It’s a bit graphic intense   I’m a bit proud of it

We had a few problems on the server I was using, where some people were taking/destroying/using people’s stuff without permission… and after having some of that done to me, and having to deal with stuff that happened to other people (since I was a mod), a couple of us decided to start up our own server.  So we set the server up as survival, but with the understanding that we can all switch ourselves to creative mode if we want (that means the server has monsters and you need to mine for stuff, but we can change our individual gamemodes so we’re not affected by monsters and have all the blocks available to use freely.

So, taking advantage of free build…. I’ve got a project underway.  It’s not finished yet, but I’ve got to the end of stage one, so I figured I’d put pics up now.  My fear is that stage 2 (which is adding a giant Goddess statue in the centre of the pool) will make the complex look crap, so I’m documenting it before I do that, just in case

So here’s more or less what I started with.  I chose a forest just because I felt bad taking a flat plain, only to dig a big hole in it…  I ended up clearing most trees by hand in survival mode (I couldn’t see all that wood go to waste)… and I wanted to build up the edges of the land, with solid blocks so I don’t get mobs spawning in there.

(the sand blocks were to help me count by 5′s to make sure the place was square… and I still managed to stuff up and make it not square *sigh*)

Then came the fun with TNT… I had 3 other people help me blast the big hole…

Then came the laborious task of carving out the tiers.  Since TNT is no good for fine work, there were HOURS and HOURS of work removing block by block.  Luckily again I had help, or I doubt I’d ever have finished it!

I had a basic plan of “make a big square hole with a Goddess statue in the middle and tiers with houses carved into the walls” plan….  I didn’t plan out the size or how I was going to actually do it, so it’s just growing and taking shape as I go, with no real plan.

I had originally thought the stairs would go straight down, but I realised early on that to go down so deep I wouldn’t be able to make them straight… so I’ve had to make them how I’ve done them… going down in stages.  But I think that probably looks cooler than just plain stairs anyway.

The stairs down are behind/under the stairs you can see.

The bottom has a sort of trellis thing… I’ve been experimenting with using fences for various different effects.

It looks quite pretty at night

Then I decided it needed a fancy outer wall… which we (the friend who was helping) and I ended up having to move, because I’d not planned the wall, and I wanted a specific pattern, so we had to fiddle around a lot to make it fit.  (As it happens, we forgot to move one wall, so one side is not the same as the rest, but it was too much effort to correct it once I realised)

I’d been playing around making a building on my local server, so I wanted to build the same thing here, I was toying with the idea of making one as a sort of entrance gate… but then I decided to build one in each corner.

(love the sunsets!)

The plan was to have a water moat around each, but one corner of the land was in the swamp, so the water changed to swamp water in the moat and looked weird… so I decided I’d have to make that corner (and the opposite one) lava.  Then I decided I should make each building a “temple” for each of the 4 elements.

I was going to have a village around the top, but I hadn’t really left enough room, so I’ve scrapped that idea.

Unfortunately we had issues with the server host so had to change hosts… and we ended up having to use an older backup when we moved, so I had 3 temples finished and I’d edged all the paths in nether brick, but the backup was when I only had 2 done and no path ending, so that had to be redone.

But… I got it completed tonight!  Well, this stage anyway..

Each “temple” is the same, except for the colour of the open level, and the outside garden sort of thing.  “Fire” temple has fire (red wool)…  “Water” temple has water (blue wool), “Earth” temple has long grass (green wool) and “air” temple has nothing&glowstone (sandstone)

And the entrance gates

They opened a fenced dog park over a year ago just down the road, but we’ve been hesitant to take our dog (Fudge) because since puppy preschool (7 years ago) he’s only ever really met 2 other dogs and that’s my sister’s dog who stayed with us once (and Fudge spent the whole time looking depressed because the little dog was bullying him), and my BIL/SIL’s dog who I think he’s met twice, many many years ago…. and he’s sniffed a couple of dogs on the street, but he’s generally pulling at the lead to get to them, and he barks at every dog that goes past the house.  I don’t think he’s aggressive, just really excited to see another dog…. and when he’s excited he’s all jumpy and I’m sure it looks like he’s aggressive.

Added to that, the one time we let him off the lead at a park when he was younger, we had trouble getting him back….. while we’ve tried to teach him  commands …. he’ll really only obey if he wants to…. and if he’s distracted by something, like freedom…. there’s no chance… not even with tasty treats as bribery.

(Our beautiful boy!)

