I received a nomination from the lovely Kayleigh and now must answer the following questions:

1) What is your favourite travel destination?  New Zealand was an amazing experience.  The scenery, the adventure options, the character of the different cities...it's just fantastic.  My favourite part of the NZ experience was staying at the most gorgeous campground, with a lake and mountains in the background and sheep wandering about!  As for intended travel destinations, I've always wanted to go to Greece...

2) Coffee or tea? It changes from one to the other, right now it's probably coffee.

3) What is your biggest fear? Being abandoned by people I love.

4) Favorite movie? Once, Reality Bites, Romy & Michele's High School Reunion...hehe

5) Do you have secret single girl behaviour that you do when no one is around? What is it?  Um.  I talk to the cats a lot.  

6) If you were stranded on a desert island, what is one thing you would want to have? An unlimited supply of reading material

7) If your life was a book, what would it be called? Bludgeoning our way through life

8) Pick one fictional character that you made up when you were a child that you would love to be real.  Jingles and Jangles the Christmas Elves!

9) Sherlock or Watson? Sherlock

10) Favorite yoga pose. Warrior

There is a second part of this which involves me nominating people but I'm just not that cool in the blogging world, so I think I'm satisfied with at least doing 50%.

What else?  

Both hospitals I work at are going through accreditation - one had it this week and the other one will have it in about 3 weeks.  I really didn't like being at work when it was happening...everyone is on edge, and there is the threat of random people asking you scary questions about policies etc...it was just kind of a stressful environment!  After my work at the hospital was done yesterday, I went to an aged care residence to do a swallowing assessment and must have still been a bit flustered from the tense environment which resulted in some clumsiness - I dropped a big tub of crackers and they went everywhere.  Rather embarrassing!

Only 11 more official days of winter, which is great news!  I've had it with being freezing cold inside my house.  I have booked a flight to see Jeremy in Port Lincoln on the last weekend of August and I'm very much looking forward to it.  He has purchased a year long pass that allows entry to the national parks and there are some beautiful hikes in that area.  He has also mentioned some sort of midnight orienteering activity?  

In keeping with my luck while Jeremy is away, my good friend Jen came to Adelaide for an interview last Friday and spent the weekend with me.  We went to the Central Markets, then for a skate and finally to the second last Adelaide Adrenaline hockey game of the season.  Only in Australia - the game was delayed for two hours because the opposing team's equipment hadn't arrived in time!  Adelaide easily won the game, and I won $172.50 in the 50/50 draw so that was pretty darn awesome!

I can't believe it has been almost 3 months since we returned from our Canada trip.  Times goes by much too quickly sometimes!  But - every day that passes brings us closer to Hawaii trip and my brother's wedding which I'm sure will be incredible.

Me and the cats

So it's just the three of us now.  Jeremy arrived safely in Port Lincoln Saturday afternoon.  I just Skyped with him after his first day at the Aboriginal Health Clinic.  So far it sounds like a bunch of introductions and learning how the clinic runs.  He has already been on a four hour hike in a nearby national park and has found the local pool as well.  He is using his time wisely!  It would be quite soon, but he might possibly be back this weekend.  You see, our friend Jen (sometimes known as my first friend in Australia) has a job interview in ADELAIDE on Friday!  She texted a few days ago and I almost squealed with excitement at work when I heard the news.  It is excellent that I will be having an unexpected visit with Jen - and I know Jeremy would love to see her too if his schedule permits.

I was very lucky this weekend to have two wonderful friends visiting which helped take my mind off Jeremy's departure.  Lisa arrived Friday afternoon and from the moment I finished work on Friday, I don't think we stopped the action until last night!  Jeremy wanted to make Lisa her annual 'birthday' dinner (never mind that her birthday is in November...we likely won't be seeing her at that time of year) so that was our plan for Friday night.  We had her traditional choice of spaghetti bolognaise, along with garlic bread and salad.  Jeremy made the pasta from scratch...that pasta maker birthday present I gave him a couple of years ago has been quite the handy tool!  Some other friends, Jane and Candy, came to join the celebration.  We didn't too too much celebrating that night though, because the next day was packed full of fun adventures!  I started off Saturday morning with a 7:30 am cardio class - made me feel less guilty for the decadence to come. Saturday morning was also when the lovely Claire flew in from Melbourne to join our weekend of Adelaide fun :)

I outlined the walking chocolate tour and old & new wine bars of Adelaide tours a couple of entries ago.  We arrived at the designated meeting point for the chocolate tour at 10 am and after waiting for a couple of stragglers (who happened to be in our group of friends...oops!) we were off.  We tried lots of delicious chocolate concoctions - it's difficult to say which one was my favourite.  It was probably the chili hot chocolate at Steven ter Horst.  I had walked by this shop but had not wandered in previously.  I think I will be going back!  Claire was particularly excited that you could buy a 'Claire' chocolate and she even bought one for me to sample!  There was also a 'Lana' - but no Leana.  So close.

