One Down, One To Go (The Terrible Two)

First things first.
I DID IT!
I caught a tarantula!

Whoo whoo whoo!
Okay....phew....here's what happened:
Last night, I crept around town for 15 minutes or so. I mean really crept...as in barely moved. It was painful but it paid off as I was following the path back from Static's house. Ever so slowly, I walked north until I stopped dead in my tracks. I spotted a tarantula directly in front of me about 20 paces north.
Okay breathe, I told myself, you can do this.
I stayed perfectly still as I watched him, determining which way he was facing. He started crawling towards me. I took the slightest step towards him and stopped again. He continued going south until he literally stopped right next to me. I slooooowly started to turn as he continued going south. He then moved in front of me. Perfect chance. I knew I had to do it.
He stopped, I took a big breath, pulled out my net and captured him!
It couldn't of happened in a better way. It was luck but I didn't care, I had that darn tarantula! And I never got bit! (Well, only because I was too scared to ever pull my net out)
I raced to the museum and shoved it into Blathers' wings.

Who is documenting these things?

After Blathers was done rambling on I rushed to see my spidey-friend in his spot.

Finally! I can't wait to get his friend, the scorpion, in his rightful place.
After leaving the museum quite festively I thought why not test my luck and see if I can spot the scorpion around town. I haven't even seen one yet, let alone tried to catch one!
A half hours search turned up nothing but another tarantula who took a dive into the river.
That's okay, one down - one to go!

The past few days I've been working on a task that I've been meaning to for quite some time - arranging flowers. It is a long tedious task but things are starting to look so much better.

If you're just starting out, please take my advice; start early!!
My efforts started paying off the day after I arranged the hybrid-growing sections...

My first purple pansy!


Yet another pink cosmo


Pansy Parade, my favorite section

Yesterday our new bridge magically appeared!

I'm actually pretty happy with it's placement. It's not ideal but it gave me a chance to build a new path thru a previously wild section.



Oh! And more on the Chrissy/Marcel romance! Marcel made a revealing comment last night.

Marcel into fashion? Why could that be....ohhhh. Chrissy likes fashion so what could Marcel do to get closer to her? Riiiight.
It wasn't more than five minutes later when I visited with Chrissy that she had a special delivery.

So I raced down the path back to Marcel.


These two are either in looooove or are participating in a rather sweet clothing exchange.

BeetleMania

It rained almost all weekend.
My dedicated scorpion/tarantula hunting time gone.
This really bummed me out because I had the three day weekend to myself and I was fully prepared to hunker down and take as long as it took it try and nab those two.
But Mother Nature said no.
Boooo.
But all the rain did do some good. It brought out an influx of bugs, particularly beetles.

In addition to all the previously caught cicadas, I caught enough beetles to fill the trees in the museum. The atlas, cyclommatus, dynastid, elephant, giant, golden stag, goliath, jewel, miyama stag, saw stag, and scarab beetles all found a comfy home this weekend. Whew. The elephant and golden stag I've seen before but somehow would miss each time I tried to catch them. I think because of the weird angles down at the beach I wouldn't always line myself up right. Anyway, as soon as I started creeping around last night I caught a pocket full of elephant beetles which I promptly took down to the basement for back up in case I don't have enough fish for the next Flea Market.

With all the bugs on trees distracting me, I've only caught one new fish.

I wasn't looking for it but I sure was surprised when he came soaring out of the water. You see, I just happened to be walking by when I saw a shadow that at first glance looked like a sea bass but as I cast my line, I realized was slightly larger than a sea bass. And bam! There was the blue marlin! That was just pure luck.
Thanks to the rain, there were no Fourth of July festivities in Alleria. The closest sign of any holiday occuring was the giant hotdog I wore on my head. Although I don't eat meat and especially detest the hotdog, I was just glad for some new DLC. Personally, it makes me think of 'Hotdog on a Stick' in local mall food courts. Gross!
Avery invited me over to his house for the first time on Saturday.

Avery is a good guy but not such a great host. There were no refreshments or appetizers, nor did he offer to sell me anything. I was also creeped out a bit by his choice of clothing. Pink does not suit him.