So we weren’t sure if he’d shame us by barking and chasing the other dogs (in excitement, not aggression) and if we’d ever be able to catch him to put him back on the lead… So we’d desperately wanted to give him the opportunity to socialise with other dogs, but we assumed it would end badly.

But he was PERFECT!  When we got there I put 2 leads together to make one long one so he could walk a bit but not get away, he was a bit nervous and stayed around us just sniffing, then a dog came over and they calmly sniffed each other and Fudge then went back to smelling all the exciting smells the grass apparently has…. so we walked around a bit and he seemed perfectly calm and uninterested with the other dogs, so we decided to risk letting him off the lead….  Well he just calmly sniffed around a few metres from us…. no taking off!  So we did a lap of the area and he pretty much ignored all the dogs, then we went to sit down and he wouldn’t leave our side, so we walked around with him.  (or I did – MiniObsi and MrObsi went off bike riding.)

He had some other dogs come up and sniff him, and he sniffed back, all nice and calm, then they wandered off and he got the courage to join them.  We still had to walk around or stand near the action or he would just come to be with us, but he had a whale of a time, hanging out with the other dogs, going up to all the people for pats (good thing we bathed him first!)

There was one dog who decided it wanted a bit of rough housing, but while Fudge was the one barking, he was playing the submissive role and letting the other dog jump on and nip him, so while the other dog’s owner was apologising and worried I’d think his dog was aggressive, I pointed out that it’s just play and if the dogs considered it more than that, we’d know…. (though since I was sitting down and Fudge wouldn’t leave me, I ended up having 2 dogs playing about almost on my lap lol)

So he was great.  So that’s given us confidence to be able to take him again!  I kinda wish we’d given him the benefit of the doubt and taken him before now…. but now we know, we’ll be able to take him more often.  He was doing the doggy equivalent of grinning the whole time

(I think that’s everything, we haven’t fully unpacked yet)

MiniObsi made me a bed (from icypole sticks)… since I like to sleep in   which has a chest of drawers with an alarm clock that has a power cord and she made a powerpoint on the back of the drawers (love detail like that!).  In the drawers were 2 LEGO minifigs, Luminara (who I’d desperately wanted!) and an Imperial Guard

Mum and dad gave me a juicer (which I’ve wanted for YEARS!)  and some chokkies…

Hubby gave me some portal socks, MacGyver DVD, LEGO pirates game, Undead Nightmare game, Zelda game, 2 Star Wars novels and the cutest thing – he made me peg dolls of Nathan Fillion (as Castle and Mal) so I can perve on them LMAO!

The Inlaws gave me some purple cons!  and some groovy soft woollen socks and a very awesome spicy drawer sachet (so my socks and undies can all smell like chai! haha)

From my BIL/SILs I got another MacGyver DVD (now I have the entire set), Dark Angel DVD set, Xmas apron and plate, and a pack of chocs and stuff (not pictured – which I have to share with hubby )

And at our pre-xmas xmas lunch I got Big Bang Theory DVD, so I’m including it here.

And we got a gift voucher for the family, which we’re going to use to go towards buying the Star Wars blueray set!  (woot!)

It started out as a hot humid day, with air-conditioning going full pelt… then we get in the car and drive out to have dinner with the other side of the family, and I see what I thought was white pebbles by the side of the road…. Odd… then I saw more…. they can’t be pebbles – but it’s still quite warm, it can’t possibly be hail….

ohh yes it was!  We’d just missed a hail storm

We didn’t miss the flooding though….  a fair amount of water on the roads, and a few places they had police out blocking off lanes..

The drive normally takes 45 mins… it took about an hour and a half….  With the water and people driving carefully, the freeway was crawling along.

The police had blocked off one lane on that side due to flooding.  We weren’t sure we’d be able to get back along that road…. but the water was gone by the time we drove back… though we did see big hoses and SES guys, so I’m wondering if they pumped it out… since it’s a major road

You can see the white on the oval – it’s hailstones.  And this was about 15 mins after it hailed.

The streets (and several cars that went past) were covered in leaf bits, and you could see where the water had washed over the roads…. I couldn’t really take pics as we were driving, but this is as we slowed to turn into a street… this street was quite clear compared to the road we’d turned off!

MiniObsi shows one of the hailstones (again, take into consideration that it had hailed about 15 mins before we got there).  You can see more of the leaves that the hail broke off.

