So I've still been playing one of my favorite games - Animal crossing New Horizons. I've gotten to a four star rating now which is great news! One goal I still want is to get a stove so I can start cooking meals. Mike as a DIY so he can make one for me if I need to - but I'm hoping I can find one myself or buy one in the store. Also another thing I want to do is pay off the shops on Harv's island - the open air market shops. I've been doing little by little but would like to get them paid off completely soon so I can use those. I haven't gotten any photos of the villagers yet but I'm not too worried about that. It's still been such a nice feel good game, I'm glad I decided to play it again. So far my island has been pretty nice. I'm slowly working on making a playground in the southeast area of my island and I have made a zen garden up in the north east part. Also as I've been getting crops I've been keeping them and making a garden. On my old island I had a graveyard - I may do that again.

I've had villagers come and go over the last couple months. This is my list of characters I have now - Alfonso (he left Mikes island and moved to mine when I had an empty plot one day), Anicotti - who has been with me pretty much since I was able to build the first three houses and is one of my favorites, Bill - who I got from going to an island in search of a new villager and I'm happy with - he's pretty adorable, Butch (who is new to my island but I had in my last game and was a personal favorite so when he moved to my island I was overjoyed), Lucy (she moved to my island after she left Mikes and I've had her quite awhile - she is one of my favorites, too), Moe - who has been around since I built the first three houses in this new game - he's a pretty fun guy), Pancetti - who I found on an island one day in search of a new villager, Shep - he's one of my favorite villagers), Spork - who has been with me a good amount of time, he's pretty cute and lastly Sylvia who is also one of my favorites who I got from Mikes island when she moved away.
There are some animal species I haven't gotten in either game - like the hamsters and horses. Or the big bears - not the cubs. I've been enjoying getting new ones with last game and this one.

At some point I do want to play my other games again like Paleo Pines and Dreamlight valley that I was enjoying. It's been awhile since I have. Are any of you playing any good games these days?

As most of you know from reading my older posts, my mother hasn't been doing well for awhile. It comes and goes, but for the most part her health is greatly declining. Both physically and her memory isn't what it used to be. This past week my one eldest sister came up to visit her from out of state so there were a few get togethers over there at my parents. The one was us daughters - three of us - got to go through mom's jewelry boxes and take what we wanted. She wanted to do this now for us. Doing this was sad at first but then talking about and learning more of my mom's little treasures was nice, bittersweet if you will. She sat there and watched and listened as we looked. Once in awhile she forgot about something she wanted from a box. Mostly these were filled with different little treasures over the years. There were a total of five. We could also take a jewelry box of our choice.

I took one of the older looking ones that had some birds on it and trees and flowers, pretty faded. When I opened had a hand painted note that it was made in Japan and a Japanese stamp glued inside. It may have belonged to her mother since she did collect stamps. Or possibly her father since he collected stamps and had an antique store. But she can't remember. The box itself is pretty beat up, it's missing a lock of some kind on the front. But I like it none the less and I'm glad I picked it since I collect stamps and have some of my grandparents stamps.
As we went through our boxes we found stuff that had more meaning to one than the other. Like my sister Faith is more religious than Anna and I, so we gave her things like crosses that we found. I got several pieces of jewelry, a few necklaces with very old colorful beads. I got one necklace that is of pearls (possibly real, I need to check..) but it's broken so at some point I'll need to get it restrung and back together again. And I picked up some other necklaces that they didn't want. After I put them on I felt that I could wear them someday. And some purple beads that go to a necklace or bracelet but are just in a bag now. There were some various rocks of different kinds, I took some of those too. And a little box of fools gold. Also two pieces of little wood, I think driftwood. Some random buttons and other beads. Also some pins of different kinds. Another neat find in my jewelry box I found an old clothespin doll I made years ago! So maybe it was meant to be that I picked up the one I did. I asked my mom about the stuff I collected and some of it she could remember where it came from and other things she couldn't. Overall in general I think I got mostly stuff that belonged to my Grandmother, which is nice. I can't remember her too well since she passed when I was so young. It was a nice experience, sad but in a way it's nice she is doing this sort of stuff now while she is still alive.

I have been into manga for most of my teenage - to early 30 years but lately my interest in buying it and keeping it has dropped. I do like getting it out from the library when I can. It's so much easier to read it and return it! I've spent so much money on it which makes me sad when I remember using a-lot of my allowance and reward money for good grades in school to buy it from our local bookstores. Even after the fact I spent a lot of my hard earned money on series I later sold to friends for half the price just to get rid of it to make room for other books or things. I'll try to remember as best as I can as I talk about manga, so bear with me. ^^;;

When I was a teenager - I want to say about 14 - 15ish was when I first picked up an issue of Shonen Jump at a girl scout sleepover at a mall. Also either shortly before or after this I also picked up some manga from a huge old used bookstore down in Tennessee while visiting family. This was the first volume of Marmalade Boy and I think some copies of Sailor Moon. Sometime after that I got a subscription to Shonen Jump where I got it monthly that lasted for many years. Before and during all of this I did watch some anime. Like Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor moon, bits and pieces of other series that were badly dubbed for us American children who didn't know any better at the time.
There were some manga series that I just got the first volume to see how I would like it and it just lasted as that. Other ones I did get the whole series like Chobits , yu-gi-oh!, (Sometimes I do regret selling those two series),Love Hina, Marmalade boy - and these I ended up selling. I feel like I am forgetting some of them! Other series I'm happy I held on to like Chrono Crusade, Midori Days, Paradise Kiss, Sayuki, Peacemaker Kurogane, Shaman King and a newer one my friend Sarah sold for me cheap: Revolutionary Girl Utena. I don't have all the Sayuki, Peacemaker Kurogane or Shaman king. I don't think I will buy future volumes but I don't think I want to get rid of them either.

Today Mike and I are going into Cleveland for a few things and one of which is to go to Half price books and sell some that we don't want anymore. I'll be selling what I have of Nana and Beastars and he will be selling what he has. I've just hit a point in my life where I don't feel like reading it again and I just don't want to hang on to it all. I will reread the series I have and mentioned. I'd rather put my money into my hobbies and interests that I have now (also house repairs have not been cheap!). It was a good time in my life but I'm glad to have moved on a bit from it - at least the buying part! I still do plan on reading it from my library. :)
What about you guys? Do you currently have manga or had it in the past? Any favorite series?