You Can’t Go Home Again

I think it’s likely that, within the lifespan of this blog, I have written on this topic at least once before — and, possibly, a few times. It is one of those “life mysteries” that pops up for me every so often, and I find my brain pondering over it a lot more than I would prefer. And I guess it stands to reason that this kind of pondering is happening for me right now, given my current situation and the fact that the year is swiftly coming to an end. Don’t get me wrong. I am glad I am able to be with my parents during my mom’s recovery. I am grateful beyond words for a job that allows me this flexibility without forcing me to take an unpaid leave of absence. I am grateful beyond words that my mom’s surgery went well and that she is, so far, recovering really well. But, as I sit here in the room my parents have designated as “my” room — surrounded by tones of mauve and deeper mauve, dusty lace curtains, an exercise bike, an antique dressing table (which, actually, I quite like) that is completely covered in knick-knacks and doo-dads, a dresser cluttered with old family photos, a creepy closet that is, somehow, always cold, and three plants to which I am allergic — the “you can’t go home again” feeling is hitting me with a little more “punch” to it than it usually has.

It’s not that it’s a bad room. It’s not that my parents are not welcoming. It’s not that they don’t think of the room as “mine” because I stay in it every time I come. It’s not any of those things. It’s that I just don’t fit in this space any longer. This is not the house I grew up in, and I wonder if I would feel differently if “my” room was actually my childhood bedroom and not just the guest room at the back of my parents’ house. But I think, maybe, I wouldn’t feel differently — just sadder. Because being in my actual childhood bedroom and surrounded by things that were actually mine and colors that I actually chose for myself (mauve would not be one of them) would make that feeling of not fitting … I don’t know … “more”, somehow.

My parents’ house is an intricate puzzle box of memories and mementos and past lives. The walls are lined with family photos of people we have loved and lost and of memorable times, like graduations and proms and weddings. I see myself in these photos and I wonder: “Was I ever that person? Who was that girl? What did she think about? What did she dream about?” I look at the “me” from all those years ago, and I can’t recall what I wanted or dreamed about or hoped for. It’s all just a big blank space in my brain. The rooms are crammed to the brim with sentimental items and keepsakes. Everything has a story connected to it. This chair belonged to great-grandmother so-and-so. This spoon was my mom’s father’s favorite. This box was where my grandmother kept all her important papers. And so on. And, I suppose, all of it is part of my history. But also not part of my history. Because I never met these people. Because, to me, it’s just a spoon or a box. And I feel like a big, clumsy oaf who is constantly stumbling over or bumping into all of these treasures.

My parents are both hard of hearing now. My dad’s hearing fell victim to a lifetime of working on aircraft engines without protection (safety standards not being a “thing” during his career). My mom’s, I guess, to genetics and time. My dad refuses to get hearing aids. My mom recently got them but does not want to wear them. They are in the living room at the front of the house, watching an old western, which is what they do for most of the day every day. I am in the back of the house and can hear the dialogue without straining because the volume is so high. I have a headache from the combination of mountain cedar pollen, dusty curtains, and too-loud TV. Plus, I have to yell all the time for them to hear me at all.

And there is no where to sit. There are chairs scattered in the living room, where the too-loud TV is, and in the kitchen, where the chairs are too small and too hard and hurt my back. Otherwise, there’s really nothing. I am currently propped on the guest room bed holding this computer (which is starting to feel quite hot) on my lap. The other chairs are full of … well, “history”. They are not available for sitting. And there is no chair in the guest room other than the office chair that goes with my dad’s desk. There is no room on the desk for my laptop. In fact, I had to adapt a too-short TV stand to be my workspace, and I will find myself hunching over it for the next month or so as I try to work from here while also caring for my parents.

I know that this post has been a bit winding and disjointed, probably because that’s exactly how my thoughts are right now. I’m sure there is some deeper, philosophical sort of wisdom in here somewhere, but I’m not going to manage to dig at it right now. I’m definitely not going to manage to get it out onto paper for this blog post. Because the thing that really crystalized this feeling for me was the sheer discomfort of being unable to find a quiet place to sit and think thoughts. Being here is like I don’t exist as a real person. I see pictures of my younger self, and I get told stories about all the treasures in the house. But I am just shoe-horning myself into spaces where I do not belong. At the end of the day, that’s all it is. I am a giant, bumbling person in an intricate puzzle-box of memories with no place to sit. And I just don’t belong here any longer. I wonder if I ever did.

Good-Bye, 2023

Y’all … I know the “good-bye old year” post is one of the biggest blogging clichés out there. It may be right up there with those posts that are all photos of someone following another person while holding their hand. You know the ones I mean: Those “join me as I adventure in life” posts. By the way, I always click on those posts and actually love them, so don’t take this as a negative. It’s just a thing that “everyone” has done and done and done. Kind of like this “Good-bye 2023” post I am about to do.

And yet …

It needs to be said. Because 2023 was a BITCH, y’all. I feel like this year snarfed me up, chewed a little bit, and then spat me back out onto the ground like a rejected piece of gristly … well … “stuff”. You can probably tell this from the fact that my last post in here was in August. And it is now the end of December. Nope; I’m not dead. This blog is not dead. At least, I don’t think it is. I don’t want it to be. It has just been very, very, very “2023” in my life, which has led to me turning more and more inward.

Let’s recap the highlights of my year. (And these are in no particular order, and, yes, I do know the upcoming is a long and rambling paragraph.)

I got hit with a huge and unexpected tax bill (plus penalties) because my company, apparently, does not do withholding like every other company I have ever worked for. I got “layered” at my job — again — which was supposed to help make my insanely insane workload so much better, but it hasn’t worked out that way. It did make me feel unwanted and unvalued, though; so that was fun. At this point, time has passed, and what’s done is done. I feel I have made peace with it, for whatever that is worth. My work bestie quit suddenly. My older dog got diabetes, leading to thousands of dollars in vet bills. My AC went out, leading to us having to replace both it and the heater (which was from 1992, so it’s basically a miracle it hadn’t cratered). We unexpectedly had to pay tuition for summer school. I got diagnosed with ADHD, which made me feel sad and vindicated at the same time, because so many things from childhood suddenly make sense, and yet, there is no way to turn back time. My younger dog broke a tooth and had to have 5 growths removed, which led to thousands more dollars in vet bills. (After a tense two weeks of waiting, the lab determined all growths were benign, and all his stitches have healed. So … yay!) My older dog, the one who struggled with diabetes all year long, died. She died in October, in a horrible and unexpected way, and I was not able to be with her, and my heart is still broken into a million pieces over it. I can barely think about her without completely losing my shit. Honestly, this is the one that capped the year for me. My husband and I were in the car, driving at 100 miles per hour and dodging traffic on the freeway in an attempt to make it from Michigan back to Illinois before she passed. And we did not make it. It was at that moment, on the phone with my vet, as I sobbed and she told me that she gave my sweet Fae a kiss good-bye and told her how loved she was, that I was really and truly done with 2023. It was at that moment that my heart just gave up and I knew nothing would ever get any any better.

