A little while ago (crap it was nearly three years ago!) I started building one of Vince Matsko's geodesic dodecahdrons out of paper, based on Magnus Wenninger's Spherical Models.  I finished it a weekend ago (after realising I'd stuffed up when I started and was trying to do it with three colours, but it looks a lot better with four colours, so had to make the white pentagons as you see below).

It's a pretty straightforward model to build.  Each pentagon face of the twelve faces of the dodecahdron is divided into five triangles, so you'll need sixty triangles.  Vince Matsko's net has twenty per page, so you'll need three pages.  Although if you want to make different colours like I have you may need more and have some leftover.  When you fold each strip, the little tab will always be right in the middle of the group of five triangles.  I stuck each group of five triangles together, giving me the twelve faces, then glued the twelve faces together into the ball.

A simple and fun little model to make.

Late Thursday afternoon Ben invited us over for dinner (lamb roast, with Serena's awesome gravy) so that was nice.

Friday night we watched a German movie - Look Who's Back - about what might happen if Hitler existed in modern day Germany.  It's labelled a comedy, and yes there are some funny moments, but it was all just a bit *scary* for me about the possibility of history repeating itself.

Saturday morning we headed out to Fyshwick to go to Material Pleasures to see if I could get some clothes for this boat trip we're going on.  Except the place was shut down until Monday for Christmas.  So that was a waste of a trip.  So we went to Hardly Normal to look at vacuum cleaners.  Except every fricken cordless vacuum cleaner comes with a roller brush head that would get tangled up instantly with my hair.  So that was all very frustrating.

Came home and just did a bit of house stuff.  Not much, just taking down Christmas decorations. 

This morning I woke up at around 3am and I've been awake ever since.  Stressing about vacuum cleaners (the one Stu is looking at is basically a glorified dustbuster, which I can't see how would be any improvement on the vacuum cleaner we already have, aside from easing the hurdle of actually *starting*), and that my bowels hurt (I think I'm dying).

Sigh.

We had a very quiet day today.  After having to socialise Every Single Day of the break, we decided to avoid people.  I didn't get much done though, partly because I was feeling a bit blah about the end of the holidays.  We did do a bit of gardening though, and had a swim.  I cooked a nice big roast pork for dinner, because we missed out on getting much crackling or leftovers at Christmas.  Our fridge is stuffed full of food again now, so now the fun part begins of getting through it all :)

Stu's high school friend Tom came to town this week, so we went along last night with him and Damien to the Durham in Kingston.  It was trivia night so the place was packed, and we had fun playing along with the first two rounds of trivia, even though we weren't officially participating (the table next to us might have overheard some of our answers ;) ).  The food service was pretty awful though.  They got our order wrong to start with.  And didn't bring us any sort of cutlery or napkins (they had been for other tables).  Had to go to the bar and try and get some stuff, although didn't end up with any forks so ended up eating salad with our fingers.  And the ribs we had were overcooked to the point of being a bit burnt.  Quite disappointed.  But other than that had a good catchup, and a lovely pleasant night to be sitting outside.

Oh did I mention we got evaporative cooling installed during the week?  Should make summers here a *lot* more bearable.

Tonight I finally finished building all Zac's Lego sets.  Fun times.  Now to document it all..

Other weekend stuff included watching Top Gun on Friday night and Star Trek First Contact on Saturday night (we'd just watched Metamorphosis with Zefram Cochrane so were inspired), as well as repotting some of my plants that needed some love.

So aside from a plane blog entry, I haven't blogged in two weeks.  Whoops.

Monday two weeks ago I took a six hour lunch and finished a photo project that I'll get online soon.

The next Wednesday we won another damned trivia night.  Even without DC's help.  So will run the next one, which could very well be the last.

The Friday that week I went to Chrissie's for dinner.  She cooked a really nice pumpkin, gnochhi and sage dish, and for once we actually watched a movie (usually we talk about watching a movie but then just end up chatting all evening).  So watched Independence Day.