Can you feel the uncomfortable silence?
I mentioned having to run an errand for Marcel and hightailed it out of there.
It's not like I lied to him. I really did have an errand from Marcel!

oOoOoOoohh. Chrissy and Maaarcelll, sittin' in a tree....
That's right! The crush/friendship/courtship between Marcel and Chrissy continues! Personally, I think it is absolutely adorable! I hope that Chrissy, being the drama queen that she is, doesn't break sweet little Marcels heart....I mean, come on! He's sending her a gift but doesn't have the courage to deliever it himself! I'm more than happy to be the courier. That means I get to see both sides of the reaction.

Chrissy seemed shocked to be getting a present.

It turned out to be a fluffy shirt which looks absolutely adorable on Chrissy. Oh Marcel, you have such good taste! And Chrissy obviously loved it, too.
Feeling so fufilled for being the cupid I am, I hurried down to Marcels' house to give him the good news.

Awww!
He was ecstatic. The budding relationship is the best thing going on in Alleria right now.

Kiki, our newest resident, apparently isn't sticking around much longer.

Seriously, she just finished settling in and she's already thinking about leaving?!?! Fiiine. Be that way...I don't like your creepy pig nose anyway. Luckily, Cupcake in Lollipop has decided to try to woo her over to her town. Since Kiki started talking about moving, Cupcake has come over to talk with Kiki, send her gifts and try and see if she can get Kiki to take the empty spot in Lollipop. Even though there hasn't been many successful transfers from town to town on purpose, it's worth the try. Cupcake is experimenting with wooing the animal before the boxes are all packed up. So we'll see what happens. Most likely there is already an animal set to take the next spot in her town but it's possible Rhonda or even Kiki may show up down the line. Cupcake promises to keep me posted.
It does seem weird that Kiki is already moving. Her and Merry had really hit it off.

But that's okay. One kitty in town is plenty!
In other 'What were they thinking?!' news, Buck was all excited over this idea he had...

Yeah, Buck. It's called the Fishing Tourney.
That's all from rainy Alleria.

July Charm

If you think you're up to finding one of these guys, you're more than welcome to come and try. Top prize: rare items!*

You know the drill:

0603-1490-7578
Name: Sarah
Town: Alleria


*rare items promised by Katrina, not me. Try at your own risk.

Gossip Girl

Thanks to my earnings from the latest Flea Market I was able to make a lump sum donation to the Alleria Town Fund. 200,000 bells has bought our town a new bridge!

As mentioned previously, I've been nervous about the bridge placement. I've seen pictures of the options in other peoples towns where the new bridge can only be placed next to existing bridges. What a waste! Fortunately, while my options weren't stellar, they were okay.

I chose the one on top. It might prove to be useful, as I don't currently have a pathway where the new bridge will leave the island. (I call the island Merry Island since she seems to think she's special enough to plop her house there, haha.)

June came and went quickly and now we find ourselves in the beginning of July! Wow! Bugs....everywhere! On Wednesday, I got this message on my board:

Even though the rain means no watering, I'll be glad when the hot weather shows up. I'm ready to have an actual chance to catch the tarantula and scorpion! Speaking of the tarantula, I saw him last night as I was moving flowers around. I had the perfect opportunity to catch the guy as I snuck up, watched his movements but I made one wrong step and he scuttled off not to be found again. It was so weird to be standing perfectly still watching the giant spider circle me! I even pulled my net out at one point but chickened out as he started to turn towards me. Argh. I need the courage to just pull it out and give it a chance!
Tarantula and scorpions aside, there are bugs GALORE. It's actually loud in town...when it's not raining.


I caught most of these guys when it was raining and they weren't making any noise. They all look the same!

Chrissy was more excited than I was.
Thanks to the onslaught of insects, the bug portion of the museum is filling up quickly and Blathers is one part disgusted and one part excited.


Now on to the more interesting stuff....town gossip!
Remember when Chrissy was sick and she was being all dramatic, telling me to say good-bye to Marcel for her? Well, Marcel came down with a cold and gave me a message to send to Chrissy.

Is it just me or do I sense a romance between the two? They're on their 'death beds' of their respective illnesses and they both want the other to know....how sweet. I'll be on the watch for more clues <3.
Merry spotted Blanca in town the other day and had a lot to say about the mysterious face-less kitty.

