Hi Ed,
I started the way you are going about it. I went through Haukur's online
course and then got the dictionary (it is online in an expanded
version -
http://www.northvegr.org/vigfusson/index002.php ) and I have
Gordon's book, plus the Magnusson and Palson Njall translation and just dove
in.
At first it took a couple of hours to look up all the words in the segments
we translated, but now about three years later, it usually only takes twenty
minutes or so. The hardest thing for me to learn was the vowel shifts and I
still don't have a firm grasp of them - - much less declensions.
Grace
Fred and Grace Hatton
Hawley Pa