Saturday Chrissie brought up her steam cleaner to attack the bathroom.  

I'm too short to see this so never actually knew how bad it had gotten

So I made lunch (as you do).  I cooked up a bit of a hanami lunch - teriyaki chicken wings, tuna sushi and okonomiyaki.  There was heaps of food and Serena had been planning to have lunch with Kit so invited both of them up as well.

This was my first ever attempt at sushi!  It turned out pretty well

Chrissie finished up in the bathroom later in the afternoon, and Zac mowed the lawn.

On Sunday I went to pick up the sweetie from the airport.  And sorted Zac's Lego which Chrissie had brought up.

Monday I wore new jeans to work.  But backing up a little.  I am thoroughly sick and tired of paying a fortune for Jeanswest jeans that only last a year.  And I hate that you can't get decent quality demin in girls jeans anymore.  Why don't they make girls jeans in *real* demin and not that thin crappy stuff that is the only thing you can get now??  #hate  Even at 40% off, Jeanswest jeans are still pretty expensive.  So I thought screw this, and tried somewhere cheaper.  I tried Target first, but there was only like one style of jeans there that weren't already ripped to shreds.  wtf??  What idiot fashion designer thought that would ever be fashionable??  At least the idiots that wear jeans like that will look back at photos of themselves and wonder what in the world they were thinking.  Suckers.  So nothing at Target so tried Kmart.  Found some clearance jeans that were $7.  Each.  And they were more comfortable that the Jeanswest jeans as they have a slightly higher cut.  The next day I took them to get tailored and they were having a special - $10 jeans hemming.  So for $68 I got four pairs of jeans in the right size.  Normally that would be the cost of *one* pair of jeans.  So even if these cheap ones only last a quarter as long, I'll still be ahead.

Thursday we went down to see the two day old chickies!

Friday the sweetie and I went into town for dinner.  We ended up at Jamie's Italian, which I'd never actually been to before.  The service was pretty slow but the food was delicious.

This crispy squid was crunchy and delicious

These polenta chips weren't bad, but quite heavy.  Nothing like the awesomeness of the polenta chips we had at Pandanus on Lord Howe Island in 2007.

Stu's Pumpkin Panzerotti.  I only got the smallest of mouthfuls and then got distracted by the waiter, shoulda had a bit more.

This spaghetti carbonara was sooo tasty.  It's making me hungry just looking at it.

Salted caramel and chocolate sundae

After dinner (it was getting a bit late), Stu took me around to finish off the night shots for my photo project.

Saturday we had Nat and Andrew over for hanami lunch take two.  Same menu basically, although sushi options modified slightly for the fussy eaters :P

Okonomiyaki (Lisa's recipe)

We chatted all afternoon and then put on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which was fun.

In the evening the sweetie and I watched The Silence of the Lambs, which I hadn't seen in years and Stu had never seen.

Sunday was more food shopping, and more Lego sorting, with a roast dinner thrown in as well.

Also yesterday we realised that our sewage pipes were blocked.

Oh crap.

Literally.

So called Six Star Hot Water this morning and the same dude who replaced our hot water system came out and brought an eel.  He dug through a big clump of roots and everything started flowing again.  He said we could spend $5-10k getting it all dug up and fixed, or just spend the few hundred dollars every couple of years to get it cleared with an eel.  So we'll probably end up doing that.

Other than that, today was just Lego sorting.  In fact I only left the house to go hack a portal.  Step count will be a bit sad today.

Oh, and I blogged.  Finally.

So Friday night after the hot water dramas, headed out with Kit and Serena for a couple of drinks at the George.  Then came home and had a nice early night.

Saturday spent pretty much the whole day alternating between Nonogram puzzles and housework.  Tidied the spare room, the bedroom, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, vacuumed half the house, washed some sheets.  I think that was all.  Then Potty and Jake arrived so chilled out with them for the rest of the arvo.  Cooked a lamb roast for dinner.