But, of course, 2023 was not done with me. Because my younger dog has taken Fae’s death hard. He now cries all the time and has forgotten he was ever house-broken. And my mom had to have triple bypass surgery, which, of course, was completely unexpected and unplanned. So now, I am unexpectedly in Texas for the foreseeable future to help her and my dad while she recovers. My holiday break from work, which I so desperately needed to recharge from 10-12 hour days, will be spent on caretaker duties instead of getting to catch up on writing or playing video games or watching movies with my daughter before she heads back to school. (And yes, I fully realize how selfish and whiny I sound. It’s just that … It’s been a Very Long Year.) Once I return to work, I will have to figure out how to juggle bath time and bathroom breaks and answering the phone and doctor appointments (all of which must be done to someone else’s schedule with no account for mine) with my work schedule and work calls and deadlines and, yes, the 10-12 hour workdays, which will resume shortly after the start of the New Year.

My brother and sister-in-law came to visit my mom on Christmas Eve. He lives about 1.5 to 2 hours away from my parents and, thus far, I believe this Christmas Eve visit was his only contribution to the surgery and recovery. It’s not totally his fault, as my parents don’t want to “bother” him by asking for help. Even so … y’all can imagine I do not have positive thoughts at this point, so I won’t type them out loud. In the course of conversation, my mom mentioned how surprised she was that I was still wearing the same nail polish I arrived in (this was several days later, and I usually change my manicure every 2-3 days, if I have the mental energy to do it). I replied that I had forgotten to pack nail polish because I had been so stressed and distracted when I gathered up my things to come to Texas from Illinois. And my brother’s reply was, “What do you have to be stressed about?” Friends, I came within a whisper of a breath of losing just … everything. Like, I swallowed down my words and thoughts and feelings so hard it’s a miracle I didn’t have a stroke, sitting right there at the dinner table. I had to excuse myself to go to the back of the house and pace in the guest room until I could calm down.

So … No, I will not be bidding a fond farewell to 2023. It’s more of a “Good-bye, good riddance, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out” sort of thing. I will be happy and relieved to see this year end. I just hope nothing else happens in the next 4 days.

As for 2024: I’ve got my eyes on you. You better shape up fast, or else!

The Road Warrior Returns … And the Start of Year 3

Y’all!! I am back from the Girls’ Road Trip of 2023. I am also back right on the heels of the Great College Move-In of 2023. Let’s just say that I am back from ALL the road trips. I have earned my Road Warrior badge this year, for sure. I don’t mind saying I am feeling pretty dang proud of myself, too. I mean, it’s not often I can say that I came, I saw, AND I conquered. But I think I can safely say each of those things at this point in time. It’s like I’m standing at the precipice of the universe and screaming RAWR!! into the void … or, something.

Mostly, I am really, really, really, REALLY tired, y’all. I’m not as young as I once was — you know, a few years ago. Or, last year. Or, even last week. I’m glad I was able to come back home and have an entire weekend to take some time and just … do nothing. I kind of feel like I should not type that out loud, because I’m supposed to be ashamed of it or something. But it’s true. I have spent the entire weekend doing my very, very best to do nothing at all whatsoever. This doesn’t mean I sat around staring at the ceiling or something. I read. I played Animal Crossing. I worked on some blog posts. I did some nail art. I ordered some Fall nail polish collections. I window-shopped online for loose gemstones. But I didn’t really do chores (other than laundry, because laundry waits for no one). And I didn’t check on work emails or messages.

So, how was the Girls Road Trip of 2023, you ask? Or, maybe you didn’t. But I’m going to tell you, anyhow. Because that’s how we roll in this blog. Overall … it was a good trip. I think I mentioned in my previous post that I went into the trip thinking it would possibly feel bittersweet for me on several levels. That turned out to be true. The entire thing was bittersweet. As the miles clicked away under our tires and we belted out the songs along to whatever was on our playlist and we told funny stories and we talked about “Life Things” that we might not talk about if we weren’t trapped together in a car for hours at a time, there was this feeling for me that this is probably the last time. You know how you want to slow things down and just drink in every moment? And yet, you know you will never be able to slow down Time. And you know you will never, truly, be able to drink in every moment. Because there are moments that you want to curl up in and live inside of them for your whole life. There are moments when, if you could stop time completely, you would be good and content — like living in your own, perfect snow globe of a world. But, of course, Time doesn’t work that way, does it? It marches relentlessly forward, and it takes us with it for the ride.

Our actual road trip felt that way, but, really, my entire visit to my parents’ house felt that way, too. I did my best to drink in every moment. We played board games with my mom in the evening. I sat and watched old westerns with my dad in the afternoons. I drove them to their appointments. I loved on them as much as I could during the time I was there. I listened to stories and looked at photos and shared memories. When I was with them, even though I had to work part of the time, I did my very best to be completely present in every moment.

Even so, as we pulled away to start our drive home, I confess there were tears. Because I don’t know how much longer I will have parents, or how much longer I will have a place I can come back to that feels like “home” — not a home I made for myself, but a home that was made for me and where I don’t have to be … well, anything. If we aren’t already, we are all two steps away from being orphans, aren’t we? Those connections can be so tenuous and, yet, so strong. It’s not something I dwell on. In fact, I try not to think about it much; otherwise, I would find myself so bogged down in my own head that I wouldn’t be able to move forward at all. But there are times when it smacks me in the face. Driving down my parents’ driveway this Summer, watching in my rear-view as they waved good-bye … Well, it was one of those “smack-in-the-face” moments. It hit me hard with a wave of existential panic, for lack of a better way of describing it.

And that leads to the second part of this post: college move-in and the start of year 3. My daughter and I got home to Illinois from Texas on Sunday evening (rather late — around 7:30 or 8:00 PM). On Monday, I was, of course, back at my desk working while my daughter gathered her things and packed to return to school. I worked 10+ hour days on Monday and Tuesday, with my daughter frantically doing laundry and packing in the background. On Wednesday, we finished loading up the car and set out for Michigan.

Illinois to Michigan is a 5-hour trip, one-way. With a car completely stuffed full of anything and everything our daughter thought she might need in the coming year, it felt like an even longer drive than that. I’m not kidding about the “stuffed full” part, either! There was, literally, only space for my daughter in the back seat of the car. Thankfully, my husband handled the actual driving this time. I don’t think I could have faced it so soon after the two-day drive from Texas, home to Illinois. It was hard enough forcing myself into the passenger seat! But, we had good music, a couple of fun stops along the way, and lots of jokes and funny stories to pass around among the three of us. I am happy to report we made it there and back with a minimum of fuss and with our good humor (mostly) intact.