As we were driving there, we were discussing whether the round about would be flooded…. MiniObsi was concerned we’d have nowhere dry to park if it was… I said that if we couldn’t find parking up the street then it would mean the house we were going to would be underwater and we’d be using snorkles to eat dinner.

When we got there, that roundabout wasn’t flooded at all… in only about 10 mins the rain came down heavily again and it started to flood.

Which was when the hail started again, and since some of the people who had been in the earlier hailstorm had their cars damaged, MrObsi and I raced out to throw our picnic rugs onto the car to protect it….  We got quite drenched… MrObsi luckily got a new tshirt as one of his presents, so that was fortunate… I had to stay damp

We stood on the porch looking at the parked fancy car… saying that we wouldn’t want that to be our car… and that the owner must be away…

We watched as within minutes the water had risen from just below the bottom of the body of that fancy car, to being well and truly at “seeping in through the door” level…

The water was running down the street…. Unfortunately photos don’t really show how much water there really was…

The dude who owned that car came out… he was there all along!  Apparently he’d been “occupied” with a lady friend…. who I must say, must have been quite talented… for him to have chosen her over saving his car….

Amazingly, he got in the car (letting more water inside) and managed to drive it up the hill to dry land…. it was billowing plumes of smoke though, it did not look healthy… but then he parked and went back inside.  The fellas we were with said he should have driven it around to dry it out… but I guess the lady friend was waiting for him…

It was quite funny to see the cars get to the round about and stop… obviously considering if they should attempt to go up or not…   Similarly we could see card come down the hill, stop and reverse back.  2 cars decided to brave it coming down the hill, one hylux and one 4WD… both drove up onto the left hand footpath to do it though…  A bit later on when the water had gone down a bit a couple of other cars came down the hill successfully…

One tried to make it up… and stopped halfway.  Whether they conked out or stopped we don’t know.

They stayed in the car for a while, then a woman climbed out the passenger window, and was fiddling with the rear window – we realised then that there were kids in the car with her.  Luckily there were a lot of people around and they came over as she was pulling one kid through the window, they took the child and carried it to the other side of the road (where someone happened to have a towel they were using to keep themselves dry), and went back to help her carry the other child out….

They all walked down the street, so I assume they sheltered them for a few hours until the water went down a bit, and they pushed the car up out of the water.  They had left it with the window open though, so it’s going to be a bit moist inside for sure!

The water was knee deep in the deepest part…

Then some idiot parked, got out and walked around for about 15 mins in the water, slipped over on that right hand side road but couldn’t get up because he had an umbrella that he was waving around catching it in the water (and because the water was running fast).. he ended up sliding down the hill (it doesn’t look like much of a hill but it is)…. and we were a bit concerned he was going to get into trouble (though he seemed to be waving to people as he slid), but someone waded in and grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out… we think he was wasted though…  Luckily he eventually got back into his car and drove off, before he could drown himself or something.

So something a bit interesting this Xmas evening!

There are 4 varieties in my packs.  Cinnamon, Pink iced, Choc iced and a mixed pack.  I’ve left the middle blank so you can cut it out, stick some plastic behind and show the seeds off

To make them, just take come cherios… For the cinnamon ones I tossed them in some cinnamon and sugar mix (you could leave them plain, but they look a bit more realistic when coated, especially since I’d bought the honey ones and they looked shiny)  If you leave them out on a plate for a couple of hours they go a bit sticky and the cinnamon will stick better.  For the iced ones I made a small amount of icing and dipped them in, then I dipped them in sprinkles.  I crushed the sprinkles a bit to make them smaller to fit the scale better.

Then print the packets, carefully cut out the inner section, bend it on the dotted lines and stick it together

Fill with your cherios (make sure the icing is set) and you’re done!

Download all 4 varieties as a .pdf (1 of each pack, 2 pages)

Download Sprinkle variety as a .pdf (2 of each pack, 2 pages)

Download Cinnamon & Mixed variety as a .pdf (2 of each pack, 2 pages)

Or download each of them as images (the writing won’t be as clear as the .pdf version)

And here’s a blank one if you want to make your own text for it

Much to my surprise (and great honour), I was awarded the “Textile MacGyver” Award

The description of my award was thus (I’ve linked to the bits they were talking about for reference):

I’m honoured and touched!

Not how I’d originally planned to make it, but I like it.  I’d gone to spotlight to get some Xmas scrapbooking paper… they didn’t have any.  Nor did they have any kind of numbers to use…. nor anything to use as doorknobs for the drawers.  Pathetic!  I did get those wing pin things, hoping they would work, but they don’t…. but more on that later.