Buzzing from a chocolate filled morning, we did some light shopping to kill the time until it was time for the wine bar tour.  Funnily enough, the guide from the chocolate tour (Romina) was coming on the wine tour as a guest rather than a tour guide - she was going along the learn the ropes in case she ever needed to fill in for the regular guide.  We went to four wine bars and sampled the wares.  The clear winner was The Apothecary, which was also the only one I had been to before.  At this point, we probably needed to get some real food into us so we headed to Ruby Red Flamingo, one of my favourite Adelaide restaurants.  We figured that since it was only 6:30, there wouldn't be much of a wait....well, an hour and a half later, we were seated.  Luckily we enjoyed the time we spent waiting as we had a little balcony to ourselves with comfy seats, drinks, and a heater.  The food was yummy as usual - would totally recommend it to tourists if they are prepared for a wait.

Sunday morning arrived too quickly and Claire, Lisa and I were off for brunch at 'The Loose Caboose'.  Poor Lisa spent the weekend freezing (NOT A REAL CANADIAN!) and it didn't help that at brunch we were seated outside (no heaters and a bit rainy).  There was at least an over hang for protection from rain, and blankets were provided on each seat to keep toasty.  We continued on to shopping, a gold class movie, dumplings, and then the making of maple bacon cupcakes.

All too soon, it was Monday morning and I was waking up for work and the girls were headed off to catch their flights.  I am lucky to have incredibly fabulous friends!

My other means of warmth

Introducing...

The warmest onesie ever!

I think it's basically impossible to feel cold when you become a big fluffy zebra.

Hey, in these sorts of conditions you have to improvise :)

A little blurb from the Adelaide Advertiser Facebook page:

Yes, it really was that cold this morning. At 6.29am, the temperature was just 0.9 degrees. In fact, this is Adelaide's coldest August morning for 126 years. Get the latest weather updates - it's a balmy 1.2 degrees at the moment btw - plus traffic, petrol prices and latest news in Adelaide's morning blog, The Pulse.

I actually needed to scrape ice off my windshield this morning - but I don't have a scraper, since I live in freakin' Australia!  I warmed up the car a little and then used a canvas bag to get the frost off.  We've definitely been making use of the 'reverse-cycle air-conditioner'.  

Just in case anyone happens to be curious about what a reverse-cycle air conditioner is, I looked it up since I was wondering about it.  Here is what one website had to say:

How does reverse cycle air conditioning work? 

Most electric heaters create heat directly, using elements which heat up when an electric current 
passes through them. These ‘direct element’ heaters include portable heaters, panel convectors 
and off-peak storage heaters. They have a maximum efficiency of 100%, when all the electricity is converted to heat and delivered to the room. Reverse cycle air conditioning extracts heat from the outside air, even on mid-winter nights, and transfers it inside. A refrigerant is passed through an external coil, absorbing heat from the outside air. This refrigerant is then pumped through a compressor into a fan coil unit (or ‘condenser’) inside the home, releasing its heat into the room. Up to three or more units of heat can be transferred for every unit of electricity used to run reverse cycle air conditioning. Therefore, running costs can be as low as one-third of those for direct element heaters. By reversing the flow of this refrigerant, reverse cycle air conditioners also provide efficient refrigerative cooling in summer. 

Well that was rather educational.  I'm a bit terrified to get the electricity bill since it was so astronomical last winter - but that was when we were using the little space heaters which are apparently super expensive to run!  Hopefully there will be a drastic reduction with this method. The days recently have actually been cool, but sunny and clear which is a nice change from all the rain we've been having since we returned from our Canada trip.

Jeremy is working his last paediatrics shift right now!  He will have a few days to run some errands, and then leaves for Port Lincoln this Saturday.  I will be sad, but at least I'll have two lovely visitors this weekend for company and fun.  He's not even sure of his schedule yet, but when he does get it, we can have a look and plan some visits.