This year will be a year of firsts for my daughter, and, because of that, for my husband and I, too. Our experiences will be vicarious as we do our best to help her through things but also stay out of her way. It’s a delicate balancing act that I think we are still figuring out on a day-by-day basis. I’m excited for her as she steps into a true “adult” role this year. It will be her first year living in an apartment off-campus. This means shopping for her own food, cooking her own meals, finding her way to campus, and so on. It’ll be her first year working during the school year, too. I know she is feeling overwhelmed and nervous about just how everything will work out and how she will juggle everything. I wish I could make those feelings better for her, but I know it’s just something she needs to live through and experience for herself. As her mom, I know she can do this. I believe in her.

And I guess that, more or less, brings us full-circle for this post. In some ways, it feels like everything is changing at a whirlwind speed. It feels as if the Earth is spinning, spinning, spinning like crazy underneath my feet and I’m doing my best just to hold on and not go flying off into space. I know that the only constant in life is change. And yet, I don’t know if I’m ready for any of the changes that are coming my way.

As my husband and I drove away, I looked into the rearview mirror and saw my daughter, standing outside her apartment waving good-bye. And I wondered if she had the same bitter-sweet feeling of impending change that I did. Or, did she just feel excited and eager to embrace her new-found freedoms and step into her adult life? I couldn’t help swiping away a tear as I thought to myself: “Enjoy this year, Sweet Girl. And embrace all the things that come your way.”

The Girls’ Road Trip of 2023

Y’all … the Girls’ Road Trip of 2023 is quickly approaching. It took quite a bit of scheduling and tinkering with the calendar this year to make it happen, between my work schedule and my daughter’s work and life schedule. We were supposed to leave yesterday, but that didn’t work out due to a conflict on my daughter’s side. Then, we were supposed to leave this morning, but that didn’t work out due to expected terrible weather along our route, as well as multiple train delays yesterday that delayed my daughter’s arrival home by almost 5 hours. It has been a time of shuffling schedules and canceling hotel rooms and rebooking hotel rooms and rearranging the dog sitter. Basically, it’s been a “thing”.

But now, the Girls’ Road Trip of 2023 is ON. That’s right, my friends, it is happening. We are in the midst of finishing up the things we need to do at home today. We are packing all the things for ourselves and the cat. We are loading the car. And, tomorrow morning, we will be off on our great adventure — into the wilds of … well, Missouri and Arkansas. Wild times, indeed!

There is something exciting but, also, a little bit terrifying about embarking on such a long road trip. It’s liberating, in a way — you know, that whole feeling of having the freedom of the open road and the idea that a new adventure is just waiting around the bend. For much of our drive, there actually will be “open road”. Especially once we hit Texas, there will be back roads where we seldom see another car. But for larger parts, the “freedom” of that open road will be shared with a lot of other traffic, making it not all that “free”, after all. But, I think a big part of that freedom happens in our very own car. We will sing songs to the playlist on our phones. We will laugh and tell goofy stories. We will talk about Life Things, both the big things and the small things. We will just “be”, without the need to report to any certain person at any certain time. Now that I am back working (and working in a job where I consistently carry a heavy workload and can’t truly take paid time off), I treasure these little bits of feeling like I don’t have to report in anywhere.

I’m not going to lie, though. there is something very bittersweet about this year’s trip. I’m pretty sure this will be the last true “Girls’ Road Trip” we take. Starting next year, my daughter will be staying in Michigan over the Summer. I hope we will still be able to make this trip together at some point next Summer. But, if we do, we will have to fly (probably separately). After all, my sweet daughter is a grown woman now. She has her own life and her own ideas about how she wants to spend her time. And that’s okay! Don’t get me wrong — As a Mama, that’s obviously my ultimate goal. I want her to have her own life, and I want her to do her own things in her own time. At the same time, change is hard. Letting go is hard. I hope I can soak in every moment of this year’s trip — every funny story, every goofy memory, every song sung — and store it away for later. So that, as she moves into her own life, I can still carry her beautiful voice and the sound of her laughter in my heart and my head.

Thoughts on Freedom and Stubbornness and Getting Old …

Thoughts about freedom and life and the freedom of life have been rather roiling around in my brain over the past several weeks. Today, my hubby and I watched our way through this series on Netflix called How to Get Rich. It’s all about discovering what defines your own “rich life” and taking charge of your own choices and decisions in order to get to that place. I found it a fascinating series — and keep in mind I am saying this as a person who is not a fan of “reality TV” — because of the approach it took. Ramit Sethi, the finance expert behind the show (and, apparently, behind a corresponding finance-related podcast) had this way of making the people on the show really think their way through what can, often, be tangled issues. I liked how he guided each person through their own thought processes in order to come to a decision that worked for them. Was that final decision always the financially “smart” one? Uh … emphatically, no. But, in each case, it seems that it was the right decision to allow that person to tap into his or her vision of what a “rich life” might be.

Contrary to what you may be thinking in this moment, this post is not an advertisement for How to Get Rich or for Ramit Sethi. It’s just that this show had, for me, a unique way of approaching what it means to be “rich” or to have a “rich life”. The show and Ramit were not shy in talking about how money is not the end-all, be-all of this game. In other words, being “rich” is not necessarily about having all the money or even the most money or whatever. It’s more about the quality of the life you want to have and what you do with your money in order to get to whatever is your version of the perfect life. So, just hoarding money is not the ultimate goal; it’s a tool to get you to whatever that “rich life” looks like for you.

Anyhow, this got me to thinking about what my own “rich life” would look like. And, from there, it kind of crystalized some of the disjointed thoughts I have had over the past few weeks regarding my aging parents and my aging self and just … Well, all the big choices that seem to be facing me and my husband in the very near future. And, of course, with it being July and all, my tangled thoughts turned to “freedom” and what that might mean to different people. As I am typing this out loud, I feel like none of it is going to make any sense once I put it on paper. But I swear it makes sense in the hamster wheel that is my brain.

So … let’s talk about my parents. I realize I am one half of a couple, and my husband (fortunately) also still has his parents. All four of our parents are aging. But my husband and I seem to spend the most time wondering about what we will do for my parents or, as they get older, what we will do about my parents. My husband has three siblings, all of whom can pitch in to support or care for his parents. I have one sibling, and I am not confident that he is in a position to contribute. I am also the youngest person in my family by a long-shot. I am 9 years younger than my sibling. I am a Generation X-er who is a child of Silent Generation parents and a sibling to a Baby Boomer. Friends … it is a heavy and humbling thought.

My dad turned 92 this year, and my mom is 85. And don’t get me wrong. They are doing great so far. They have very few health problems for people their age. They are in full possession of their mental faculties. They still live on their own in a small town in Texas. I live in Illinois, which is either a 3-hour plane ride and then a 2 hour drive from the nearest airport or a 2-day drive if one travels solely by car. My sibling lives in Texas, but in a larger town 2 or 2.5 hours away. They have people from their church who will help them. They have relatives (younger cousins) and good friends in their town or the closest small towns to them. So, they have support available, if they ask for it. And that’s the rub: They have to ask for it. This factor makes me feel that my parents are, more or less, on their own.

