Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Renovations & Giving my Villagers Vacation Homes (plus some others too)

After the DJ K.K. Concert, I had unlocked one special thing back at Resident Services: House Renovations for my Villagers.

While I know a lot of people have used this for full redesigns, my only goal was to make their houses look nice again (or for them to have a proper house in the case of starting villagers) so I mainly just added onto their existing layouts or tried doing a combination of their past game houses and newer ones. The biggest exception was with Judy’s house though as while I kept the layout the same, I changed out the furniture for ones more fitting to her as the Pastel Kiddie set made… no sense for her at all and I feel like it was only used because a fancier set didn’t exist yet.

For exteriors, I mainly did a few color swaps, but many I left the same. Marina’s was one of the biggest changes as her house made no sense to me based on everything else she had.

I decided to go in the order I got the villagers so Teddy, Mira, Merengue, Cookie, Flurry, Judy, Diana, Marina, Maple, and Peanut.



I received another letter from Wardell after hitting 30. I think it’s really sweet how he addresses us kinder each time– first it was just “My Friend” then “My Good Friend” and now “My Dear Friend”. I also got a letter from Tom Nook about the changes.

I decided to check out the Exterior adjustments and while most I was okay with, I did decide to change Diana’s back as the small adjustments made it too similar to Judy’s.

With the Renovations done, it was then time for Vacation Houses. While I had done Merengue’s Vacation House pretty early on as I didn’t realize it would happen immediately, I genuinely wanted to do Vacation Houses for ALL of my villagers, but I wanted to wait until I unlocked everything first. It was finally time though so I am doing my best to do them as I go! While you may have seen the videos already, I wanted to post this after I finished the other nine houses first.

Unlike the Renovations, I decided to do these in house order (Though, skipping Merengue’s as her Vacation Home is already done) so Teddy, Mira, Diana, Maple, Cookie, Judy, Flurry, Marina, and Peanut.

All the editing I did of their houses also finished up. While most I am happy with, I did change Diana’s exterior back to how it was originally as the adjustments made hers too similar to Judy’s.

One of the things I found really cute were the villagers’ reactions to you redoing their house.

Anyway, first up for a Vacation House was Teddy!

I then noticed Nat on the Beach who was trying to find the School so I took a moment to help him out first.

He gave us the ability to let bugs fly around a house which is nice, but… I wouldn’t want to catch bugs just to do this and I’m disappointed we couldn’t just get an option to add some like this if we caught them before like most of the things work in this.

With that done, I headed over to Teddy and… immediately had questions.

Teddy – Always on the Move

Teddy!! I am making you a nice vacation house!! Why do you immediately want to move out of it?? (I’m guessing it’s some reference tied to the “Moving Company” logo on the trucks, but it still made me sad)

Mira – My Cutting-Edge Keep

I liked that this was closer to her old home style.

Diana – A Place to Meditate

This was also an option and just, this would’ve been more a summoning than a meditation I think…

I was going to pause after doing one more house– Celia’s. I had wanted to last time I saw her, but wasn’t feeling well and had to stop early as I wasn’t feeling well and of course, the characters rotate each day so, I started looking around for her… In the meantime, I saw more villagers hanging out.

And even got more soundscapes with Wardell.

But I wasn’t having much luck and suddenly, Gruff pinged me so I felt obligated…

Gruff – House of Horrors

One thing I didn’t expect was to get a bonus for doing it. I tried looking around for Celia again, but she was gone again so I’ll have to try and do her house next time…

Either way, I still have 6 houses to go for all my Villagers to be done. I had to take another break though for the day.

I wasn’t able to play until late tonight. I’m not sure if that actually had an effect on Brewster’s dialogue or if it’s just as I’ve stopped in more, but I found it nice anyway.

It was back to handing out Souvenir Chocolate now though and Maple was up next. Upon getting to the island though, Niko let me know that Lottie was looking for me apparently.

She gave me a new app for the Nook Phone– the “Room Sketch” app which essentially just… lets you test out room layouts wherever and even immediately implement them into a villager’s house. I’m guessing we can’t do the latter part in our own house, but it’s still helpful for trying to figure out things for my Basement… I’d love a version for terraforming too.

Maple – A Bountiful Bear Bungalow

Maple gets me.

Next up was Cookie… And I was not prepared for this line. (Side note from the future: Peanut said it too, but it still hit just as hard)

Cookie – The Ultimate Pop-Star Cafe

Considering the amount of overlap from Happy Home Designer, I’m surprised Cookie’s changed.

Judy – Judy’s Recital Hall

Flurry – Flurry’s House of FLurries

Marina – Marina’s Underwater Palace

Peanut – Peanut’s Americana Museum

I never would’ve guessed Peanut wanted a house full of American things…

Peanut’s house actually made us hit 40 total Vacation Houses done now so it was time for another celebration. I picked the Restaurant this time as we haven’t celebrated there yet.



Now it’s just a matter of what to do next… I definitely want to do a house for every villager… Plus, I’ll be continuing to visit Brewster’s each day, but I still feel so overwhelmed with New Horizons right now and even a bit burnt out as a bunch of new items didn’t really fix most of my issues with the game.

I wish I could come up with an idea I’m happy with for the basement at least, even if I don’t end up overhauling the grove area after all (though, I still feel like I should in some way…).

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Slow Progression to the Big Event

I will say one thing that can always be a bit hard is when you keep hearing about all this stuff that unlocks after doing certain things a number of times when you don’t time travel so you’re just… sitting back and waiting. It’s something I found especially polarizing when New Horizons first came out due to that slow first week trek and it’s not really a great feeling to be back to. Making things more frustrating is my lagging behind with Happy Home Paradise where despite trying multiple times to sit and sink some time in, something keeps coming up.

Thus this is a collection of days until I manage to hit 30 total homes done, as it’d be relatively short otherwise.

As per usual, I’ve still been doing small changes around the island.

I also ended up seeing Daisy Mae while over at Brewster’s. I really should try and check in more.

Brewster also let me know I could get Coffee to go from now on.

Over at Harvey’s, our next Shop had arrived– Redd!

Cornimer also returned which I did not expect, but I appreciate the acorns.

Regardless, now it was time to get back to work.

Dobie – The Author’s Retreat

Surprisingly, this also ended up being the 10th Vacation House I’ve done so Lottie wanted to celebrate. It was a very cute party.



With the party over, I continued to get a few more houses done.

Marcie – A Homey Daycare Dwelling

After finishing, I got a new Job Title and a Pay Increase.

There were also more options for the Work Uniform so I played around with it a bit.

It was then time for another job.

Coco – Coco-Style Retro Living

I spent some time walking around and it was a nice surprise to see those who we’ve made houses for hanging out. Marcie even gave me a gift.

While doing Coco’s house, I unlocked more “cleaning effects” so I headed back to my place to check them out a bit. I also put some Gyroids out, but still can’t decide what to do with that basement room really…

I had gotten a lot of the DIYs too so I spent some time cooking to finish off the day. Due to the amount, I’ve just included some of my favorites.


I also realized I could put one of the dishes on the Stove too which I think looked nice.

To my surprise, I had mail today. A nice one from Wardell for hitting 10 Vacation Houses and also one for having participated in the Group Stretching three times.

I also stopped by Brewster’s as usual now and after my usual coffee (even though I hate coffee), I also got one to go for fun.

Heading to Harvey’s to see the next completed shop, Saharah was actually not here due to being at my town today so there was no introduction with Harvey. It was still set-up though at least.

Making my way out to work once more, I was surprised to get a Plumeria Start from Olivia at the school.

At the Agency, Lottie asked me to choose between setting up a Cafe or Restaurant first. I decided to start with the Cafe.

Facility: Cafe

I had unlocked a feature to pay for items later and with that, I had enough to pay it off. Wardell referring to us as a friend is very touching.

I then stopped back by the Cafe to check it out more and was surprised they actually sold food items we could buy.

After buying some things, I accidentally picked up a new job assignment and thus, we continue!

Olaf – A Stellar Estate

Heading back to the Agency, I unlocked finally unlocked the Happy Home Network!

My Happy Home Network ID: RA-5367-6995-4315

With the Cafe done, it was time to work on the Restaurant!

Facility: Restaurant

With the facilities done, it was back to the Vacation Houses.

Tucker – Armchair Archaeology Dig

It was at this point things that were different or not included in HHP that HHD did/had really hit me– like the lack of being able to change the entry way appearances (we can change the flooring, but not do doors or anything), no flexibility on where another room is (Upstairs only), and one especially odd thing to me: How the Clip Show and photos work. Even if a Villager wants you to decorate both outside and inside, they will only have the little montage where you are in the room. Happy Home Designer would have each room you decorated be shown at some point. Similarly, HHD would always save the final “scene” for a photo, but HHP requires you to take your own and it’s… super annoying filling up my storage with random pictures because it won’t take any automatically.

Regardless, I have done my best to trudge on and decided to just start taking pictures of both even if the game refuses to include everything.

