End of Week Positivity

Even this seems too banal for a journal entry, but it was unexpected and caused me much joy, so I think it’s worth sharing.

It’s been an unbelievably rainy summer here. It was hard to make plans in June because it was always raining or threatening to rain. July opened up with the sort of vibe. Our lawnmower kid mowed the lawn June 26 and by this past week, it was ridiculously high from all the rain and moisture. On me, the grass came up mid-calf. Naturally, due to all the rain, swarms of mosquitos spawned and had me running every time I tried to do a little bit of yard work.

Our lawnmower kid is working during the Stampede, so he was unavailable. But, hark! What’s that sound? The sound of several lawnmowers?

My neighbour uses a lawn service because she’s allergic to grass and hubs ran out to see if they had time to do our lawn as well. Yes! How did $60 sound? Sure! We’d pay any price to tackle the lawn the way things were going! The mowing crew worked fast. Three lawn mowers vrooming side by side and one guy to do all the trimming. I should have taken before and after pictures. I was so thrilled—it’s not every day someone shows up at the exact moment you need something with the right tools and right price. Truly, it made the rest of my day after a ridiculous work week of stupid problems.

If You Know, You Know!

One of the goals in Animal Crossing games is to collect all the fossils, fish, sea creatures, insects, and art for your museum. I didn't accomplish this in New Leaf, but I'm getting close in New Horizons. The fossils are the easiest part to complete. Fish, sea creatures, and insects are mostly seasonal and out at certain times of the day. Art is tricky--you have to patiently wait for Redd to show up with real art instead of fakes.

I finished the fossil wing within the first few months of playing. I finished the sea creatures one in winter. I caught the last fish, a saddled burchir, in June and I caught the last bug on Friday night. July and August is a short window to catch rare bugs like the golden stag, which my little character is holding. It took a lot of grinding, ie, running around in circles on islands. An easy way to catch certain bugs is to rid an island of all the plants, stumps, and trees that attract other insects. Then you run around and scare off the insects you already have in hopes of spawning the rare bugs.

My persistence paid off. Yahoo! I now have a recipe for a golden net and bragging rights on FB groups :-D