This is nothing new. They have been on their own their entire lives. My dad realized, at the tender age of 16 or 17, that life was not going well for him in the small town where he was born. He basically “ran away” from home by fibbing about his age in order to join the Navy. My mom’s family was, perhaps, more supportive emotionally, but was quite fractured by the forces of reality. Her mother passed away when she was very young, and her father had serious health issues that made it difficult for him to hold a job and support her and her sisters. So, my mom was passed from relative to relative when she was younger and then, once she became old enough, she took care of the house and worked to put food on the family’s table and pay for school clothes and necessities for her younger sibling. She married my dad when she was 19.

As you can imagine, my parents are fiercely independent people. Like, we are talking independent almost to a destructive, stubborn degree, because they will not ask for help. They are the kind of people who may know that they need assistance to do some task but will elect not to do the task, instead of asking for help. This means they are not going to get help unless someone is bossy and forces their way into the middle of things. And, frankly, I am pretty much the only person in their lives who will do that at this point in time. It’s not that I don’t respect them or anything like that. It’s just that I have a tendency to see beyond what they are telling me on the surface or what they are showing to the rest of the world.

I want my parents to have the freedom to live however they want. I would love nothing more than for them to have the freedom to continue living in their own house, in their little town that they are used to, doing their own thing in their own time. To be honest, that is my absolute dream. And yet, I don’t even know if that’s possible. I talk to them every other day on the phone and usually FaceTime with them on the weekends, because I want to make sure they are still doing okay and all is going well with them. The last time I FaceTimed with them, they told me someone had broken into the shed that is behind their house. The shed has a strong lock and even a bright light that is on a motion detector. And still, someone broke into it. That’s upsetting enough. But then, they were telling me about how they got a new light for the backyard (because of the break-in) and how my dad kneeled down to work on putting it together before installing it and, then, could not get up. Like … he was stuck and could not stand back up. My mom is not strong enough to lift him. He was literally stuck in the yard! It worked out okay. My mom was able to drag a chair over, and he was able to pull himself up and into the chair. After that, he was fine.

Y’all … I’m not going to lie. These stories scare me to the very depths of my being. How can my brain not go there? I wonder how long it will be before whoever broke into their shed realizes there are just two little old people living in that house and decides to break into the house itself. What happens if my dad falls and my mom can’t help him back up? Even though there are people they could call, would they call these people? And I hate that I am not there. At the end of the day, that’s the hardest part for me: the not being there. I don’t like being half a country away from them when they might need me or when anything might happen. And yet, I have no choice in the matter. It’s not like we chose Illinois for fun or because we love it here so much. We live here because it’s where my husband’s work is. Period. We don’t have a say in it.

And so, I have tried to have that tough conversation with them. I have talked, until I feel like I will run out of breath, about how they need to start thinking about getting more help or, maybe, moving closer to me or my sibling. In reality, they are 92 and 85; we are likely way past the point where “thinking about” making changes is enough. We are at the point where we need to start making steps toward those changes. This conversation, of course, falls on deaf ears. My parents adamantly will not live closer to my sibling. They, equally adamantly, will not move closer to me. They don’t want to live near my sibling, because they feel like they will interfere with his life. They don’t want to live near me because it would require a substantial move. And, mostly, because they say they can’t leave Texas.

This is maddening to me. I try to be empathetic and sympathetic. But it is becoming harder and harder to do so. I am so fortunate that my husband is willing to help take care of my parents. We are fortunate that we are in a position that we probably could do so. And even my parents, on some level, recognize that moving to be with me is the solution that makes the most sense. They have even told me that they would move near me in a second if I lived in Texas. That’s basically the same as saying they will not move near me, because I don’t have the option of moving back to Texas on their whim. My husband and I have a long way to go before we can retire. Until then, we have to live and go where the work is. My parents, of all people, should understand this.

I want my parents to have the freedom of being able to live however they want and to live completely on their own for as long as they want. But I also want to have the freedom, for myself, of not having to worry about them like this. I want the freedom of not being pushed into a corner that we could have planned our way out if, if we had just been proactive and not so stubborn. Maybe I am being selfish, even if it’s for good intentions. Maybe my parents are also being selfish. At the end of the day, I don’t think there are any easy answers here, and I feel so overwhelmed and scared by it all. I’m afraid of the choices that are going to be pushed upon us by the universe. But I don’t know how to make things work out any differently, given the personalities that I have to work with. And maybe, after all, the only true freedom is trying to change my own way of thinking. I’m going to toss that one onto the hamster wheel and see what shakes out.

The Best Intentions

I had a day off from work last Monday. Is there anything as magical as a Monday off from work? Really, I think there is not — unless it’s a Friday off from work. And this day off was even more of a treasure, because it wasn’t a paid time off day. Oh no — it was a company holiday. I usually have the “Sunday Scaries” every week, or, at the very least, the “Sunday Sadness”. But not that weekend. On that weekend, as Sunday rolled around, I found myself looking forward to my entire day off from work on Monday.

Because, y’all … I had the Best Intentions.

That’s right. I had Intentions, and I had Plans. Like, big, big, big PLANS. I was going to let myself play Animal Crossing for a little bit. I was going to do some yard work. I was going to finish up the laundry that I started on Sunday evening. I was going to clear off our table and two countertops in the kitchen that have become way too cluttered. I was going to vacuum the floors in the living room and my office on the first floor. And, best of all: I was going to write! Finally!! I was determined to wrangle my Muse into some sort of good behavior and produce some type of fiction, after a dry spell that has been embarrassingly long. And, actually, the only thing I really, really wanted to do was the writing part of my plan. I hardly slept on Sunday night, just thinking about it and letting my brain whirl around with story ideas and plot points and character sketches.

You know what they say about the Best Intentions, right? Yeah — something about those nuggets of life and a road to somewhere unpleasantly warm …?

I started off strong, my friends. I dove into our perpetually cluttered table like a maniac. I was GONNA GET THAT SUCKER CLEARED (again … for the thousandth time). But it quickly became apparent that it was not to be. There were piles of paper that belong to my husband and daughter. There is a whole box of plastic silverware that, for some reason known only to him, my husband has decided to keep sitting out on the kitchen table. There are meds on the table and on the counters. And a sharps container now, too. And cleaning supplies that never get put away. I just … Well, I got overwhelmed by it all. And then, I got annoyed. And then, I felt sick to my stomach.

So, I told myself, I will do the yard, instead. And when I have accomplished that, I will come back and finish the table. Um … nope. I stepped outside into 88-degree heat and sun and humidity, and I knew, right away, that the yard was not happening. I should have gotten up at my usual work time and done the yard first thing in the morning. But, of course, I only had my “intentions”; I didn’t have an actual plan. I sighed heavily and came back inside with the knowledge that, for that day, the yard had won.