Today we had a fairly lazy start to the day.  I might have gotten more stuff done in the afternoon, but I started feeling fuzzy like I'm coming down with something.  This time there's a bit of a cough as well.  *sigh*  So really didn't get anything much done today :(  The sweetie has been feeling pretty blah too - all weekend in fact.  Fun times.. not.. :(

Wednesday Kit came over briefly after work for a bit of a cool off (not that she actually went *in* the pool - just her feet!).

Thursday the little brother and Kat came up with the tv and stayed.  Kit and Ben came up as well.  Stu was a little anxious about *stuff*, Kit had decided to quit her job, and all the extra people in the house made for a very strange night.

Friday the sweetie and I had a random day off.  Stu went to the doctor, then we had brunch in town.  Came home and started pulling out stuff to give away and throw out.  Took a whole heap of fluoro lights and old magazines to Revolve and had a walk through the Big Green Shed which was fun.  Also took several boxes of books to Lifeline.  But didn't get too much else done.  Watched Back to the Future II in the evening.

This morning went along to the Mint Open Day.  I'll leave that for a separate post, but their event management and crowd control was just plain awful.

On Friday night I left work a bit early and drove up to Sydney.  I drove past a fire at the airfield at Marulan, which turned out to be not from natural causes, but because of a plane crash!  (the dude walked away - must have been a good landing!).  We went and fed the Macaulay's cat, visited Aunty Di and Graham, then had an early night.

On Saturday we spent the morning looking at photos (we played Dad's funeral slide show which was a bit emotional) and food preparation.  We did a big roast pork and my epic potato bake as well as some other veggies and lots of nibblies.  We also whipped some cream and decorated a pavlova.  Graham and Pam and Ken and Jeanine came over and we had a lovely afternoon.

In the evening we went and fed Macaulay's cat again, and watched The Princess Diaries (which Chris and I had been talking about only just the other day).

On Sunday I caught a train into the city to go see a couple of Lego exhibitions (which I'll save for separate posts).

At Central I was all set to walk around to Harris Street when I noticed the end of the Devonshire Street tunnel didn't *end* anymore - it kept on going - with a sign to the Powerhouse Museum.  So I walked down through it.  They've converted that whole little area between Central and the museum from the old goods lines into a park called The Goods Line.  Totally spun me out because that area of the city has always been a dead zone and it was a real pain trying to get around because you couldn't just walk across town because of all the railway lines in the way.

The Powerhouse Museum (bottom entrance).

After seeing Art of the Brick, I headed back to Central to catch the train to Circular Quay (it was super hot and I didn't want to get hot and sweaty walking all the way, and as it turned out, Sunday is currently $2.50 all day on the trains so it didn't cost anything).

Then there was the second Lego exhibition of the day - the Sydney Harbour Icons at the Museum of Sydney.

Then up to Martin Place to train it back to mum's.  I walked straight onto a train which was pretty cool.

Picked up all my stuff, then a flying visit to Luc and Lizzi's to do a donut photo of Ryan, then drove home.

I was expecting when I got home to have a quiet night of getting myself organised, but instead I came home to a pool full of people, in varying states of intoxication.  Which was rather unexpected (and made me feel somewhat left out! heh).  So didn't get anything done at home that night.  Oh well.  

This morning we went along to the Dendy to see a screening of a holiday special of Sherlock.

We love the Sherlock series - we've watched the entire thing through twice.

This episode has a bit of a twist to it which is a bit of fun.  Really well done (as always).  Loved it.

Before and after we got to see a couple of extra "special features" including some stuff by the producers and interviews.

And the cinema(s) were packed!  We were in cinema 1 and it was full.  Even Star Wars on the Monday after opening didn't fill that same cinema.

I really must keep reading the stories (read a bunch of them a while back but didn't finish).

Other than that today was just house stuff, including taking down the Christmas decorations :( 

Had salmon and salad for dinner so *mostly* healthy.