So… to make it, I started off by painting 24 matchboxes (just the outer part) white.  they took several coats.  Then I stuck groups of 3 drawers together.  Then cut out strips of scrap fabric (I was cutting out Xmas pads today) to go in each drawer.  I put glue on the front and inside front of the drawers and stuck the fabric on, I didn’t bother gluing it down all the way into the box, but the fabric extends to cover the whole inside (if that makes sense).

Now….  Matchboxes are normally opened by pressing the back of the drawer part to make it come out.  When assembled you won’t be able to do that, so it’s VERY DIFFICULT to open the drawers without some sort of knob or thing to pull.  The wing pin things I mentioned (those pins that have two “wing” bits that you bend over to keep the pin in place), aren’t knobby enough to use to pull the drawers out.  OK.. well they kinda are if you put them in so they are a bit loose and you can get your nails in behind, but they don’t work as well as I’d hoped they would.  But you can use them to hold a section of ribbon and use that as a tab to pull on, which works brilliantly!

but I didn’t like the way the ribbon overhangs the drawer below, I thought it looked messy…particularly when they all have one… and the ribbons get caught in the drawer below… and to be honest, poking holes in the boxes by hand (I didn’t have a suitable hole punch) was a PITA!

Another option for you, is to take some ribbon and glue or stickytape it to the bottom of each drawer, so that it’s sticking out a little and you can pull that to open the drawer, which also works well and doesn’t have as much messy overhang as attaching the ribbon tabs to the front(except the ribbon them pokes directly out, rather than down)

There’s probably other options to help open the drawers, feel free to suggest some… You’ll be wanting to make sure the glue is dry before you slide the drawers in so they don’t glue themselves shut.

If you want numbers, put them on.  I did want numbers but I couldn’t find any… and I didn’t want to hand draw them, or print them on the computer, so buggerit, we’ll just randomly open a drawer a day… not like it really matters which is which anyway (though I was toying with the idea of having a different line in an Xmas poem in each drawer, which won’t work unless you open them in order)

Also cut sections of fabric to cover one side each of the stuck together matchboxs(covering where the striking stuff is)…(so you need 8) but don’t glue those on just yet….  You first need to assemble the boxes to work out which sides need the fabric covering them.

So arrange the matchboxes like so, and cut a piece of cardboard the same size as that square they make. (actually, cut 2 and keep one aside)  Glue them onto that piece of cardboard, and glue the fabric onto those exposed sides.  A tip for you… leave/put the drawers in for this bit, so the boxes have enough rigidity to withstand having a coffee mug or something put on top to weigh it down while the glue sticks.  Then put glue on the tops of the matchboxes and glue your next layer on, making sure you’re alternating the drawer/flat sections.  Weigh that down while it dries too.

I used 3 fabrics for mine, 2 were red and one was green, so I have a red & green theme, so I made sure each side had one green and one red flat section, and I made the drawers so that they alternate in colour too.  Once that is done, stick fabric to the other square of cardboard you cut that is the same size as the top of the assembled cube.. and glue that onto the top.

If you wanted a box for day 25, you could just cover the matchbox in fabric and stick that to the top… I didn’t bother.

(These pics were taken before I added the drawer pulls)

Years ago…. as in like 11-12 years ago, I was quite addicted to IRC (chat rooms)… and a friend of mine was on an alt.tv.buffy newsgroup which had a chatroom, so she dragged me in, so I could chat to people there.  I loved the people there and would chat away all night with them.  I even (ashamedly) made a website to showcase our hilarious chat conversations and profile each chatter.  *ahem* (thank you geocities for your demise that took all those embarrassing websites with it)

We had a couple of real-life meetups and stuff, and one was where I met hubby.  He had never come onto the chat room, nor had posted in the newsgroup, but he’d seen the meetup and decided to come along.  I think it was going to see the first X-men movie   I thought he was hot, he was trying to chat up someone else   but I found an excuse to e-mail him (to send him a link to my photos from a previous meetup), and I managed to snare him with my incredible wit

(I started my e-mail with a polite “I hope you don’t mind me e-mailing you”, to which he replied saying it was fine and something about him having no reason to not want me to e-mail him… to which I replied “Ohh, then I guess you didn’t get the Melissa virus I sent, ohh better luck next time”… he laughed and our e-mail chattering started and we got together )