I did manage to get the laundry finished. I put the last load in the dryer, folded it and the load before it once everything was done, and gathered it all up into baskets that I took upstairs. So, I was able to cross at least that one thing off of my mental “to do” list.

But now, we come to the real crux of it all: The Writing. My Muse has been painfully absent from my life for about three years now. I know so many people were super creative during the Pandemic, but it didn’t work that way for me. And now, we are outside of the Pandemic and I am stuck in a rut that takes every ounce of mental energy I have to survive each day. I miss writing. I long for it in a way that makes me want to cry. I am determined to pick it up again, but I feel like I have been spinning, spinning, spinning on this endless wheel of waiting for it to be the “right” time.

It’s not going to be a “right” time. Let me type it out loud again for myself: It’s NEVER going to be a “right” time. I have to admit the truth of this to myself, and I have to accept the truth of this. And this means that I need to physically and mentally push myself to START. That’s the hardest part of it all — the starting. It’s all wrapped up in fear and anger and self-hatred. I guess accepting this — like, speaking it out into the universe as a truth — is an important step. Trying to keep this blog more active again is also an important step. But I was really hoping last Monday would be the day that I wrangled the Muse again and, finally, set words to paper in the form of a story.

Alas, it did not happen. And, at the end of my holiday Monday, I knew I was facing a Tuesday that acted like a Monday and a short week into which I would need to cram a long, long week’s worth of work. I ended up having the “Monday Scaries”, instead of the Sunday ones. But you know what? All of that is okay. Maybe it didn’t happen for me on my Monday off, but I feel I am getting closer. I’m inching up on it, and it is going to happen one day soon. I am not giving up. Instead, I’m going to take some deep breaths and be kind to myself as I travel my own, private road that is paved with all the Best Intentions.

The Time Machine

Have you ever had a moment when Life just sneaks up and wallops you? It’s like you are chugging along, knowing that everything isn’t perfect or whatever, but, still, you’re getting “it” done. You are in a place where you feel like you can coast along and that you have everything under control, when, suddenly … WHAMM-O!! Some little, seemingly innocuous something grabs your attention and brings up All The Feels.

This happened to me a couple of months ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It was such a little thing, but isn’t that the way of Life sometimes? It’s those little things that can, somehow, bring up the biggest and most unexpected feelings. My husband and I were sitting in a restaurant near our home, chatting about nothing in particular. And this family with a little girl happened to walk by. The little girl was, probably, around 2 or 3 years old, and she was the most adorable little doll. She had that sassy kind of toddler walk happening, and blonde hair in two little “twin tails”. She was clinging to her mama’s hand with one hand and carrying her favorite stuffy in the other.

I can’t explain it, but seeing that little girl brought out All The Feels for me. One second, I’m sitting at the table, chatting away with my hubby. The next second, I have tears rolling down my cheeks and can’t talk for the huge frog stuck in my throat. And, of course, my husband thought I had lost my mind. And I could not explain it to him.

In that moment, it was like a dozen years and more of memories and emotions and longing jumped right up and bit me on the nose. It’s not like this little girl even looked like my daughter did at that age. But there was just something about her — the way she walked, the sassy way her “twin tails” flipped around as she passed by our table, the way she clung equally tightly to mama’s hand and her stuffy — it just reminded me so much of my daughter at that same age. And I felt the strongest feeling of longing and regret. Y’all — I miss those little kid years. I miss them so, so, sooo hard. Maybe it’s because I only got to experience them one time, since my daughter is an only. That wasn’t my plan, but it’s the way things worked out for me. As I said, it was a longing that sprang up inside me in that moment, and it was so strong it took the breath right out of me. You can tell I am struggling to explain it, even now, after I’ve had time to ruminate over all of it.

Which leads me, round-robin, right back to the title of this post: the Time Machine. Do you ever wish you had a time machine? It wouldn’t have to be anything elaborate with bells and whistles and sirens or anything like that. In fact, it would be even better if it didn’t have any of those trappings — just a simple something that lets you slip through the stream of Time and quietly land in a place where things were easier or more simple or just, somehow, better. Because the thing about Time and Life is that you can be right smack in the middle of something you will long for later with your entire being, but you don’t even realize at that moment. At the moment you are in the midst of it, everything seems so, so, so hard, and all you can think about is how to keep moving forward so you can get through it. It’s like you’re so busy just getting through it that you don’t take the time to slow down enough to look around you and see the beauty of it all.

That’s how it was for me, during those little kid years. Life was hard, y’all. I basically was a single parent because of my husband’s work. He worked crazy law firm hours and had to travel a lot for work and for conferences and for client development. Do not get me wrong. This is not a dig at my husband at all. He was working hard to support us and give our daughter every advantage. He traveled and worked those hours for us, and I will always admire him and be grateful to him for that. But knowing the reasons behind the long hours and days or weeks away from home doesn’t make it less lonely when you are the one left behind to handle all the home things. I had given up my own career to stay home. I had some small, closely guarded hopes of penning the novel I had always dreamed of. (For what it’s worth, I did first drafts of two novels. But never managed to make it farther than that.) But, overall, I felt very down about myself and my life. Pregnancy and childbirth did a number on my body. I gained weight that I could not take off, no matter how little I ate or how much I exercised. In a part of the country where you are judged by what you do for a living, I presented little to no value to those around me. I was not of interest when I accompanied my husband to work functions or bar gatherings, so I faded into the background. I didn’t have any friends. My family was far away. I struggled with depression and PTSD from my own childhood traumas, which was triggered by having my daughter. Life was just … a lot.

You would think that, if I had a time machine, those years would be the last ones I would want to revisit. And yet, when I think about all of those hours and days and months and years of “little kid” time, I don’t think about my own sadness, loneliness, or struggles. Instead, I hear my little girl laughing in my memory. I hear her excitedly calling me to look at some new thing she found: “Mama! Mama! Come see! I find this!” I feel those little, chubby arms around my neck, hugging me so, so, so tight. I see her running from room to room, squealing in delight as we play “hide and seek”. I feel her little butterfly kisses against my cheek. And I think to myself: “Yep. Life was pretty perfect right then.”

The reality is that the years I lived then and the years I have lived since then make me the person I am today. And they make my daughter the person she is today. Am I a good person at all? Or a great person? Or do I have any chance of achieving goodness or greatness in my life? I have no idea. But my daughter is an amazing person. She is such a beautiful soul. She is wise about herself and about life. And I think she will do good things in life. Will they be good things to the entire world at large? I have no idea. But she will do good things for those around her. She already makes a difference in her corner of the universe, and, often, shining that light into the corners you can reach makes all the difference.