Deirdre – A Little Slice of Fall

After finishing Deidre’s Vacation House, we had a little interlude as Niko had been getting very into DIY and now anything we’ve crafted could be used in houses. It’s a good thing I craft everything at least once.

Of course, right after it was back to Vacation House Planning.

Penelope – My Ever After Home

I decided to stop there for today. I also had managed to get a few other items I’ve been wanting so I made a few more improvements to the Kitchen.

Another day means another Shop opening over at Harvey’s– this time, Katrina’s!

Of course, I had to try each of the fortunes…

The friendship one was so sweet T~T

Saharah also gave me a small introduction now that they were actually here today.

Back on the Island, my vegetables finally fully grown. Now to never actually harvest them.

I also added a few adjustments over by the Museum. It’s subtle, but I think it looks nice.

Heading off to work, Niko wanted to teach a class.

After getting back to the Agency, Tank showed up to bring up an idea he had: Roommates. He wanted to have one and to be honest, I’m not super fond of it. I don’t mind it for NPCs where they never actually give a theme really, but doing this means now I’ll never be able to make Moose a vacation home and that makes me really sad as I’d really like to make everyone one.

It was then back to the usual Vacation Home business… Unfortunately, I didn’t feel up to doing much.

Sylvia – A Family-Friendly Pool

After finishing, I was told Wardell had gone to take a break and to go find him, so I quickly headed over to the North side of the beach. This unlocked the Soundscapes feature.

Today was pretty much an off-day. Maple visited though.

And Brewster gave me his Cookie recipe.

I also finally did a Kapp’n Island again, despite not needing anything from them, and got a really pretty one.

Over at Harvey’s, the final shop had opened: Kicks’!

While I didn’t feel up to doing any houses today, I still stopped by the HHP Agency to buy things. To my surprise though, I had a new task. Niko had been working on DIYs and Wardell wanted my help with gathering materials for him.

Besides that, we finally finished off the new seasonal items added in 1.11 with the Chitose Ame for Shichi-Go-San:

I also learned you could use custom designs as well for the Cleaning effects so I tried putting in some cherry blossom ones.

Brewster offered me pigeon milk for the first time. I need way too much milk and sugar to make coffee drinkable for me. I really wish Brewster had more items on the menu… or at least that we had the option to pick other ones.

Over at Harvey’s, with the shops done and having gotten all of the hairstyles Harriet offered, I’ve usually found her hanging out with Harvey which is cute.

With nothing really to do at Harvey’s now, it was back to working on Vacation Houses.

Vesta – Home with a Fireplace

After finishing, I unlocked another new feature: Two-Story Vacation Houses. Honestly though, I don’t plan to use it much. I wish villagers could decide if they wanted it over having you pick– I rather just work more closely on what they want than taking tons of liberties.

Naomi – The Art Cafe

And after finishing that house, I also received another Title and Pay Upgrade.

O’Hare – Tropical Paradise

And that brought us to the 20 Vacation Houses mark which meant it was time for another party.

Lottie then revealed her next plan for us: A Music Festival.

The next day, I had another really sweet letter from Wardell.

Back at our Paradise Island job, Niko started giving more recipes he came up with. I also ended up changing my outfit back to something closer than my initial outfit. I do wish there were actual white tights as an option though.

I did my best to at least do one vacation house today too.

Dizzy – A Fun Yard for Playing

At Brewster’s, Isabelle actually stopped by too which was a nice surprise.

I also finally noticed that Judy had put out Glowing Moss Wreath plus I put out some Nova Lights on the Castle Towers.

As for our progress, Niko let us know the Decorating had been going well, but Lottie felt sick and had to be flown off the island to see a Dcotor…

Niko was a bit nervous taking over for now, but he did well.

Rod – A Pirate’s Secret Hideaway

Lottie returned shortly after and even brought a gift back with her.

Beardo – A Proper English Garden

Bettina – A Peerless Patisserie

After what happened, Lottie decided our next Facility should be the Hospital.

I stopped by the Hospital for a check-in after and not only got a quick check-up, but also paid off for an expansion to add a Patient Ward which I’d be able to take care of tomorrow.

Del – A Cabin for My Sea Voyage

There’s a lot of things I think I would’ve done differently, but I got really caught up in a concept and didn’t execute it like I imagined.

Wardell then took another break and we learned more soundscapes.

It’s honestly really nice sitting here.

Spike – Heart of the City

Niko also gave us an update as he set up more things.

I didn’t expect to see another NPC so soon, but Blathers showed up at Brewster’s today which was nice.

Brewster also ended up having a gift for me.

Back at Happy Home Paradise, Niko learned about my own involvement with the Materials. I can’t really take all the credit though– Wardell was the one doing so at first at least. And maybe he put some stuff in there inbetween, who knows.


Niko then told me to make sure I headed to the Office first as Lottie needed to talk to me. We had gotten an AB&PD essentially– it could deposit Poki (though, as I have not hit a limit on how much I can hold yet, I don’t see any reason to) and exchange Bells for Poki and vice versa.

Next up was expanding the Hospital.

Hospital Patient Ward

I also took the time to adjust the Exam Room a bit as it really didn’t need to be that big. The Hospital probably has my favorite colors. I feel like most of the other buildings had really awful shades of pink for options :/

We had to be close to that 30 milestone now so I decided to really focus on getting some more Vacation Houses done today.

Yuka – My Forested Jungle

Tom Nook than showed up letting us now use any item I’ve cataloged… In which having every item cataloged already has sure come in handy.

At the Hospital, I ran into Joan. It’s nice to see her.

Norma – A Place Packed with Plants

Zucker – Festival Grounds

Niko then let us know he finished decorating. I appreciate the color scheme.

Maddie – Stylish Streamer Estate

And thus, I officially hit 30 Vacation Houses done!

We also apparently got permission to set up our last facility…

And thus, it was time… An Apparel Shop.

While it’s neat that it’ll actually have clothing you can buy each day, I am a bit disappointed about the lack of a Concert Hall which was one of my favorites in Happy Home Designer. In general, the exterior designs felt relatively uninspired and limited with options unfortunately.

Regardless, it was finally time for the special event…

…A DJ K.K. Concert!! I honestly love DJ K.K.’s remixes so I really hope he may appear again here too like how K.K. continues to show up on our Island.


After we finished dancing, we also got some Dance Reactions to go with it which was nice. Though, no Shrunk Shuffle… And still no way to get Personality-specific Reactions :(

I love the decorations for it so much. If the concert never ended, I’d be okay with it.

I miss Club LOL.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – And here comes Happy Home Paradise

Even though I was mainly just stuck waiting around on Thursday, some stuff did still pop up before the DLC released. For one, I got a new recipe from Merengue.

I also started fishing to try and get more DIYs after learning you could get some that way as well.

That facial expression is the one bad thing about this eye style.

Judy ended up inviting me over to visit her House so she could practice her hosting. For the most part, it wasn’t too different than how it’s been in the past with a slight exception of bringing up a game to the biggest surprise: A gift when I left.

I then did my best to cook the recipes I could for the moment.

Meg also invited me over to her town as her museum was done already so we could have coffee at Brewster’s and watch K.K.’s Concert.

Regardless, Happy Home Paradise ended up releasing at midnight! After downloading, immediately upon loading in, I had a call from Tom Nook.

I had hoped to do a few things first, but got immediately whisked away to the airport.

Before immediately rushing to work, I decided to take care of the few things I had hoped to and I also had quite a bit of mail to go through, including a specially marked Nintendo one that came with this lovely photo of Lottie, Niko, and Wardell.

With my own little to-do list done and new recipes crafted, I was finally time to head off for work.

Immediately upon landing, we met Niko who showed us the way to the main headquarters.

After getting introduced to everyone, Lottie told us to head upstairs to change into my Work Uniform.

After heading down and a short conversation, our very first customer walked right in: Eloise!

Eloise – My Relaxing Reading Room

We were then told to head out to the Beach to find more possible customers. I generally just picked whoever’s theme sounded most interesting, whoever I saw first, and/or based off a friend’s or chatter’s suggestion during the stream.

Tank – Tabletop-Games Ground

Besides buying stuff in the store, I also made sure to buy enough Souvenir Chocolate for all my villagers.

Azalea – A House of Green Furniture

We learned the whole shining things up pretty early, but I constantly forget about it. Even when I say to myself “I’ll make sure to do so this time!”, I get so caught up in the actual decorating and completely forget. I lost track how many times the characters told me to take a break though.

Bertha – Bungalow of Cozy Blankets

Continuing to be yelled at to take a break, Lottie told us next and ended up checking out a building that would soon be a facility we could work on. She also recommended us look around the island and it is quite pretty.

Pudge – My Pretentious Palace

Niko found a letter in the bottle and gave us the DIY.

I also see we still have some unique names for these houses.

Olivia – Portal to the Land of Nod

Upon getting back, we were promoted and got new outfit choices.

