Communication - Icelandic A to Ö

On a recent trip to Iceland, on our first evening in the country, I had booked a fun, light-hearted crash course on the Icelandic language in the living room of a friendly Icelander– called Asta (via I heart Reykjavik).
We turned up on her doorstep in a taxi and were welcomed in to her home to learn more about the origins of the language,  the construction and pronunciation of the alphabet and its every day uses. Throughout the evening we bombarded Asta with our questions about the vocabulary,  Icelandic culture and traditions and by the end of the night came away feeling like we had a fighting chance of being able to at least pronounce the name of the street we were staying on for our return taxi driver! A very different scenario from trying to pronounce where we wanted to go a few hours earlier! We could even be so bold as to say that we could  pronounce the famous ......

  .....that erupted in 2010!

Mindful Meanderings

It's the "snot and grot" season here in England  and Heni has been off college for two whole weeks recently. As usual she has been trying to get an extended half term holiday!  When everyone else gets ill, she often gets it ten times worse. Fortunately, we managed to stave off the antibiotic rounds... and she returned to college at the end of last week.  For the two weeks that she has been home it has meant that hubby and I have been back on slow down mode, taking care of her needs ..... not really knowing how things would pan out...It is always very stressful when she is ill and is not usually a very pleasant time....

It has however, been quite handy that I've had some extra "sit and do nothing time"... cuddling Heni on my knee. It has meant that over the two week period I have been able to tune in and listen to the great interviews each day on the Mindfulness Summit  hosted by Meli O'Brien (aka Mrs Mindfulness).... and just sit listening....soaking everything up.
A few days ago when Heni was feeling a little brighter,  we wrapped her up in lots of blankets and set out to get some fresh air in the woods close to where we live.  As we walked around I reflected on some of the things that I had learned.

Journaling and Gratitude

 It was raining and miserable outside and I was feeling pretty miserable and ugh inside too.... so I sat down  a little earlier for a few minutes and  decided to get out my gratitude journal and take a peek at what I had previously written. 
I tend to go in phases at writing in my journal and the last entries I  made were around March at the beginning of this year.
It was lovely to read page after page of all of the things that I had written ..... the experiences, the things,  the acts of service and the people in my life that I am thankful for. 
I had forgotten that in January I had also started a "52 weeks of journaling" challenge with  the "365 questions" by Tami Taylor... that I had downloaded from Pinterest. 
Normally I would just write a list of ten or more things for which I am thankful for on that particular day but I thought that the question prompts may add variety to my thinking and give me a wider variety of topics and subjects to be grateful for.
I found it fun to read the answers that I had put down on paper to some of the questions.... such as.....