So the truth is that I wouldn’t travel in my time machine to change anything. The choices I made back then were hard, and I am still paying for them, to a certain extent. And I would not want to change the person I am or the person my daughter is. But I would like to take that time machine back to hear the little kid laughter, to feel those tight, tight hugs and those sweet, butterfly kisses just one more time. And, maybe, if I went back in time, I would tell myself to slow down a little bit and to savor all the sweetness around me.

Animal Crossing Interlude #4: The Last of the Plaza Neighborhood

I’m doing my best to keep building some momentum in here until I can get out of my emotional and personal slump enough to recapture that happy feeling I always used to have from losing myself in my thoughts and writing. Since I’ve been on a roll so far with it, I thought I would finish up my Animal Crossing island neighborhood tour. For this post, I have the last three villagers in the Plaza Neighborhood: Flurry, Drago, and June. Since we have three houses to tour in this post, it will be a bit longer than the last one.

This is Flurry’s house. She is in the front of the neighborhood, closest to the Plaza and in front of Hugh. All the houses on the front row of Plaza face the ocean, so they all have lovely views. We are talking prime real estate here — ha, ha!

Flurry’s house was originally this same shape, but it was white with a beige or gray roof. I feel like this shape suits Flurry’s cuteness really well. There is something very “fairy tale” about a talking hamster, and this house shape always gives me fairy tale vibes. I decided to bump up the colors with a purple roof and door and a minty green exterior. I gave Flurry some adorable cosmos in a mix of bright colors and finished off the front of her house with a cosmos wreath. Flurry’s little patio has a table and chairs with a tea set on it, and I added a tiny library because she is always chatting with me about what books she is reading.

So, I took all these snaps around Halloween, which is why you see me in different costumes. I wore a different costume for every week of October, and the week when I took pics of Flurry’s house was my “pirate captain” costume. It actually looks like Flurry is also wearing a costume, doesn’t it? Sadly, no — this is just the way she dresses on my island. All of the villagers on Esperanza have a certain sartorial something-something going on. Ha!

Flurry is an adorable little white hamster with a normal personality. Her house originally had the arabesque flooring (a brown flooring with squiggly lines), the beige blossoming wallpaper, and the following furniture: wooden chest, pot rack, wooden low table, wooden simple bed, cute music player, upright piano, mini DIY workbench, mini fridge, floor lamp, piano bench, ventilation fan, gas range, anthurium plant, and hamster cage. Whew! Flurry had a lot going on in her house, even before the redesign.

I wanted to keep things kind of cute and fun to match Flurry’s innate adorableness. I decided to use one of the heart wallpapers as an accent wall and then the pink wooden wall everywhere else. I gave her a cute little kitchen with the open kitchen and a small fridge. I kept Flurry’s piano and piano bench and the simple wooden bed. I gave the bed a different color and bumped up the color in the bedding, and I finished off with some plants and a fun purple rug.

Next up is Drago’s house. Drago is an alligator villager who looks like a green and gold dragon. Drago’s house originally had this same shape/style, but it had gold siding with a green roof. I kept the same basic style but changed to a darker green and brown exterior and a black roof. I kept the same style of door and used black to match the roof. I didn’t give Drago a wreath because I love the look of his door on its own. His patio is one of the most detailed, with a little pond, a bamboo screen, and some glowing moss. I decided to add lion dogs and some red and yellow mums to finish off the front of his house.

Drago is another lazy villager, and his personality is beyond adorable. I gotta admit: I love the lazies and the peppies in this game! His house originally had what I think of as a very Eastern flair. It had the red imperial wallpaper on every wall, imperial lanterns, and the following furniture: imperial partition (red), imperial dining chair (black with red seat), phonograph, sea horse model, cherry blossom branches, the imperial dining table, two imperial chests (in black with red accents), and the imperial decorative shelves (in black). I have to say it was a fun interior, but the red wallpaper was really a lot. Like … a LOT LOT.

I wanted to keep some of Drago’s natural flair in the home, but also update it a little bit and make it a little more fun, overall. Even though he is a lazy, his appearance feels dramatic, so I thought his house should have a bit of drama, too. I used the gray moulded panel wall as an accent and paired it with the white brick. I kept one imperial dresser in black, as well as the imperial lanterns, and I gave Drago the imperial bed. He has the same tiny kitchen as the rest of the villagers, courtesy of the open kitchen and oh-so-versatile small fridge. I gave him an eating nook in one corner, as well as a fun drum set in the front of his room. He seems like the kind of guy who would rock out, doesn’t he? I kept my color palette in reds, yellows, greens, and blacks.

This is my last villager house, and it belongs to June, who is an adorable bear cub villager with a normal personality. June’s house originally had this same overall shape, but it was a beige wooden/bamboo-looking exterior with a darker orange-brown thatch roof. I kept the same home shape, but I wanted to bump up the tropical feeling. I used some greens and a lighter brown for the thatch. I added some fan palms at the doorway and some pretty pansies along the walkway in front of her house. For June’s patio, I gave her the palm tree lamps, two director chairs in a tropical design, and a cute little table with yellow lilies.

So … June’s original house is another bit of “fail” for me, as I don’t remember what it looked like in the beginning. I think she had furniture from the wooden block series, but I didn’t find useful information online, as the pics I found did not reflect what I remember being in her house. I wanted to stay with some tropical touches for June’s home redo. I gave her the rattan floor and simple, white wooden walls for an easy-breezy look, overall. June is always talking about reading, so I gave her a bookcase as well as a reading nook in front of her fireplace. she also has a cute little kitchen and eating area. I have her a simple wooden bed with the same floral pattern as the director chairs outside, and two simple wooden nightstands.

Overall, June is a sweet and friendly villager, although she is not strictly a “favorite” for me. Out of all the villagers on my island, there are a couple I would consider letting move, and June is one of them. With that said, I enjoy bumping into June and talking to her when I am bopping around the island, so I am quite happy for her to stay.

The Wrap-Up:

So, that’s an end to all the house tours for the island of Esperanza! Well, I guess I never did a tour of my own house, but that’s a post for another time. I feel like I should wrap up by saying something about how much this game means to me … and so on. But, really, it’s a little hard for me to quite explain it. It’s a simple game, but it captures my attention and my heart like nobody’s business. After a long and stressful day at work, this is a definite highlight for me. I feel so many worries melting away as I run hither and yon across my little island paradise, talking to my villagers, fishing, digging up fossils, and just knowing that the “me” that I am in that moment is quite enough.

Animal Crossing Interlude #3: Plaza Neighborhood Houses

Hey, y’all! So, you already know how I am going to start out this post. Yep. I’m gonna start with: “Was January 25 really the last time we saw each other??!! Really??!!” I admit it: I have become quite a slug with this blog. There are a lot of reasons for it, and I am winding up to write about all of them. But I need to figure out what I want to write about and what I don’t want to write about. In the meantime, I really do want to get this blog up and running again on a more regular basis. I have my nail blog, which gets updated on a more regular basis (mostly because those posts are easier to write in the limited free time I have). But I miss this blog — a lot.