Lottie then asked us to help work on the very first Facility: The School!

Rio – Workout Workshop

Because every member of this team needs to tell me to take a break apparently.

We do agree on one thing though: Yes, Island Life should be relaxing!! Too bad the game mechanics took tons of unrelaxing mechanics v-v Regardless, after this, Lottie had the Amiibo device installed. It’ll be a long while before I get to that.

And then, of course, we continue to have some… incredibly weird ones.

Lionel – Restroom Refuge

Let me just say I was very thankful I unlocked partitions with this house because I don’t know if it would’ve gone nearly as well otherwise.

And at this point, it had passed 5AM so the time rolled over while on the island.

To my surprise, I saw Leif wandering around on the Beach. He was looking for the School and ended up making it so we could use Hybrid Flowers during decorating now.

Since it hit 5AM though, that meant the Museum’s construction would be done and the Cafe would be opened so I decided to truly take a break and head back to Pink Sea.

I had gotten some nice mail and even got a lovely pink chandelier which I put in the bedroom.

It was then off to the museum!


While on one of Kapp’n’s islands, I actually found a already grown Gyroid in addition to a fragment which was surprising.

I then headed over to Harvey’s as the next shop should be opened.

I noticed Merengue walking around early so I decided to hand out one of the Souvenir Chocolates. What I was not prepared for was to immediately end up heading back to the Island to have an option to make her a Vacation Home.

And of course that meant I had to… I think I’ll wait until I unlock everything before handing out anymore chocolate.

Merengue – Dessert R & D Dept.

Heading back, it was time to get started placing some of the items I got in the mail.

I also got to learn that apparently new seasonal recipes are dropping from balloons which isn’t fun.

I also decided to try burying the Gyroid Fragment on the beach as it’s the only place I really had and thankfully, it worked out.

It was then time for the ceremony in honor of the Cafe opening! It’s been a long time since we last had one… And thinking about it, this may actually be the last ever one for Pink Sea. I have no where to put any new ramps or bridges nor any plans to add any and there will be no other major updates so…

I also started playing around with trying to use the new sparkle effect in my own house, but I can’t really get any of it to look that great…

Meanwhile, Zed had gotten a recipe for a Cherry Blossom Rug and kindly sent me one. It’s so cute.

I also want to just mention that while going back home and learning how I could do stuff I learned in HHD, it did outright confirm how changing room sizes was not one of them and while I’m not surprised, I’m still annoyed. I get not having it available from the get-go if someone is still expanding their house, but if they fully expanded it and their storage to 5,000, WHY can’t that be an option? I can do so much more with 10×10, 8×10, and 8×8 rooms than 6x anything and I’m so frustrated at the lost potential, especially as we couldn’t even get all rooms as big as New Leaf’s.

Regardless, another day had come and thanks to surprises from nice people and friends, I managed to zoom through DIY collecting T~T So now I can pretty much solely focus on my catalog. I also finally managed to catch the Seal Fountain’s special hour moment. It’s really cute.

And I managed to get one of each sprout for my little farm. Nice for aestheticness, but pointless in terms of how many I’ll need from crafting so shout out to all my friends who offered to help because they know how much I can’t stand farming in games.

Finishing up with Gyroids thanks to some kind people, I also decided to just drop one here as an ode to the old days.

I then stopped by Resident Services as my loan was now complete.

I also found out that the gift boxes you can deliver to villagers also can “timeout” like the lost items so I was able to finally have a gift box where I always imagined one since Balloon Gifts don’t spawn high enough.

Over at Harvey’s, Tortimer was now here!

I get that we’re always essentially a different person and not somehow the same character still around as everyone else gets older, but I have mixed feelings on it. I wonder if they ever think of us. I suppose more accurately I could just think of each game as its own reboot, but…

Regardless, the main theme of today was just… Little updates as I got new items to use around town. I’m not sure if all of them are permanent fixtures or not, but I think they look nice… Hopefully anyway.









I really want to figure out how to rework two areas in specific plus figure out a couple of other things, but I have no idea where to start on those… Maybe I’ll get some inspiration as I work on HHP. I mainly just keep thinking of how different my island may have been if so many items were in at the start for me to plan with. I don’t really like tearing things down and starting over so it’s just me trying to make things work and it’s so frustrating.

In the meantime, this is essentially my quick craft set-up I carry around with me:

After that, it was a lot of just crafting and working on getting recipes done.

While I didn’t manage to do anymore houses, I did at least stop by to do some shopping.

To finish off the day, K.K.’s concert! I had fun to all the new songs— I would say K.K. Bashment’s is my favorite of the new batch.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – The update arrived early?!

I don’t think I can accurately describe the emotions I felt when, after an especially rough day where going to bed early seemed to be on the table, I suddenly caught wind that the big 2.0 update dropped about 24 hours early. I guess for most people, this would be something exciting to make up for the day, but for me, it was really the last thing I needed. I’ve been incredibly anxious about the update since the Direct and while there were a few features I am genuinely excited for; for the most part I’m just… stressed.

I don’t mind new features (minus cooking, but it’s an expansion of the DIY system which I just don’t care for so), but I just… did not want more items. Between the lack of space (due to terraforming restrictions and lack of room expansions) and just it being so late at this point, if there HAD to be new items, I just wanted it to be small… and nothing about this update has been small. This update practically doubles the amount of items in the game and while sure, a lot of those items are variants (many have 8 color options), it’s still overwhelming.

I think what really is getting to me most with it right now is I generally categorize things into multiple sections– For example, DIYs goes to Random DIYs, Villager DIYs, Celeste DIYs, Event DIYs, Nook Miles Redemption DIYs, etc. But this update resets almost everything. Villagers have new DIYs and Cooking DIYs, there’s new Nook Miles things, you can get recipes from Leif, Celeste has new DIYs, Fence colors count towards the catalog, K.K. has new songs, and just every single checkmark I had has not only quickly come undone, but with a list that feels as long as when I first started playing. And while clearly I must be in the minority with the amount of people who reset their islands for fun, I have never cared for that kind of thing. I was thrilled when I was done and I could relax and just work on decorating or whatever I felt like and not constantly worry if I didn’t have the game going 24/7, I could miss something. Because with the randomness, it’ll take even longer all on your own.

Maybe I’ll feel better when I can find a surefire list of everything (I know there’s some, but they’re either just images which doesn’t help with keeping track or saying which are DIYs or the actual names, have all the variants mixed in including ones that don’t actually matter to the catalog, and/or they also have old items mixed in) and can cross things off and prioritize stuff, but right now, it’s just kind of a bundle of questions and stress about missing out on everything.

While I’m sure there’s some new items I’ll absolutely adore; for now, it just feels like too much. And as someone who is very much a “dump everything out and work from there” type of person over a little bit at a time, each step feels incredibly daunting. And there’s still so many weird limits that just makes it worse. Regardless, we’ll move into my actual play sessions now and as always, you can find the recordings up on my Youtube channel.

Immediately upon booting up, Isabelle started talking about everything happening and explaining about the ordinance system.

I also had plenty of mail letting me know about the latest additions.

I decided to head to Blathers first as besides it being the closest stop of all the places I wanted to go, I figured that we would once again need to upgrade the Museum for Brewster’s Cafe so it was best to get that knocked out ASAP. What I was not prepared for was how apparently Brewster’s Cafe closed and he was missing.

I have so many questions about how this happened. Did something go wrong? Did Brewster want to retire? If it’s the latter, do we really want to ask him about working at a cafe again?? This entire scenario is resolved way too quickly, but maybe we’ll get to learn more about it from Brewster eventually. Regardless, for our search, Blathers gave us a photo of Brewster so we know what he looks like.

The update also introduced the whole Morning Exercise/Stretching stuff which honestly the Button Controls were harder than I expected? The timing was really odd. Maybe one day I’ll try it with motion controls.

At Resident Services, I immediately bought the Storage Upgrade and ended up selecting Beautiful Ordinance again. With my weird sleep schedule I can have really late hours and really early hours so Early Bird vs Late Owl doesn’t work enough for me. Bell Boom has always seemed worthless. I then picked up soe of the various new gadgets and things for Nook Miles (and also stopped back at the Nookling shop for stuff as well before they closed). It was… a lot to say the least. This is just some of them:

I then decided to recolor the Fences around the Outer Cafe area as the weird orange-y brown of the Lattice fence has bugged me for AGES.

It was then off to meet Kapp’n.

Right away on the island he brought us to, we ran into Brewster.

I’m glad he’s okay because Blathers did not make it seem that way. Regardless, I headed back to Blathers and let him know.

Upon talking to him again though, he ended up giving me some neat posters. I temporarily placed them along that wall just to see them as it had the most clear wall space. They’re pretty neat.

You may also have noticed that I set my first (and possibly only) Accent Wall there– fully making this room feel more like a backyard.

During all this, Cookie actually came to visit. I was probably one of the few people who didn’t miss Villagers visiting us or inviting us over. It’s not that I don’t enjoy seeing them, but they have always come over while I was in the middle of decorating and this was no different.

