Time Flies!

I have now been living in Iceland for 1 year...can you believe it...I am amazed that time has moved so fast...it certainly seems to have sped up in the last few years!!!

I can be the queen of procrastination and at times I kick myself for not doing more or moving fast enough but once I listed everything that has happened this last 12 months I don't feel too bad and perhaps should not chide myself too severely.

1. 09/10/2010 arrived in Iceland
2. Proceeded to purchase the Old Post Office (this took nearly 3 months of negotiations)
3. Dot paintings at the local school in Nov 2010
4. 31/12/2010 finally got the key to the Post office on New Year's Eve
5. 04/01/2011 my shipment from Australia delivered and I moved in
6. Painted the apartment unpacked and settled in, this pretty much took all of January, February and March
7. Introduced printmaking to the community in April
8. In May I got a dog...Perla, she is a great companion and keeps me fit with 2-3 good walks each day
9. Became a grandmother  on the 8th June
10. presented a 2 day children's printmaking a bookbinding workshop in Hofsós on the 14th and 15th of June
11. Visitors Gill and Bern towards the end of June
12. July spent pretty much cuddling grandson Henry everyday
13. The three dizzy dames visited for a week at the beginning of August
14. More visitors in September, Nick and Irma visit their grandson/great nephew
15. And I have just worked out this is my 68th blog post in the last 12 months, a special number. The numerals 1, 6 and 8 are my lucky numbers and have been a recurring theme in my life for many years...last house number was 168, house before last was #16 other significant house numbers were 80 and 180, worked in office #'s 186 and 86, worked in a building #16 for several years,  and the best one, Henry was born on the 8/6/2011

These of course are just a few highlights as there were plenty of other bits and pieces of everyday life thrown in between.

Today Sauðárkrókur is celebrating my 366th day by lightly snowing for the first time this autumn/winter.

 View from the Post Office window

 Balcony getting a light dusting

 View from balcony across backyards

During the last couple of weeks there have been tell tale signs around that it is autumn, a reminder that winter is not too far away....or maybe it is here already....I wonder if the first snowing means winter has now arrived???

Autumn colour on the hill behind Ross and Olga's home.

Things with the Post Office are slowly moving forward, I have (just this past week) had verbal approval from the shire re my future plans for the building (just waiting on the written approval to arrive in the mail, should be any day now).  The call has gone out to about 4 local builders to put in a quote and hopefully someone will come in within my budget and we can then move into the next stage of renovations.

The above plan is of the ground floor of the building, which was the original Post Office area and basically this is the future floorplan for the studio apartments.  The stairwell on the left is what goes up to my apartment and down to the basement. The white area is what is still owned by the telecomunications company.  There are three front entrances, one to my apartment, one to the Post Office and another one to the area on the right which will eventually be the retail/gallery premises.

The stage I will be working on next is the two studio apartments and hopefully these will be completed by the start of the summer tourist season in 2012.  The holiday studio style apartments will be self contained with a small kitchen area, bedroom and bathroom.  Once these are up and running I will start developing the retail/gallery area.  Not quite sure how this will be but I think it will just evolve over time.  In the plan above, note the spiral staircase which goes down to my art studio...I like the idea of the gallery and art studio being linked this way.

Currently I am painting and sorting the art studio space and hopefully by the end of the month I will have that finished...and I will post an update with pics when it is done.

Everything is great, I feel pretty relaxed and blessed that I have been able to move here and create a de-stressed and creative lifestyle for the last third of my life...I very much look forward to see what the next 12 months will bring.