Anyhow, while I let my ideas rattle around in my brain and sift and settle, I am going to retreat back to something easy and light to more or less ease into my return. There will be more serious things to come, I promise. I still have deep thoughts. I’ve just been trying hard not to think them, which is not working out well for me so far. For now, “easy and light” translate into me talking about one of my continuing obsessions. That’s right, y’all: It is, once again, Animal Crossing time here in the blog! Say it with me: Woo Hoo!!

In this post, let’s tour through some of the villager houses that are in what I call my “Plaza Neighborhood”. As I mentioned in previous posts, I split my villagers into two neighborhoods when I did my last whole island redesign. The first neighborhood, which we have already toured, is near my orchard, so it is aptly named (in my mind) the “Orchard Neighborhood”. So, the Plaza Neighborhood is near … you guessed it! … my island’s Resident Services Building (which operates as the island’s town hall) and the plaza in front of it.

This is the right side of my plaza area. You can see I have a little fair/amusement park area on that side. The villager houses are near the left-hand side of the plaza, sitting between the edge of the plaza and one of my island’s rivers. There is a bridge across the river from the Orchard Neighborhood, which connects near Wendy’s house. So … let’s start there!

Wendy: This is the outside of Wendy’s house. Although I redid all the villager houses, I did not change the outside of Wendy’s home. She came with this house design, orange exterior, blue roof, and blue door. I changed the door for one with a window in it, and I added a cute blue rose wreath. Wendy is a peppy sheep. She is unfailingly cheerful and lovely, and I looove her bright blue and orange color scheme. I felt like her house exterior already fit her sunny personality perfectly, so I couldn’t bring myself to change it much. I gave her some fun orange roses along her walkway for a little bit of “oomph”. Like all my other villager houses, Wendy has a little patio. Hers is near the river and bridge, and it has a simple table and chairs on it.

I am a terrible ACNH junkie, because I actually don’t remember what Wendy’s house originally looked like. I looked up pictures of it online, and it showed her interior as being pretty cute and snowflake-themed, with a round space heater, the snowflake wall paper, a small stove, a round snowflake rug, a tall mirror, a simple bed, simple dresser, and simple nightstand — all in white. Um … I’m pretty sure my Wendy house did NOT come with any of these pieces. I think she moved in with some wooden block furniture or something. Anyhow … that’s neither here nor there for this post, I guess — ha, ha.

So this is Wendy’s interior now. I tried to make the interior design as fun, colorful, and cheerful as she is. If you are thinking Wendy is a favorite of mine, you would be right! I really love her. (I love all the current villagers on Esperanza, actually. I can’t bring myself to let any of them move away.) Wendy was one of the first villagers I ever sought out and invited to my island, so she is special and sentimental to me. I love her cute design and cheerful, happy personality.

So, I started with the accent wall. Wendy’s big personality demanded a BIG accent. I think this is called the “Mod Wallpaper” or something like that. It is all orange, all the time. It is bright and full of fun motion in the design. I couldn’t do this paper on all the walls, though, because it’s a LOT. I decided to tone the rest of the inside down with a more sedate and laid-back gray and white stripe. I used dark wood floors to balance everything out. After that, I added some cheerful pops of color with a colorful bunkbed/desk combo, some sunny floral prints, and blue in the stools and rug. I have to admit I had a hard time trying to mesh all these colors together, but I’m super happy with how this turned out. I think it is cute, cozy, and just cheerful enough to match my darling Wendy.

Next up is Hugh! Hugh is Wendy’s next-door neighbor. Their houses are at the back of the neighborhood, and Hugh is nearest the Plaza. Hugh’s house originally had this same overall shape, but it had a blue slate roof, white stucco siding, and a light blue door. I decided to give Hugh a bit of a “farmhouse” look to play up the clean lines of this house’s shape. I used the black slate roof and paired it with blue siding and a white door with a window. I love having the window doors on all the houses, because it makes it so much easier to see when folks are at home and accepting visitors! Hugh has a little patio that contains a hammock and a vending machine because … well “Hugh”!

Hugh is another favorite of mine. He was not an original to my island, but he was the second villager I invited to live on Esperanza after I was able to go out and search for tenants. He is an adorable lazy pig villager. He is dark blue with light blue spots and adorable, perky ears, and his eyes are two different colors. I find him cheerful and just … well … adorable! He never fails to bring a smile to my face when I visit Esperanza at the end of a long work day.

There he is!! Just look at how cute this guy is. I love him so much, and I will never let him move — no matter how many times he asks. So, I am pulling another “fail” on this house because I don’t remember exactly what Hugh’s house looked like when he first moved to my island. Like Wendy, I looked his house up online, but what I found does not match at all with what I remember. I think he had the log table and apple chairs, as well as a brown rug and, I think, the log shelves. He probably also had a bed, but I don’t remember which one.

For his redesign, I decided to carry the modern “farm house”/”log cabin” style from outside to the inside, but I wanted to brighten things up a lot. Y’all — I have terrible memories of that brown carpet and dark walls — ha, ha! I gave Hugh the log cabin aesthetic with a stacked wood accent wall and paired it with the Blue Moroccan Wall. I kept Hugh’s log shelves, but I gave him a TV, as he seems like a “TV watching” kind of guy. I put in a comfy sofa, also in blue tones, along with a little kitchen and eating space (complete with his apple chairs!). I finished everything off with a light colored floor to keep everything cheerful and bright, as well as some lighter colored rugs and wooden light fixtures. I gave Hugh some sea creature posters on his back wall because he’s kind of obsessed with food. Seriously — he talks about it a lot. You can’t see it in this picture, but I also put a little bug toy/statute on his log shelves. Because the only thing he talks about more than food are his big friends!

The Wrap-Up:

I decided to keep this first Plaza post shorter. Since my neighborhood is split into two houses in back and three in front, it seems logical to split the posts that way, too. Because I could go on and on and on and on about this silly, adorable, fun game. I guess the draw for me is just that: the fun of it all. It’s silly to think about living in a whole village of animals. And this is such a nice, slow-paced game. It gives me a perfect contrast to my demanding “real life” and job.

I have three more houses to share in my next interlude, so hopefully you will all tune in for that in upcoming days.

Animal Crossing Interlude No. 2: Orchard Neighborhood Houses

In today’s post, we are going to tour the last three houses in my Orchard Neighborhood. In the front of the neighborhood are, from left to right, houses for Jacques, Julia, and Flora. I can’t remember if I mentioned this in the previous post, but it was a little bit of a challenge to fit all of the houses into this open island space. Because of this, I didn’t have much room for yards or outside decor on the houses. This was a little bit of a bummer to me, as I wanted to do cute, little fenced yards for each house because I love how charming that can be. Since I didn’t have room for this, I gave each house a little patio that I tried to decorate according to each villager’s personality.