She actually left pretty quickly though which I am not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

After that, I worked on crafting a lot of the DIYs I had gotten so far– essentially, if I had the items to craft it, I did. I will say my issues with Cooking aside, the stove is pretty nice.

I also made some adjustments over here to add the Donation Box and eventually, the Balloon Cart as well.

I finally headed out to Harvey’s next.

It’s a good thing this was in the Direct or I would be very concerned.

I’m pretty excited for this area, even though I have most things done at this point. At the very least, having Reese & Cyrus and Leif around permanently will be pretty helpful.

I ended up giving each Lloid 99,999 Bells as getting one to 100K would make it so you can’t donate anymore. I know it’s unlikely they’ll get finished off by Harvey or Harriett, but just incase…

I ended up doing Reese & Cyrus’ shop first and then followed up with Leif’s today. I’ll likely do Tortimer’s next.

Back in town, as it was passed midnight at this point, I was able to order more Nook Miles Items. These are probably my two favorites of the new batch.

I also planted the Gyroids I had gotten from finding Brewster. The… stream rising is unsettling.

The Pastel Plaza stuff is right up my alley. I ended up putting the bench here, but I’m not sure if I like it more than what I had before so maybe I’ll put this somewhere else…

I tried playing around with the Clock and Arch as well, but they just didn’t mesh well with everything else.

Thanks to some kind people, I was able to get a potato seed and at least get one new crop in my little plot of land.

I also got some of the cute Glow Moss and Vines which I had fun decorating a bit. Regardless of what happens to that middle area, the Glow Moss and Vines will stick around.

The new reactions are also pretty cute. My only complaint is several are quick different poses (Much quicker than like the Yoga/Exercise ones) and I think it would’ve been better if they switched when we pressed A or something because they also only loop once so I feel like it’d be hard to stay in the pose you want for long.

I do appreciate that we can do the Closet poses just out and about now though.

I then learned, thanks to a friend, that in addition to the whole way DIYs can work, sometimes your Villagers will cook at their stove and you can talk to them for them to teach you a recipe.

I had wanted to do more Kapp’n Islands, but unfortunately, you can only do one a day -_- Because everything has to be overly restricted in this game.

Anyway, the clock rolled over to 5AM and I got to unearth my first two Gyroids.

I really want to find a nice place for them, but I’m at a complete loss.

In addition to all the furniture, there’s also new clothing items as well and already multiple cute things. I’m not sure if anything will fully beat my current outfit though.

I also managed to get another seed– a Tomato this time! Just Squash, Carrots, Sugarcane, and Wheat to go…

I made sure to check out the House Exterior additions this time as I was too focused on the Storage yesterday, but… it really was just the four shown in the Direct. It was really disappointing… I’m sad my castle isn’t back. So I ended up just doing the next Storage Expansion.

Meanwhile, the Museum was now under construction to set up the Cafe (so I won’t be able to see Brewster until tomorrow).

Heading back to Harvey’s to see Reese & Cyrus and pay of the Lloid raising funds for Leif’s shop, I noticed Harriet was set up. One nice thing was that she actually will set your hair back if you don’t like it so you can get the new hairstyles (I’m guessing it’s one a day– it only let me get one haircut today anyway) without having to go and switch yours back later.

The first hairstyle I got was the one I was debating on too, but as I thought, it’s just a bun with some hair down. The search for a better ponytail to actually happen in this game continues.

Harvey was talking to Reese & Cyrus and the dialogue was really cute.

I tried really hard to get all the Nook Miles stuff and other new items I had gotten customized that I could not for cataloging purposes, but it was… so draining. With so many of the items having large amounts of customization, the cost (About 5K on average, but some items can be closer to 10K or 1K), and how long each dialogue prompt you had to go through took, it was really unfun. I’m glad there’s no limit to how often you can, but I just got bored. I couldn’t even get through customizing all the [customizeable] fences (as they’re now in the catalog). With so many colors, it was just driving me nuts… I still have four more to finish later.

In the meantime, one item I was surprised had no customization was the new Park Fountain. I initially tried putting it in front of Resident Services, but it didn’t look that great, so I tried near the playground. I’m not sure if I like it or not in either place. Somehow it feels small? Even though it’s the same size? It’s a shame as I love the Seals, but something about it is throwing me off and I don’t know why.

Finishing up some morning stuff, I took another Kapp’n trip and clapped along to the song. Unfortunately, there was nothing good on the island besides another Gyroid fragment which I decided to just keep as is.

My town got enveloped in fog which was kind on unsettling.

I also surprisingly had one of the new Villagers in my Campsite today– Petri.

The Elegant set, while it has some things in common with the Rococo set, is not entirely the same. The beds especially are very different, but I still am glad I managed to get the couch:

I also got some new bags, but I wish they worked better with my outfit… I also want the Dreamy Pochette as a backpack.

For now though, I think I’m going to take a break. It’s just so incredibly overwhelming and until I can figure out a way to organize it all, that feeling just gets heavier. Maybe I’ll feel better when I can focus solely on the expansion… I can at least hope it’ll make cataloging a lot less overwhelming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – The update is almost here…

Originally, I expected I wouldn’t have much to say until the update hit, but in the end, I do have a handful of things I did end up doing before the update hits on Thursday. For one, we have the last seasonal item for October (though, it is also part of November): Our final item for last month– Marigolds were also added for Day of the Dead. I wish I had a nicer place to put it though…

Maybe if this area gets redone?

That evening after the Direct, in an effort for some control, I took the time to work on my little side Waterfall area again. I had always wanted it to feel more like a Shrine, but room was such an issue… But you were never actually meant to walk into it which made me realize there was a way to make it work after all:

I would’ve liked to fit in some Shell Fountains too, but their awkward size unfortunately made it impossible. Maybe a new item could work, though, unless they gave us some overview mode for exterior editing, it’ll be a huge pain to do. It’ll be interesting to see just how many features from the Expansion are possible and when as I’m sure you’ll have to build your rank up like in Happy Home Designer. I just REALLY hope it’s not real time only. Normally, I don’t mind waiting, but it’s nice to just zone out and decorate houses for villagers and can’t really zone out if I can only do three before the game tells me to come back tomorrow.

In the meantime, I had been popping in more, constantly wanting to work on things and generally choosing not to as I should wait, as it’s been really hard. Even though there’s only so much dialogue, sometimes I still get some nice new things.

Thinking all of it over more though, I figure if I do try to change up any area in full, it may be the pond area– cleaning it up a bit and making it less wild/cluttered while still giving a kind of fantasy vibe. Maybe it can still turn into a big old shrine in and of itself, but I should wait to see what new items appear first. The other area I’m considering making some adjustments too is the large waterfall before near the bridge to the Grove area– I am considering making the mouth of it a bit smaller instead of just this gigantic rectangular river/pond.

As it is, Mira had lost an item and for the first time, I couldn’t find it anywhere? I usually find it long before a Villager asks, but even after multiple loops around the island and even having Meg check as well, we couldn’t find her notebook! Maybe it’ll show up while doing some renovating? But I’m just… beyond baffled. She did draw a very cute Mega Audino on my Bulletin Board though :D

We also had another new seasonal item today and honestly, probably my favorite of the newest items from 1.11– these adorable handheld lanterns:

They’re both fun to hold and honestly look really cute around. I almost wish they were customizable too. I’d say maybe one day, but with this update supposedly being the last big one, I wouldn’t expect any new custom design items.

My Top Tips for Sunshine Days

If you are subscribed to my Youtube channel, you’ve likely already seen at least one of my Sunshine Days videos since I started playing at the end of June. It’s easily been one of the games I’ve most frequented been asked about so I wanted to list some of my top general tips when playing the game.

Keep in mind the game is in Early Access and thus, ALL of these tips are subject to change or no longer be applicable. Also as changes have happened, things have changed since I originally did them, but these are at least the tips I’ve personally followed as I play.