Anyway…  it was a great group, but slowly we all seemed to dwindle away. I  don’t really keep in touch with anyone from there much, except I have a couple of people on my Facebook friends list (not that we really interact much)… and the friend who originally introduced me to them… and hubby of course…

So 11 years or so on…. I’m playing Tf2 with my new friends (all of whom I met just from playing that game), the subject of Facebook comes up, I (kinda) feign disappointment that one of the women there wasn’t my FB friend, so another friend sends me the link to her page.  I click the button to send a friend request and notice the “mutual friends” list… There’s 3 people on there.  OMG, she knows 3 of the people I used to chat to in IRC…. how weird is that…. then I take another look at her name….. hmm… vaguely familiar….. I sneak a peek at one of her photos – OMG the guy in the background is definitely from those IRC days, and she does look familiar, I know who she is…. I can’t believe it!

So I manage to squeak out a “hey, we have some of the same FB friends” – so she asks who, and I tell her, and she does an OMG

So yes… we knew eachother way back in the IRC days!  She was in the other newsgroup group of people (for x-files fans), but we used to mingle in the chat room and sometimes at gatherings also.And somehow we both managed to join the same TF2 gaming group!

She asked me if I knew someone else from that IRC group, and if I’d been to her wedding, and I laughed – as I was one of the celebrants (and that was actually where I proposed to hubby – we snuck out of the reception for a walk, stopping by the tree next to where the ceremony was, and that’s where I proposed).

– Almost as trippy as the night I was out to dinner with my inlaws (and extended inlaws)…. one of whom had brought along another couple and their young child.  Us younger generation (hubby, his sister, brother & his wife.. and our kids) were all sitting up one end of the table, and the oldies at the other, with this couple (who was our age) ….  So we hadn’t spoken to them, but their child was sitting down with us.  Later in the evening, the guy came over to say hello, and introduced himself, with a really unusual surname, and asked jokingly if we could spell it.  The only time I’d ever heard it before was a guy I knew at school.  So I looked at him again…. and the similarities were striking.  So I mentioned that I didn’t know if I could spell it, but I used to go to school with someone who had that name. He’s asked which school, I’ve told him and yes – it was him!

So amazingly, he’s very close with my hubby’s cousin (as in basically an adopted member of the family).  And since he’d just moved to QLD, and that’s where we were (helping my SIL move house), he got invited out to dinner with us all.

Embarrassingly I did have to mention that he once held the back of my skirt up with a ruler in Computer class Bwahahaha (in one of those times your mouth starts talking before your brain has a chance to say “hang on, may not be appropriate an anecdote here”)…  which embarrassed him more than it embarrassed me (since his wife was there – though she assured us he hadn’t changed LOL!)

It’s a small world, after all!

I’m probably related to Kevin Bacon also…

http://www.starwarsspoofs.com/star_wars_family_member_car_stickers.html

They arrived yesterday, I put them on today

of course that got me thinking that since our car is white and black, how awesome would it look if we had a huge Stormtrooper helmet on the bonnet   But I did buy some carlashes…. which just make me giggle.  Which hubby has already said no to (before I even bought them, secretly)…. but I’m hoping I can find a way to put them on with a magnet or something, so I can take them off when he drives the car…

So, here’s my inspiration…. as I know it might inspire some of you too!

http://www.bubblyfunk.co.uk/tracie-hudson-christmas-advent-a-39.html

http://poppicrafts.blogspot.com/2008/11/matchbox-advent-calendar.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/finnabair/5218682878/

One for the more sleek minimalist:

I really like this, though as an advent calendar rummaging for the right day would be irritating, but I can imagine it being a lovely idea for a baby shower or even on the Xmas table or something, where each matchbox holds a little something for each guest.

http://vi.sualize.us/view/762e4fb8b187394be76c9c486d4a76d9/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/underthewillowtree/5334971540/

Also…

This idea is awesome, and I’m so doing it!  – as an alternative to the crackers that have silly jokes and hats nobody wears…. this can be passed around, might be cool.  But you could do it as an advent calendar.

http://magpieandcake.blogspot.com/2006/12/magpie-cake-tutorial-3d-joke-tree.html

And this is gorgeous!  It’s a hanger with # of buttons for what day it is.  I love it!  (and it’s teaching kids counting too!!)

http://missgioia.com/2008/12/frankincense-advent-calendar.html

And this one is really cute – bubblewrap! (except who can stop at just one)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/invalt/3096693575/in/pool-561389@N24/