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.

Down the Rabbit Hole

I’ve never been a gamer. I’m old enough to have been around when Pac-Man first made his appearance, and I tore things up on those old arcade machines. I could make a quarter last for hours. But “real” (as in games that don’t have a big yellow ball eating dots and chasing ghosts) video games … not so much.

Generally, I consider myself an avid gamer-watcher. My husband loves to play games, as does my daughter. Hubby’s taste leans more toward the manly arts of war. Although he doesn’t have the time to play often now, his taste runs toward sniper or combat-type games, and I can remember many happy hours watching him shoot-em-up and acting as his spotter. You know, “Look out! There’s a guy over there! Oh, and there, too!” Child Unit loves fantasy or adventure-type games. We played our way through Zelda: Breath of the Wild recently, and we’ve started on Okami. When I say “we”, I mean that she does the actual playing, and I work out on the Precor while helping her spot bad guys or things that might contain money or useful items. I’m really good at spotting bad guys or things that shell out money, like hidden pots or the odd rock.

But I’ve never really sat down and felt the thrill of holding the controller in my own hands. I’ve never been the one running around fighting or jumping or whatever-ing. I played Mario Kart once, but I quickly ran my little go-kart thing right off the track. It was a painfully short game. And my family laughed at me. I don’t blame them; it was pretty funny.

I guess I just figured I was bad at video games. You know, one of those people who isn’t coordinated enough or brave enough or whatever enough to play on my own. I figured I was destined to be nothing more than a gamer-watcher. I’m such an introvert that I felt really shy about trying this out on my own. Even though it didn’t bother me terribly for everyone to laugh at me, I have to be honest with myself and admit that it did bother me a little. And it’s hard to try something new when you go into it already thinking you will be bad at it. It’s hard feeling like a failure. It sounds so silly to admit this out loud, but I was afraid to try. Stepping out of a comfort zone is like that. Even with something small, it’s scary.

After watching my daughter adventure and play her way through most of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, I admit I was intrigued. I was more than intrigued. It was such a beautiful game. It seemed like such a fun adventure. Even to me, it was a beautiful adventure, and I was only watching! I gave it a lot of thought. Eventually, I brought up the topic with my husband. I felt silly and shy about it, but I told him I wanted to try gaming on my own. Since my daughter is done playing through Breath of the Wild, I thought, maybe, I could try that game out for myself.

My husband knows me so well. He knew that, if I played a game my daughter had previously played, I would feel awkward and shy about it. This is a weird thing about my personality. I generally busy myself trying to be as invisible as possible. And he wanted me to have my first gaming experience all on my own. So that I could discover a new adventure, all for myself. Before I could change my mind or talk myself out of it, we visited one of his and my daughter’s favorite gaming stores. And he bought me my very first video game … The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

And now, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. Completely. I spent hours playing the game that first day. I picked out funny names for Link and for the horse. I ran all around the village, gathering money and fishing and trying to get new hearts. I spent hours playing the next day, too. And the next and the next. I’ve been on the forest adventure. I fought the enemies in the forest temple and freed the little kid and monkey. I herded goats. I searched for more money. I used the chickens to fly around the village. I lost custody of my horse, found it again, and got kidnapped. I turned into a wolf, and am now a bit stuck inside some kind of castle dungeon.

Am I any good at this game? No and hell no. I am clumsy. I run into walls. My Link runs around like a little drunk man with elf ears and too-big eyes.  And I’m even worse with the horse. Poor horse. I’m always running her into walls and fences and things. No wonder the village mayor’s daughter took her away from me! Oh, and I die. A LOT. If there is a way in which to die in this game, it’s a pretty good bet I have experienced it. I fail again and again and again.

But you know what? That’s okay! Maybe it’s even good to fail sometimes, because it gives us a chance to start over. I love how the video game, every time I die, asks me if I want to try again. I think life is like that, too. We have to remember to pick ourselves up and start again. And again. And again. And again. Even if it means falling down a rabbit hole every now and then.

 

Summer of the Dragon

In between runs to camp, swimming practice, piano lessons, and all that other stuff of which Summer seems to be made, I managed to get in touch with a part of me I tend to keep locked away from the rest of the world. I bury this bit of my personality way down deep and hardly ever let her out for fun and snacks. She used to complain, particularly when I took away her chocolate. But now, I think she’s rather given up. I hardly ever hear from her, and I think she is resigned to her marginal existence — a sort of psychological half-life.

But then, there are times when she escapes and runs rampant with the kind of giddy abandon usually seen only in small children and dogs when confronted with a set of sprinklers on a hot day.

Yes, I’m talking about my Inner Addict.

I have one of those obsessive types of personalities. I suppose I come by it honestly, as both of my parents  have issues with this, too. This is the reason I’ve never tried drugs. It is also the reason I rarely drink and, then, never more than one or two glasses of “whatever”. I’ve never smoked. I’ve never done any of the things that society and our parents warn us against. And the simple reason is that I knew, if I tried something once, there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to stop.

This summer, I made the mistake of letting my Inner Addict have some playtime. My daughter and hubby both started playing this game called DragonVale. I watched them play, and it was a cute game. It looked like fun. And, let’s face it — dragons! I always wanted a pet dragon as a kid, and here was my chance to have a whole park full of them! What more could one want?

I had my doubts about whether or not I would enjoy the game. I’m not much of a “gamer”. My husband loves all kinds of video games, and, for years, I would sit with him and watch as he played. Sometimes, if he was playing a war-type game, I would act as his sniper spotter: “Look! Over there! Shoot that guy!” But, other than a brief love affair with Pac Man in my wayward youth, I’ve never played video games on my own.

Well, let me tell you: Now I know why. Because I can’t stop playing! That’s right. I am completely and totally in-love addicted to this goofy game. My Inner Addict is running through my brain, waving her arms in the air and screaming at the top of her lungs: “I’m free!!! I’m free!! Wheeeeee!” It’s not pretty.

It all started out innocently enough. I had one little island. It was cute and cozy, and I thought to myself, “Hey! This is such fun. I love my little island.” I had a couple of dragons. I bred them. I was excited about waiting for the egg to hatch so that I could see what I might get. I didn’t have any delusions of grandeur. I didn’t expect to get anything fancy like a Rainbow Dragon … or a Gemstone Dragon … or a Moon Dragon … or, well, any of that. I had no plans to expand. I was happy with one little island where my pet dragons could frolic and entertain me.

But then, I decided my island would be pretty with some paths. After that, I outgrew my first couple of habitats and needed more. And decorations. Gotta have decorations, right? Still, things were fairly simple and low key until …

Quite by accident, I bred an “epic” dragon: The Rainbow. And he is AWESOME!!! He is so many pretty colors, and he floats around above my island looking adorably cool. Oh! And he shoots sparkles out of his mouth, too. Sparkles!!! At the first sight of that sparkly Rainbow Dragon, my Inner Addict was hooked, but good.

So here I am, several islands and many dragons later. My simple, cozy park has expanded to include four regular islands, all criss-crossed with paths and prettied up with various decorations, and a gemstone island. And dragons … dragons … dragons! I have been obsessively playing this game since June 24, and it doesn’t seem like my Inner Addict is going to let go of it any time soon.

Writing? Cleaning the house? Craft projects? Anything not involving racing to and fro in the car and DragonVale? Yeah, who needs it? The rational side of my brain feels guilty, but my Inner Addict keeps telling her to sit back and enjoy the ride. So far, my Inner Addict is winning, big-time. But hey, at least it’s not illegal, right?

Oh! Gotta run … I think my dragons have finished breeding.