  • If you plan to do any of Noor’s Gossip (aka, the Daily Quests) that day, before you do anything else, you should head there to pick them up. – Generally, my first thought is often gardening or maybe wanting to hurry to harvest things so I can work on quests during the 1-2 hours of respawn time, but MANY of the dailies require harvesting items, some literally will be all you can find per respawn session (like one of Bilet’s quests asks for 6 lemons and there’s only 6 lemons available at a time). While you may occasionally run into a situation where you just don’t get lucky with spawn rates (I had a quest where I needed 5 Mushrooms, but only 3 were available to harvest at a time), I’ve found this generally is the best way to do it so I can kill two birds with one stone instead of having to wait around for things to respawn or possibly multiple hours for plants to grow.
  • Don’t be afraid to just leave some crops growing in the Greenhouse until you HAVE to harvest them. You may only be able to buy 5 seeds per crop a day, but there’s no limit to how many you can have. You can also earn more from Percival’s Mystery Boxes and Bilet’s Crane Game, in addition to through the current Season Pass. The main reason I suggest this is that some items that frequently come up for harvesting are Pumpkins, Aloe, and certain flowers so I always keep some onhand just to finish quickly before immediately replanting them.
  • Always get the Premium Pass on the Season Pass during Early Access. – During Early Access, it’s completely free! So there’s no reason to not grab it for the extra rewards.
  • If you’re focused more on leveling the season pass and don’t care too much about getting more Stone, save your Acorns for Rubberwood Grove (the one with Iron). – Iron and Stone are currently only forageable through their respective Hiking Trips. You essentially spend 500 Coins for an Acorn which can be used to go Hiking on Ace’s Balloon. It’s definitely worth the price as you get more than if you bought and honestly, you do need a lot of Stone if you want to make all the different exterior customization options (which will take over 1,000 Stone to craft enough Cement and Brick or if you want to buy it, over 20K– the glue alone would be over 20,000…), but over twice as much forageables are available through Rubberwood Grove so it’s more bang for your Acorns if leveling is your biggest objective. Keep in mind you can just stay on a hiking trip until things respawn as well. That said, if you’re feeling impatient and have the money and acorns to burn, leaving a hiking trip and going back will immediately re-spawn everything.
  • If you don’t have time to play much, but can at least find time to stop in briefly, I’d recommend picking up a 5 Coin Ticket from Bilet and a Honey Jar from Jamal each day you can. – The reason I suggest these two specifically is every day, Bilet has a Carnival Ticket for 10% of the usual price. Bilet’s Crane Game is not just great for getting generally coins and gems, but actually contains old Season Pass items if you missed out on some. Also you’re pretty much guaranteed to always get more back than what you paid for if you just stick to those cheaper tickets. As for the Honey Jar, you can actually get Honey up to 3 times a day for one, but you also will get level up experience for each Honey Jar you fill. Once you’ve finished, stocking up on these jars helps get you a bonus start when the next season arrives.
  • If you don’t always have a lot of time to level or find yourself cutting it close, I strongly recommend getting the Water Pump from Byron’s shop ASAP. Putting one near your greenhouse saves you A LOT of time from going back and forth from there to the center of Town Square and back to fill up your Watering Can. As it can only hold 10 at a time and with a maximum of 48 slots (and even more than 10 from the get-go), you will be doing that… a lot. That said, watering your plants is completely optional— they do not die if you don’t water them, it doesn’t even speed up growth. The pros for watering are that watering will give you experience per water, even if that plant is already watered This has been changed in a recent patch and now you can only water a plant if it is unwatered. This is still recommended though as you can only hold 10 and the fully upgraded plot has 48 spots so it still saves time. Keep in mind that planting does not give you any leveling experience– only watering!
  • If you haven’t finished Jamal’s Garden Quest, you can actually keep picking weeds to gather up more flowers beyond what he asks for. It’s a good way to stock up for future or to have some to sell too.
  • You can tell if you have a new quest either by opening your map and looking on the right side or if an NPC has something to say to you if they start waving when you get close. That said, characters like Rowan and Emile should be spoken to each day until they run out of crafting recipes for you. Rowan will just give you them while Emile has some in his shop.
  • If a quest says to wait or come back later, it always means the next day— either after the day rolls over or 24 hours after you finished. If it doesn’t update after 24 hours, send in a Bug Report!
  • I often get a lot of questions on earning coins, so offhand, a quick list of suggestions:
    • Flowers bought from Jamal give the best average for earning Coins– you will always earn twice what you paid. Every crop from Sada, minus Grapes which cost Gems instead of Coins, will not earn as much unless you get the silver rank of them which you can’t guarantee. Unless you have tons of Gems to spare, I would not recommend Grapes beyond completing quests as they only give you Coins.
    • There are 4 chests you can find every day (3 in Shuggle Woods, 1 in Primavera Forest in Jamal’s Garden) that will give you coins. Similarly, Daily Quests also give you coins and most don’t require you to spend anything to finish them.
    • Fishing costs nothing to do so it’s essentially a free source of revenue.
    • Percival’s Mystery Boxes will often give you items you can sell for a good amount while also giving you a decent amount of coins for the items as well so if you’re someone who has TONS of forageables and is really great at keeping those counts up, this is highly encouraged. * The small knock you may get for giving Percival the items instead of selling directly is more than worth a lot of what you can pull for his boxes. That said always go for the 5 Item exchanges over the 10 if possible as you only get one ticket either way.
    • If there’s nothing you’re really saving for from Bilet’s Crane Game, playing that with the 5 Coin ticket is always guaranteed to get you something worth more.
    • Near the fishing spot is a cute yellow computer you can use daily to answer a small poll about how you’re enjoying playing the game! It’ll give you 20 Coins just for answering.
    • And of course, there’s the Computer at the Cafe you can put codes into. You can put one in every hour so you can even try finding new codes out yourself as well.

* This is unfortunately very much not me and is something I struggle with a lot. I yearn for the day we can just buy tickets or literally get them any other way because I only have so much time I can earn a bunch of things and my mystery box luck is terrible ;~;

I hope these tips help make the game more enjoyable for you! If you haven’t heard of Sunshine Days, you can play the game on Android or iOS or on PC through their Discord :) And if you want to add me, my friend code is 710942523939 !

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – September, October, and the Direct

It’s October which brings us both the brand new Direct that was announced last month and Halloween. The latter was included in the 1.1 Item Additions with a few new recipes and items which I honestly like for the most part. I didn’t particularly like these at first until I realized they opened up with little dioramas.

And this Pumpkin Bucket is so cute.

Besides those, back in September we got a few more additions as well with Dango and Moon Cakes for Obon and Songpyeon for Chuseok.

In which I continue to lament the lack of room especially the smaller side rooms… There is one other item coming out for the season with a Day of the Dead item, but that won’t be until later this month…

Regardless, we also got Direct News! Besides Brewster’s return (with his cafe back in the museum), we also had some other news, so time for my general thoughts!

Being able to invite characters to the Cafe is cute. I’ll definitely want to just… scan everyone to see what happens. I’m sure there’s a limit.

Kapp’n is back, but I’m not super happy about more flowers/materials honestly? Crafting is my least favorite part plus storage issues…

Excited to see Harvey’s island get expanded. Making RNG Characters be around permanently is great and having Reese & Cyrus help with recoloring items you can’t. And NEW HAIR! I hope for a better ponytail.

We have the group exercises back. Didn’t expect that. The exercise music is cute.

Nice to see Island Ordinances back, but Beautiful seems a bit pointless. I may consider Early Bird or Night Owl depending if it adjusts the shop again.

FINALLY new House Exterior options… And thank god for more Storage Expansion. I hope I have enough Bells for this.

Disappointed to see Cooking, but I know I’m the only one. I have no room for tons of different crops honestly. I don’t even think I have room for the 5 they showed. And my Kitchen is too small.

Thank god Ceiling decor is back. Accent Walls are also really cool?

THE WHITE LATTICE FENCE. FINALLY. Switching out all the yellow ones I’ve using for that so quickly. Nice to see customizing options too.

My husband will be excited about one of the new hairstyles, but it seems still no better ponytail :(

More Nook Miles furniture… I see some items I really like, but again… no room so I just feel sad. I hope I can fit that new fountain somewhere? Would be nice to do something nice with both types of fountains, but no room…

Did not expect new songs from K.K., but I guess I have to wait 12 more weeks… to get them all.

I loved the Music Boxes so happy to see them back, but again, no space… And that’s my feeling with Gyroids too. Not… particularly happy about the planting and watering? I don’t even have anywhere to bury them. I love how different they look this time too? I want so many colors… God, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

The permanent Ladder kit is really nice. I can think of a few places I’ll want it.

Glad to see the Narrow space mover back. I know a lot of people wanted Animals inviting you over and visiting back, but I was always so bad keeping up with those or busy working on things just for them to come back.

Also new Villagers?? This Bunny was kind of cute. Though, I have all my favorites so… I can’t believe all of this is coming in less than 3 weeks.

And essentially a Happy Home Designer thing with New Horizons getting “Happy Home Paradise”. I’d pay for it, definitely. The new character designs look great. And I see a lot of nice new items.

My dream too, Maple. My dream too. That one Cherry Blossom area with the waterfalls is essentially everything I wanted for my own home :(

There’s so many cute new items… Like new Teddy Bears and a little Rubber Ducky. Plus room dividers and smaller walls?? I hope this means we can get bigger rooms for ourselves and not just for villagers here?

Happy to see the Piggy Bank back. Not happy about yet another different currency.

Happy to have Exterior customization for facilities too on the island. Would be neat if we could on our regular island too. it really feels like they just took Happy Home Designer and put it into New Horizons to an extent.

