as Margrét and her familily are invited to dinner.

I know, I have been rather lazy on the blog the last days. Lots to do. The last weekend found me in the countryside, the first time again since November and it was very nice indeed. Really, I answered a cry for help, everybody beeing down with the flu. So I cooked some dinner, played with great enjoyment with my grandchildren and whashed some washing.
Here in town time is moving fast, much fun at work and my new bed is great still! I hope I will have more time at the weekend.