monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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And that's the news for now.
I know I've told some of you about the Animal Crossing mania that has taken over our house. It started when Kim was playing it to amuse me while I knitted, and we had to explain it to Rachel, who was living in Argentina when we bought the game and the first wave of Animal Crossing washed over us. At that time Kim was playing it every day and Scott was living at home for a couple of months before his mission, so they both played every day and I just knitted and watched.
About the middle of November, Kim picked up the game again and started playing after being away from it for a while, and as we explained things to Rachel, she got interested in playing, so I told her to re-open Scott's town and play his character, but after a look at his town, she decided to start a character of her own, living in his town and move into a house of her own. Well, his town was all weedy and neglected since he hadn't played in a long time - 30 months, to be exact, as the villagers in the game reminded his character when they saw him (the game is played in real time).
Since Rachel was playing her own character, and it's more fun with more characters, I picked up Scott's character, rearranged his furniture (and moved some of it out of the house), and started pulling weeds in the town. My video game playing skills are very low, so at first all I could DO was pull weeds and talk to villagers. Except that talking to villagers leads to running errands for villagers (they reward you with money and furniture), and running errands was much too stressful for me at first. Gradually I mastered shaking trees so that money would fall out of them, and finally I learned to fish! I still have trouble hitting the money rocks, though. Kim manages to get SACKS of money from the money rock every day, but I can only get two bags on a good day.
So that's what we're all about right now. Then came Finals Week for Rachel, and big homework week for Kim, so you know who is the only one playing right now? That's right, it's me. I play my character, then I play Rachel's. Kim doesn't want anyone else to play her character, so she squeezes in a little time on her own when she can. Rich will even sit and watch us play, especially when I'm walking around shaking trees for money, because it's a random thing; sometimes money bags fall from the trees, sometimes nothing falls, and sometimes a bee's nest falls and your character gets stung. He loves it when I get stung - I try to run but I'm not skilled enough, so I'm frantically pushing buttons and yelling at my character, "Run,you idiot, run!"
One day last week when Rachel was at school, she overheard another nursing student make a comment about something that sounded familiar, and Rachel asked the girl if she plays Animal Crossing. The other girl said, yes, she and her boyfriend play it all the time! So Rachel told her about our Animal Crossing addiction. It makes you feel better about your craziness if other people are nuts, too.
It's still freezing here in the Midwest. The temperatures are below 10 degrees every day! Tonight I left for work, carrying my purse and my workbag, and wearing my coat, but I must not have put my mittens back in my pocket, and I didn't want to go back to get them, so I just got in the car and drove to work and by the time I got here, my hands were freezing! I only live a few minutes away and there isn't time for the car to warm up while I travel! Then I had to walk from my car to the hospital, and oh, I was suffering!
In my workbag, I have one finished wool mitten and one barely-started mitten that I had only made the cuff for, but guess what I'm going to knit all night? It's a worsted-weight wool on size 3 needles, so I think I can finish it easily before morning. Oh, the happiness of wool mittens on a cold morning!
I'm glad that tomorrow is Rachel's last final, because she has had a miserable week. She got scolded in clinicals on Friday by the mean instructor, which ruined her weekend - she kept crying over it, but really, that instructor is just mean! She's been horrible to everyone and Rachel knows it, but she couldn't just shrug it off. Then on Monday and Tuesday she took finals that she was prepared for, but she was feeling down about the scolding, so it was all just too stressful. Tuesday she had an end-of-clinicals interview with the mean instructor, and was upset about that, but then Tuesday evening we gave dinner to the new sister missionaries in our ward, and one of them was a nurse before her mission, so her input totally made Rachel feel better! She went for another final today and has the last one tomorrow, and her whole attitude is so much lighter - what a relief!
11:52 p.m. - 2005-12-07
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