I guess I have lots of reasons to stream some more? And confirmation we can do all these things in our own home… Hopefully that does mean bigger rooms. I’ll definitely be using all my Amiibo…

FINALLY. Remodeling our villagers’ houses! I can finally fix everyone’s houses after all the gifts…

So many more plushies too T~T

DLC will be $25 and ALSO launching on the 5th?? SERIOUSLY? Preorders begin the 29th and I will be preordering it immediately. Apparently it’ll be free with the expansion pack? But I don’t think we were getting that.

Series 5 of the Amiibo Cards is November 5th too?? Seriously? Smaller set but oh my god. Time to hope somewhere opens up box preorders… I want to get two boxes.

Anyway, I just… I guess speechless is one way to put it, but overwhelmed is probably more accurate. Part of me is happy, some of these things I’ve wanted for so long, but the other part of me is like “it’s too late”. I have no where for these items. No where for these new things. I don’t know what to do.

I’ll show off some of my favorite items over on Twitter and include a link here soon but for now I just… I’m crying and probably not for the right reasons.

Edit: So, as I said, you can see my full Twitter interesting item round-up here and my summarized thoughts here, but the short version is it really feels too late for so many new items and I genuinely won’t be able to fit most things without scrapping a lot of stuff which makes me really sad. Similarly, it’s ALL dropping at once. The Amiibo Cards, the Expansion Pack, Brewster, Harvey’s Island update, EVERYTHING and for once, I wish they spaced it out more.

My Favorite Super Soft Plushies

I have always loved Stuffed Animals. I probably had more than anyone should have had, especially with various allergies, but I always found them comforting. Now, while plushies are still around, there’s a lot more different types of fabric used and one in particular that we will bring up numerous times in this post: Polyester. Polyester is a synthetic fabric which is not only incredibly soft, but due to it being synthetic, it also is less likely to draw in bugs such as Carpet Beetles and tends to not attract as much Dust which, for me at least, is really helpful.

This post isn’t in any particular order nor is it any kind of ranking, but will mainly just be to talk about what I think of them and their availability.

I based my criteria generally on plushies that had a very similar type of feel fabric-wise and the same squishy type of stuffing. Honorable mentions are based off ones that still felt very similar even if the fabric wasn’t quite the same. Ones that generally didn’t make the cut, while close, were generally very firm and didn’t have that same squishy feeling when hugging as the ones listed do in the long run.

Squishmallows

These will likely be the most well-known on this list and considering they’ve been called the “new Beanie Babies”, it’s not really a surprise. I got my first Squishmallow back in 2018. It was small and very soft and off to the side with another one in Target. It didn’t even have a name.

If I had one regret, it’s that I didn’t keep up with them thinking they were just a random one-off as maybe then my wish list wouldn’t be so long. I do still have a nice collection regardless:

While the popularity and crazy inflation/scalping is reminiscent of the Beanie Baby craze, I would say the biggest difference is that while Beanie Babies had a lot of various shapes, Squishmallows are generally the same shape– a Marshmallow-esque/Potato-y body with various appendages. There are the Hugmees as well though which are more loaf shaped with longer arms and legs. However, most Squishmallows can come in two or more of various different sizes: 5 inches, 7 inches, 8 inches, 11 inches, 12 inches, 13 inches, 16 inches, 20 inches, and 24 inches. There’s also Clips that are 3 and a half inches and recently, the new Squishville additions that are about 2 inches.

In addition, some Squishmallows have seasonal variants where they may have something embroidered on them for the season. While I personally am only hoping to get one of each of my favorites regardless of size or seasonal ones, there can also be color variants which I will admit can be a bit tempting if I like them both such as Ilene where I have both versions of her– they share different fringe colors and a slightly different shade of pink for the body:

My personal favorite size are actually the 5 inch ones. They’re the squishiest to me and I feel most of the bigger sizes are a lot firmer. Some are still quite soft, but with the prices, I still tend to prefer the tinier ones. That said, some of the inflation has some of the smaller sizes somehow costing more than the bigger ones.

There are also the Squishville ones that recently released that I wish I liked more as their size is really cute, ignoring that their tush tag is nearly the same size, but when it comes to actually squishing them, they feel incredibly lacking. They still have that soft fabric, but it feels more like just pressing on a really fluffy plush button rather than something really soft and huggable/squishy. Like it just feels a lot firmer than I’d expect.

Unfortunately, the biggest issue with Squishmallows is that they just… are a huge pain to get. While some people enjoy the hunt, it’s not something I find much fun (and honestly, the stores around here aren’t great with their selections) or have many opportunities to do in the first place. The online shop is relatively deserted, the prices are so all over the place that I couldn’t even tell you what the MSRP is and until July, there wasn’t any kind of official Collector’s Guide or Checklist to even tell you what ones there are. The Collectors Guide doesn’t even have them all.

Of course, even if I did do the hunt, there’s the issue of some being not just store exclusive, but region exclusive. One of the ones I’d love to have was exclusive to a Store in Australia which is pretty disheartening. Very few Squishmallows have been limited to a specific number, but with how hard they are to find, the official website not really being dependable, no real idea what’s new and releasing when through any official sources, and no rhyme or rhythm to what ends up inflating, it just becomes frustrating.

I hope one day I can maybe get a lot of the ones I really adore, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say my hopes were incredibly low.

Thousand Skies

Thousand Skies was the very first place I had seen these types of Plushies and how I fell in love with them to such a degree. I adore dogs, especially Corgis as my very first dog was one, so as soon as I saw these posted, I had to have one, pre-ordered it, and was completely floored with how soft it was. I’ve gotten all five regular sized ones and I can’t wait until the next one.

I hope I can get one of the big ones too some day, but I have no idea which I would pick.

Moosh-Moosh

Moosh-Moosh are honestly very similar to Squishmallows and I’m surprised they seem to be relatively under the radar. They tend to be more loaf-esque (though, there are also cube-shaped and a few other special ones) and like a cross between Squishmallows and the Thousand Skies Plushies with certain appendages having different textures.

Their website stays fairly up to date (though, you can only really get the medium or big sizes), you can be alerted when certain ones restock, and I actually have pretty much all my regular favorites:

They’re SO soft with a kind of silky velvet soft texture and I love just fluffing them because they’re super squishy. While not on the site, they also have these Squishy Stress-Ball-esque ones called “Skwishies” and as someone who’s generally not a fan of slow-rising squishies, the soft fabric outer paired with the gel-like squishy is actually super pleasing. Unfortunately, it’s something that hasn’t been for sale regularly on the website and was just a bonus inclusion for limited time.

On the downsides, there’s not much news nor can they really be found online off their website so anything not there is pretty hard to find. Even the new reversible plush that were mentioned not long ago on Social Media about appearing in stores soon. Even if they say “In Store Only”, it’d be nice to see some of these other things in their shop along with finding out about some of the stuff that I haven’t seen for a while or have only been mentioned on social media.

Like Mooshmallowz look very cute, but as they aren’t on the online store, I don’t have one. I’d love Doe, who was my very first Moosh-Moosh, my favorite, and also the one I have a Skwishy of. I’d also love one and a Skwishy as well of Handi Andi as I think the round shape fits better than the loaf one for them.

Besides those, I’m continuing to wait for Sweet Tooth to restock for my very first cubed one. Hopefully one day!

Edit: I’ve also learned about these ones too and I’d love to get these three as well T~T

Cats vs Pickles

Cats vs Pickles is probably one of the ones I follow the most with their small handheld size and soft laid-in designs. Unlike the others on the list, in addition to some fluff, they also have quite a bit of small beans in them. I feel like the fluff in the regular sized ones have lessened a bit in some of the Series 2, but it could just be the ones I got– they are still very squishy and soft though and the beans give a nice kneading texture even if I do miss the fluffier ones from the original wave. I have yet to get a Jumbo (though, I am leaning towards Twinkle Starlight’s…) or Hugger-sized so I’m not sure how those stack up in comparison, but hopefully I can get some one day. A Chonky size (between the regular and Jumbo sizes) was also announced at Sweet Suite @ Home, but I don’t believe it has a release yet (likely by the end of the year though).

As you can maybe guess from the names, Cats vs Pickles involve either Bean-shaped Cats or Pickles with various appendages. While Cats usually have Cat ears and a tail and Pickles usually have nothing beyond maybe a little tuft of hair, occasionally, depending on the Cat or Pickle, this could change depending on a theme such as mermaid tails for Mercats and Merpickles or even a Cat missing an ear or a Pickle pretending to be a Cat…

While the shapes may not change much, the real eye-catcher is their design. Each Cat/Pickle’s design is actually fully screen-printed which makes it very smooth to touch. The only embroidery used is for their eyes, mouth/nose (if any) and their tiny arms and legs (if any) but since it’s such a small percentage of the actual plush, it still leaves most of it just feeling soft and smooth in your hand. The Pickles especially are great for this as the only embroidery they have are for their eyes so they’re even smoother.

I had started with a relatively small collection, but it quickly doubled:

And I already have a big list of ones I am looking forward to. There’s even a checklist people can download right on their website, though it could absolutely use an update.