Oh, Merry. Always the fashionista.
And we already have a new neighbor who has replaced Rhonda! That's right, Kiki moved in and plopped herself down right in Rhonda's old spot next to me. When I walked in to introduce myself, she was staring out the window at my house.

Kind of creepy.
She's a cat...but with a pig-like nose.

Yup creepy.
She seems nice enough but I was really hoping my recruiting efforts would pay off and Chevre would move in. No dice.

Fishing buddies
My dear friend Static got a little jealous when he heard about mine and Antonios' photo shoot. So he went out of his way to find a casual shirt (like me) and we posed for a photo. I love this picture.
Avery continues to surprise me with his giant chest. This time, as I was making my way to the museum, I spotted a giant K.K. face staring towards me. Eeek!

I couldn't get a picture quick enough but imagine not seeing Averys' face, just that giant head of K.K.!
Chrissy, the drama lover, came to me and told me she was moving yesterday.

It didn't take any convincing to stay at all before she already changed her mind.

*sigh* Chrissy: The Alleria Attention Whore
Avery made a strange comment to me yesterday:

Whaaaat?!
This made me think...what if I was living in a village of furries?!
AH! EW!
And last but definitely not least, another one to file under the Marcel Adorable Files:

Ohhhhh Marcel. The plague?! Really?
I love him.

Oh! One more! I like this picture just because of it's awful timing:

Kicks and Ticks

Greetings from Alleria.

When I'm not posing in my 1700's get-up, complete with powdered wig, things do actually happen around town!
Rhonda made her final decision and packed up and left.

Even though I was okay with her leaving, her farewell note stuffed into my mailbox left me feeling a little regretful.

Why must these letters always make me feel guilty?
"A friend who means so much to me"?
Argh!
But Rhondas demolition of her home brought a little happiness on my part.

That blue pansy was hiding behind her house and I had no idea it was there! Good thing she moved! But then again, it makes me wonder if I lost any flowers back there....hmm.

There were a couple days that got a little dull in town because of all the rain.
I was invited to the first game of hide-and-seek in a relatively long time.

That's a rag tag group of residents, don'tcha think?
I won, of course, but Merry was nice enough to send me my prize the next day because my pockets were too full of goodies already.

Not likely, Merry.
Things were so bad, nobody had open gates and nobody came to visit, that I ended up wasting time harassing Tom Nook and "sticking it to the Raccoon".

Yes, that's me, kicking the merchandise.
Nook didn't take too kindly to me causing shit in his store. As usual, he followed me around as I ran around. It didn't take long before he had enough and kicked me out when I tried kicking him.

Is it just me or does Nook look a little pudgier?
Thankfully, Static was kind enough to let me lay low in his pad until things quieted down and all was forgotten.

Literally laying low.

The best thing to happen since the last update was the Flea Market! Yes, the one time a month I make a decent amount of money.

Welcome to Sarahs' House 'o Deals!
Thanks to my two dorados, two or three gars, hammerhead and regular sharks, and ocean sunfish, I managed my best Market yet: just about 300,000 bells. Static, Avery and Antonio - my three Original Villagers - were very generous, paying at or 200 bells away from 3 times the Nook selling price. I also made a personal record selling price for one fish: 44,800 bells! Merry helped out as well but seeing Buck come in as my last customer was a bit of disappointment. Being the newest villager, our relationship just isn't as strong as the others so his buying prices were dramatically lower than others. Strategically, all my high-price fish were already sold so all that were left were rare bugs. He also only made two purchases.
But that 300,000 bells was a godsend. I was able to deposit 200,000 of it in full for the Alleria Town Fund. The rest went into the bank account, saving up for the next donation. That's right, now that my house is payed off I can start my Town Fund donations! Woohoo! We're finally moving up in the world!
Oh and because I forgot to mention this in my last update, Buck leaked some top secret information to me. Apparently, all is not peaceful in the land.


That's right Krategan. Watch yo' backs. Buck is coming for you.

That's all for now. Until next time....

Practicing my dance moves for City Folk: The Musical.