Jacques: At the front of the Orchard Neighborhood, the house on the farthest left side, next to the beach, belongs to Jacques. Jacques is a smug bird villager with a dark blue, bright lime green, and yellow-orange color scheme. This is the outside of his house, which I ended up changing quite a bit. The exterior is the same style, but it used to have dark paneling, a dark green roof, and a blue door. I changed out the siding for a lighter color, as Jacques’s house is right in front of Static’s. I didn’t want two dark houses right together. I was never wild about the green roof, so I switched it for blue, and I kept the blue door. I gave Jacques a “cool” sofa, some fun lava lamps, and a microphone on his patio because he is always singing!

Welcome to Jacque’s house! This is what you see as you come in the door. His house originally had concrete walls, steel flooring, a surveillance camera, a laptop computer, the starry garland, an exit sign, a DJ turntable, a synthesizer, a diner neon clock, a diner counter, a diner mini table, and a diner neon sign. Overall, his natural decor was very “diner” and very “warehouse”. I think it was intended to represent an edgy, musician sort of aesthetic, but I wasn’t a fan. His house wasn’t welcoming, and it did not seem very “house-like” or comfortable.

Here is an overhead view showing more or less the entire house. Jacques is smug and kind of sophisticated, in an urban way. At least, that’s how he always strikes me. I used the city wallpaper as an accent wall and dark brick on the rest of the walls. I have had this “wacky” flooring in my storage for a long time, and I always wanted to use it in my own house. I never could figure out how to do it. It’s a hard flooring to use because of the colors and the pattern. It’s pretty bold, even in ACNH world. I felt like it was just right for Jacques, and I based my other choices more or less around this flooring.

I picked the “cool” sofa design with a bright green color to match the flooring and Jacques’s color scheme. I gave him a small ironwood bed with neutral bedding, as well as a retro stereo, a bright green-yellow lava lamp, a small kitchen, and a fireplace for a cozy feeling to the house. I put a TV above the sofa and decided to add a bit of extra “elegance” with a console table and bonsai tree behind the sofa. Jacques’s house was my last redesign on the island, and it turned out to be my favorite!

Julia: Julia is Jacques’s next-door neighbor. She is a snooty ostrich villager with a peacock-themed appearance that uses blues and greens as the dominant color scheme. Julia is my only snooty villager. I find this is a personality type I can only take in small doses. With that said, I actually like Julia. She has an interesting and fun character design, and she seems sweet underneath her natural snootiness. She’s more like that snooty best friend who makes you laugh with their antics than someone who is actively trying to be mean.

I didn’t change much on the exterior of Julia’s house. The house’s style, siding, and roof are all the same. I gave Julia a little patio with a simple garden table and chairs set. I added a different wreath, and changed the door design and color.

Hello, Julia! May I come into your house and make myself at home?

I ended up straying pretty far from the house’s original design in my redo. Julia’s house originally had green moulded panel walls and the simple blue flooring. She had the rattan bed, rattan towel basket, rattan low table, rattan vanity, rattan stool, rattan end table, and rattan bed. (Clearly, Julia is a fan of the rattan!) She also had the long bathtub, the bathroom towel rack, the black wooden deck rug, a bathrobe hanging on the wall, and a portable record player. In the end, I tried to capture the main feeling of Julia’s original house design, but I feel like I did not preserve much of her style. Sorry about that, Julia!

To me, Julia’s original house design was all about a relaxing, spa-like experience in a fancy bathroom, as well as hitting her blue and green color scheme pretty hard. Because there was so much white in the design, it felt cold and uncomfortable to me. I decided to warm up the interior with wood tones in an antique bed, some simple night stands, wooden flooring, and some wooden screens to delineate the bathroom. I wanted Julia to have her relaxing spa bathroom, even if it had to be tiny. So I screened off part of the room just for that. She still has a cute tub, as well as her vanity and a rattan stool. I added a shower over the tub, as well as some plants in the bathroom area. I paid homage to her original green and white walls by giving her the green floral accent wall and white brick walls in the rest of the house. I softened things up a bit by adding peach stripes rugs (which always look pink to me) across the back of the room for the bedroom and the bathroom. Julia also has a tiny kitchen and fridge, as well as a cute little eating area.

Flora: Flora’s house is the last house in the Orchard Neighborhood, but certainly not the least! She is Julia’s next-door neighbor, and her house is directly in front of Shep’s house, next to the river. Flora is a peppy ostrich villager with a pink flamingo design. She is one of two peppy villagers who live on my island, and I adore her. She is so cute and enthusiastic about life and cheerful. I love her little sayings, as well as her crazy sartorial choices! Flora is definitely a villager who can NEVER LEAVE. (*insert ominous music …*)

I did not change Flora’s house shape, but I changed up the exterior a bit. She originally had a pink clay exterior, white wooden roof, and pink iron grill door. I flipped the color scheme by giving the house a white clay exterior and pink roof. I gave her a black door for a pop of contrast, and I added a little patio on the side. Because Flora seems so cheerful and playful, I gave her a donut-themed director’s chair and a fun pink tent. The bridge in front of Flora’s house connects across the river to the Plaza Neighborhood.

Welcome to Flora’s house! Come in and make yourself at home, because you finally have a place to sit.

I say this because Flora’s original house design was pretty much “open meadow with pond” and very little furniture. Her house had the meadow vista wallpaper on every wall, oasis flooring (which is basically sand with a little pond in the middle), a wild log bench, a log bench, a sleeping bag, a campfire, a portable radio, and Mr. and Mrs. Flamingo.

I only have one interior picture of Flora’s house because it is probably the most visually simple of the redesigns. I changed the interior drastically so that it looks more like a house and not a swampy meadow. I kept the log bench, but brightened it up with a white color scheme. I kept a water-themed accent wall and added light pink walls for the rest of the house. I gave Flora simple white board flooring, and I stuck with the green and blue color themes by using the blue Persian rug on the floor. I gave her a small, simple bed with brightly colored, fun bedding, and I carried the bedding colors to the other side of the house with some fun director’s chairs. I added a cute lily pad table to continue the water theme, and I let Flora keep her portable radio. Finally, I gave Flora a HUGE tub to replace the pond she previously had in the middle of her floor. I finished things out with a tiny kitchen and fridge and one of the flamingoes.

The Wrap-Up:

I’m not sure how to end things other than to say, “That’s it for the Orchard Neighborhood! I hope you enjoyed your tour!” As I said in my previous post, I had a lot of fun with these redos. The fun thing about ACNH is that you can run around and basically do whatever you want. Yes, there are limits in terms of camera angles and spacing, and so on. But there are few limits to the creativity and simple, mindless fun of this game. I think that’s what drew me to it in such a huge way: That it is mindless, happy fun. I need that in my life!

I want to show a tour of the houses in my other neighborhood, too. So, I will probably tackle that in a future post — hopefully in the near future!