On the downside, and I know part of this is due to the pandemic, the release schedule is a bit hard to follow. Picking a random part of the checklist, one thing you’ll learn very quickly is it’s not in order. For example, Key West Cat who is #32 was actually a late release of Series 1. Meanwhile, some of the first releases of Series 1 were The Great Catsby (22), Majicat (44), and Angelicat (111). There’s even ones like Bandit (36) and Bubbles (57) who had been announced for the newest late Summer/Early Fall was part of the “Purple Wave” (Series 2) which is slowly arriving in stores. There’s even some on the sheet we hadn’t seen anything of yet and even the opposite where some we’ve seen/heard of have yet to be added to the sheet or may only be on the sheet some people got in the UK.

It can feel somewhat confusing because there’s no real order to it. With so many right off the bat and many people who want to collect them all, one of the questions I’ve seen asked the most is clarification on who’s out and if they are out, how to get them.

Some are exclusive to certain sets such as Pawberry Shortcake to the Sweet Shop Playset or Clownie to the Cornhole Set. And with the Condos that have been teased, it’s something that will continue which I have mixed feelings on.

There have also been Blind Bags which can sometimes have timed exclusives of certain new releases or in the case of the Holiday ones, exclusives in addition to the ones you can get in Bundles… And you’ll notice I said Bundles because unfortunately while you CAN buy Cats vs Pickles on the official shop and some other online store fronts, they’re generally sold in some kind of Pack– either 2 Packs, 4 Packs, and 12 Packs– sometimes even more. While those work well for people who want to collect them all (though, not always, sometimes a Pack may overlap with another one), as someone who is incredibly picky, sometimes it’s a bit disheartening to see one you really want and it’s only bundled with other Cats and/or Pickles.

While some places will let you get them as Singles, it feels a lot rarer and with so many coming out, I wouldn’t even mind paying a bit extra if Cats vs Pickles had a “build your own” bundle. I just want so many already, I can’t justify getting a bunch of others too especially when I get attached so easily.

Thankfully, and maybe this is in part with having a social media community person who constantly has to deal with all our craziness, it’s nice to see some improvements happening with that upcoming “Purple Wave”– even if the points numbers don’t matter. They have given us a checklist of all the Cats and Pickles available in the upcoming Purple Wave and confirmed that none of them will be Blindbag Exclusive which is great. People who like blindbags still have fun and those who don’t can still try and find them along with having a list of everything they can find. Of the 72 shown, there’s 13 of the ones I have been definitely wanting and one I’m debating on and unlike the usual checklist, this one actually features a much more accurate color palettes to what we’ve seen (though, not all of them are perfect). This list will also be included with every opened Blind Bag so maybe I might try one… (and hey, if we get our set-up finally done, it could be fun recording it whether a box of those I wanted or some blind bags). Anyway, I have made a “favorites” checklist for myself so here’s hoping we have some luck when these are finally in stores!

Sadly, the Holiday wave which is considered to be relatively limited will have 6 of the 18 available Cats/Pickles exclusive to Blind Bags– the other 12 can be gotten through Blind Bags and for sale in general. While I am very thankful a friend was willing to split a Holiday Bundle with me for the two I want, I do really want one Holiday Blind Bag one too– Mr. Waddles and with a 1/18 chance of getting the only one I’d be looking for, it’s hard to justify trying a Blind Bag and I mainly need to just… hope someone gets an extra and will sell them.

Considering the Holiday Wave was announced before the Purple Wave though (despite some of those Cats and Pickles having been shown long before the Holiday Wave reveal), hopefully maybe the way the Purple Wave is being done will be the future and the Holiday Wave will be the last to have any Blind Bag exclusives.

I would say the only other thing I want to bring up is occasional changes during production. While it’s not too odd for things to change during production, some are pretty surprising and recently even the tags that come with them have had slight changes to their names or personality changes in the description (For example, Miss Bumblekitty previously having “She is full of cat-titude and loves to send a zinger!” to now having “She is as sweet as honey!” or PBJellie who could have that name or spelled as “PB Jelly” instead). On a more noticeable scale, sometimes colors or designs end up changing later. This can especially feel the case when seeing certain Cats or Pickles as Purples/Pinks are considered fairly hard to properly photograph. For example, this is Bandit– on the left is one of Bandit’s first pictures when known as Raccoon Cat and had been seen during the 2020 Toy Fair video. On the right is the newest photo of Bandit which fits a bit closer to the checklist, but while they seem like a huge difference, it’s apparently a lot minor and lighting may have something to do with it meaning I won’t know for sure which Bandit is closer to in person until I get them (and I will. I will get them).

Regardless, you might be thinking, “well, Bandit is purple in the checklist!” and you are correct– In the original checklist, Bandit does look much more purple, but one issue that often happened with the original checklist is the colors are odd at times– the Pinks printed much more purple and most of the ones on that list with that Purple hue are/were actually more pink than purple such as with Finnley and Twinkle Starlight:

Even Bandit’s main body color still goes that Purple-Pink route and Twinkle Starlight follows suit with a lot of the same color beats, but Finnley is an especially prime example where she doesn’t actually have a single bit of purple on her in person. I still adore Bandit either way, but I can’t help but be partial to the pastel and raspberry colored pinks of the first sightings so I will admit I hope it hasn’t changed too much… Not that I’ll love Bandit any less, but still.

That said, it can happen both ways– Mer-Kitty, for example, has a nice hot pink line for where her Mer-tail starts, but in a lot of the store photos, it looks like a really bold red. As you can maybe tell from my picture above, in person, it is hot pink like it shows on the checklist.

Of course, while maybe a Cat or Pickle doesn’t show up quite as you hoped with their colors, some changes can be really good and like most things in early production, changes happen! Bubbles, for example, now has actual bubbles closer to the checklist aappearance over just the foamy color (I personally adore and would buy both though).

Mummy Kitty’s change even made it more inclusive which I think is an amazing change and it’s really great they took those steps before they even started appearing in stores.

I’m hoping whenever we get a new digital checklist (as while I am excited they are taking the steps to make things easier for collectors with including checklists with blind bags, printers don’t always do a great job keeping the right colors), things could be more accurate or even add some kind of order or symbols for like… What a Cat/Pickle may be from or what Series they’re part of.

Regardless, I’m really excited to see what’s to come.

From Japan

As I don’t have too many straight from Japan and these mainly involve importing, I just wanted to give it its own sections as they share a similar manufacturing regardless of the company. These plushies, usually described as “mochi” plush, have a very soft/light silky feeling and have a fabric that just feels so incredibly light while also being very squishy.

I have Yeast Ken plush which is essentially a line of bread dog merchandise and a very cute Squishy Cat plush from Pocchari Life that I won through Toreba. I love them both so much and I’d definitely like to try and get more from Japan at some point… But in general, Japan has a lot of great soft plushies at least.

There’s also this Musashi Plush that was available during the Fate: Grand Order convention tour that is especially soft and squishy:

As for on the smaller side, there are these adorable Sea Slug plush by San-ei Boeki called Yumemiushi. Like Cats vs Pickles, they also feature little beans, but they do have various different fabrics/textures based off which ones you get. It can be nice if you want to have various different textures to fidget with at least and the main base is still that usual soft fabric (with the exception of some of the more fluffy ones.

Honorable Mentions

Finally, the ones in this section do not tick all of the boxes of the plushies I mentioned above, but I wanted to include for one reason or another.

So firstly, Cutie Beans! Unlike the others in this list, these do not have the same soft fluffy fabric texture as everything else. It’s soft, but relatively generic with various felt appendages and embroidery for the eyes and mouth. The big highlight for them though is that they have one of the best fluffy-beany textures I’ve ever felt. It’s perfectly even and it just feels so great to hold and squish around even if the fabric isn’t as smooth as the other options on here. I only have one, this Axolotl, but I love him:

They are blindbags unfortunately, though they come with their own little carrying case which is nice. Each one is bean-shaped, usually with some appendages. There’s been several different series, including variations, though, it hasn’t felt like I’ve seen any new ones in a while or any since that first time.

I would say the biggest issue I had was that the tags are absolutely huge– being both bigger and longer than the Cutie Bean itself, I actually had to cut the tags off which is something I don’t usually do, but it was just impossible for them to not get in the way.

Our other honorable mention is not really a plush at all and honestly, I’m only really including it because I want them to make a plushie out of these materials even though they likely never will: Secret Lab’s Memory Foam Pillow. I recently got a chair from them and honestly, my favorite part was easily the pillow.

It has a soft velvet texture making it a bit heavier-feeling than the actual plushies on this list, but a really nice soft squishy gel inner and it’s just… genuinely really nice to hug ang squeeze and I would absolutely buy a plushie made with this material.

And that sums this up! If you have any suggestions of other super squishy marshmallow/mochi plushies, feel free to suggest them as I’d love to check them out :)

Now to just… try and check off more things on my wish list…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Talking a bit about 1.1 and we finally visit some more Dreams

The Summer update happened about a month ago now and well, I didn’t post about it because… there’s not much to say. Nearly all the items are locked behind the Nook Seasonal thing… It’s honestly pretty tiring. Not even necessarily the wait so much as how they have the items show up, but it just made it a really disappointing update. They did say part of the reason for the smaller updates is because they are working on something bigger (A lot of people are expecting Brewster), but I am firmly in the “I’d rather no more updates and time go to the next game” camp at this point I think. I’ll still be checking in, but the game has beaten me down and it’s hard to feel much motivation.

Regardless, if you saw my video for when the update actually dropped, you’ll know I did do some things mostly thanks to Leo for letting me visit their island for some of the new Fireworks items! While getting everything once is guaranteed, getting extras of some things was a nightmare. I am happy to say I now have some Milk Tea Boba (my favorite), but it’s a shame they don’t last permanently…

We also had a return of the Cucumber Horse and Eggplant Cow from New Leaf.

I’ll likely have some posts either in September, October, and/or November depending on things… We shall see.

Anyway, despite setting up a form early on for Dream visits (a huge thank you to everyone who sent some in!), it’s been kind of a long ways off due to a combination of lack of time and my general disappointment with New Horizons. Being even more unhappy with my island and not caring as much for a lot of decoration trends has also made me less motivated. Regardless, so many of you have filled out this form with your own or your favorite island’s Dream Address and I’m going to do my best to get through them!

This was streamed live on Twitch, but you can also watch the recording on YouTube as well. Below is a summary of each Dream Address and some of my favorite photos from each :) I hope you enjoy!

DA-0483-0265-1167



Paradise – DA-1083-3221-6191

DA-7307-4315-1221



Leafhaven – DA-9383-2629-1813


PinkMoon – DA-9938-8146-7831

Sunbeam – DA-3440-0491-7427

Sweetberry – DA-8371-2842-5566


I hope I can get through more next time. Today was also the last Fireworks day for the year. Despite not playing much anymore, I still really enjoy the fireworks.

In which I talk a bit about Genshin Impact

If there’s one game I’ve been asked about a lot lately, it’s Genshin Impact. I’ve played it a lot lately, partially due to my husband, but have mentioned there is a reason I didn’t really play it: The game isn’t really my type of game. Having played much more of it, I do still feel that’s applicable, but I would say my feelings on it have changed more to “complicated” and “overwhelming”.

It’s interesting how this is a Free to Play game because there’s definitely a lot to it and it almost feels MMO-esque at times ignoring the lack of multiplayer. Yes, Genshin Impact does have a co-op feature, but it’s also kind of terrible. I promise I will be bringing it up… a lot. I think part of it’s issues is it does have some common Mobile Money grabs and Walls which, I suppose the game is also on Mobile, but can still feel kind of awkward to suddenly run into.

I will say, for the most part, the game actually gives you a lot of stuff for free. The Battle Pass levels up with simple daily tasks (more often than not), some tougher weeklies, and even stuff from just participating in Events. Events often have a lot of rewards as well. It’s just a matter of putting the time in. One thing I do appreciate, as close as it can get, is that it’s not impossible to finish a quest if you’re on the last day– as long as you have the AR Requirements, but honestly, some people get their AR up pretty fast so even that may be more probable than I expect.

I think the biggest aversion with the game is the Gachapon system and, like most people, I’m pretty tired of Gachapon systems. I’d love to just be able to buy the game and play through with my husband and unlock characters as we meet them, but alas… I would say the biggest issue though is it could take a while for you to find a character that “works” for you. I have very specific playstyles and still haven’t even found a character for each element that I can work with. I don’t know if they even exist yet. Trials only show you the full potential, but not necessarily how they can feel at the start. You do earn A LOT of Primogems though just by playing and while there is obviously some RNG involved, it doesn’t feel impossible to get good characters even if you play completely for free– it’s mainly just if you’ll get at least one character that works with your playstyle. I do wish it was possible to get a pick of a character (even if just 4*’s) to help find one that fits your style to start you off.

Several of my issues felt less frustrating when I ended up pulling Jean and Ayaka who I both really enjoy playing as. Traveler is okay, but I can only really make her work as Wind. I’m pretty awful with both Geo and Electro. Unfortunately, gathering stuff to level characters can be a lot, especially as someone who struggles finding her way to Point A to Point B on a daily basis, let alone remembering where I’ve already been. I’ve never really enjoyed gathering, not even just due to my hatred of dailies, but because I just can’t keep track. I’ll be going in circles, still clearly missing things, and then just get frustrated, burnt out, or both. But it’s also not fun for me to have to bother friends because I have the navigation skills of a chicken with a bag over its head.

And that’s where we get to my biggest issue: The Co-Op restrictions. I’d feel so much better playing the game with Co-Op all the time, but… you can’t complete quests with Co-Op, Gathering items are once per person, Chests are just for the Host, you literally can’t do 90% of quests (and some even disable the Co-Op)– heck, you can’t even unlock Co-Op until AR16. And I don’t know why. It’s easily a lot more fun with Co-Op, at least for me, but beyond maybe farming some enemy groups (which if you are doing it for chests, they will have to re-do it in their own World anyway if they haven’t already) and Boss fights specifically, most things are closed off. It makes Co-Op solely an end-game grinding thing because you can’t hunt Oculi together, you can’t take care of Seelie together, the world is “your world” very specifically and beyond if someone feels like taking your gathering stuff because you couldn’t get to them yet (Which is really the #1 reason to not play with strangers), there’s not much for you to share progress in. You can’t even give each other things if maybe you have some enemy drops you’re not really using or just want to share gathering things without constantly flip-flopping worlds and grabbing all over again.

I wish it could count for us both because I feel terrible when I have to be slowly walked through places and am the reason it takes so much longer. This especially becomes a problem in Dragonspine where you can slowly start freezing to death and not even Goulash can help save me from my navigational problems.

Not to mention some characters can just be… super helpful. Venti can spawn a small wind current, Zhongli gives you a giant Pillar, yes they’re gods so I guess they can have overpowered helpful powers, but when they’re only possible to get through limited run banners (even if the game has been pretty good at bringing them back), it’s kind of disheartening as then you just need to hope someone would be willing to help you out. That said, you don’t need them, of course, it just makes some things easier. There’s plenty of other ways to get things (whether they’re the right way or not, who knows), but sometimes it can still save a lot of time.

And I think that’s the big thing– some stuff can be super annoying, but I don’t think any of it is necessarily impossible. At the same time, I’m already feeling that burnt outness of just needing to gather up so many things to get my characters up when I have no idea where I am going. Part of me really wants to finish everything before 2.1 hits at the end of the month, but that’s about a week and a half away and likely impossible for someone like me.

It doesn’t help that some things are so… convoluted. It’s not just “hey this weapon has more power”– it’s, these weapons have different skills and in addition to new weapons, you also need to level up and ascend them. Also every character has 5 different pieces of gear each which can also be upgraded and have a random stat at one point and different stats and skills attached and then there’s the character’s individual skills that can be leveled plus a Constellation system that only levels up on Repeats of the Character (or other means for the Traveler) and I just…It’s so much. It’s so so so so much. Not even going into RNG with some of the Artifacts, it honestly feels almost suffocating trying to keep track of everything to make sure your characters aren’t complete garbage. It doesn’t help that the best things require a higher World Level, but that also raises the level of all the enemies and if you’re struggling along, chances are your characters may not even be up to that level yet. Even right now, I’m stuck because my quest got me to AR40 (making all enemies generally start at level 69 when most of my party is level 60) while doing a Side quest and now my party is too low level to deal with it. Sure, I can lower the World level by 1 and honestly, I probably will, but at the same time I’m just frustrated by how much I just feel like I really suck.

While there are “tiers” where you can level up your World and your AR will be paused until you do them (though, your experience will be saved apparently), every 5 levels for about 2-3 increases will automatically boost your World level up. You can lower it by one, but then your loot also gets lessened– at the same time, clearly the best thing to do is gather like crazy and get way higher than them before you let your World upgrade. That said, AR goes up by doing nearly anything and if you already unlocked the AR Leveling hold, then you have no more control over when it’ll upgrade again until the next one appears.

Part of me is so frustrated and wants to give up, but I like playing with my husband and friends.

And then Genshin teases things like this:

And how they’ll be adding a fishing feature I know I’ll suck at but says you can collect certain fish in this cute Waterfall Pond thing for your Serenitea Pot (Housing system where why couldn’t I pick my House style separately from my scenery, game…):

Not to mention I’d really like to try and save up for Kokomi T~T

And just… I want to see the story play out. I am attached to some of the characters. But I’m also just… really bad at the game. It’s not my type of game. It’s not a game I’m good at. It’s not the type of game I can put in all the work to get better at without burning out entirely.

But part of me wants to keep going. And that feels frustrating too. I’d like to say maybe it’ll feel less overwhelming if I manage to just get to where all I need to do is gather, but I don’t think that’s true.