Celine. A diary.

[VelveteenCat]

Hello to you and thank you for checking out my island diary!
This is my third attempt at keeping such a journal as this is my third time starting an island.
Before, I always fell into the trap of excessive terraforming and decorating, resulting in time traveling and disregarding the regular gameplay. This time, I’m setting myself a few ground rules and guidelines in order to just enjoy the game as it is. Since I actually managed to finish my previous island (after many months of being away from Animal Crossing as well as from this forum), the pressure to create something pretty quickly shouldn’t be that much of an issue.
(BTW, feel free to visit Nightshade if you want to: DA-4046-6266-4260).

As for this island, I want to approach things very differently.

Rules

• No time traveling.
• No Gothic/ elegant theme. Small elegant elements are okay, but I don't want this island to be a copy of my previous ones.
• No acquiring items or DIYs online (with the exception of fruit and possibly posters I couldn’t obtain otherwise.)
• No excessive terraforming right away. A little here and there is fine, but I want to work with the map’s natural layout (which is actually quite pretty^^).
• No actively searching for villagers online. Should someone cute be offered somewhere while I happen to have a spot open, taking them would be fine. Otherwise, villagers can only be obtained via island-hopping, campsite or autofill. Exception: Should Chops be my first camper, I will use Felicity’s amiibo to move him out as quickly as possible and Felicity wouldn’t be permanent.
  The following villagers may not live on the island: Annalisa, Chops, Olivia, Tabby, Lucky, anyone who lived on Nightshade.

Guidelines

• It’s a farm sim! I love farm sims and since crops and cooking are a thing now, that shall be my main source of income.
• Creating a DA isn’t the main goal. Should I decide to create one, it will be updated regularly.
• Seasonal décor exists, so use it!

Goals

• Breeding every flower in the game.
• Paying off all loans.
• Completing the fossil, bug and fish collections at the museum. The art exhibition would be a bonus, but since I want to allow myself to keep pretty art for my myself, I won’t stress over it.
• Obtaining all DIYs.
• Getting the photo of every villager who ever lives on the island.

I think that’s it for “house keeping” right now. After I started posting the regular island journal entries (which will probably be later today), comments and ideas will be very welcome!
Thank you for reading and I hope you will enjoy this new adventure alongside me!

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 5 2023 (1/2)

It was just past midnight when we first set foot and paw and hoof upon this snowy wasteland that will be our home. Actually, wasteland isn’t exactly accurate, the flora and fauna are abundant, but damn, is it cold here!
I forgot to pack a jacket or even just a long-sleeved sweater, so making it through the first night proved to be a challenge – luckily, falling asleep wasn’t an issue. Who knew my nightly insomnia would ever come in handy?!

So yes, this snowy abundant wasteland is where my future lies and I feel good about it.

I know things have to change. This time, I am going to pay off my loans. I will be a good neighbor who doesn’t mess with the very essence of space and time. And also, I’m preppy now!
My friends back on my old islands would most likely describe me as that slightly stuck-up eccentric lady who only wears black and insists for things to go her way. This time, I will try to be a little less of that.

My new neighbors are a goat called Pashmina and a hippo called Biff, and much to my delight, they are pretty cute.

I’m not sure if this place is really suited for a hippo, but as long as Biff seems to think so, who am I to disagree?

Right upon arrival last night, we had a little get-together where our plaza is going to be to vote for an island name. My suggestion was “Celine” because I think that the sound of that is quite pretty; it means “heavenly” and also relates to the moon. Biff and Pashmina seemed to like it, too, so going forward, Celine is the name of this island.

After placing our tents, Biff went to sleep right away while Pashmina and I did some exploring.

The island’s natural layout is absolutely beautiful!

Eventually, I will be moving across the river. There is a perfect section in the middle of Celine where I plan to set up my own vegetable farm, but for now, my home is by the river near a pretty waterfall. This was my little setup for the night:

As mentioned above, the tent situation in these weather conditions was absolutely not working, so after paying off the moving fees in Nook Miles, I placed an order for a small house. Luckily, the racoons who organized this island getaway project are working fast and before sunrise, my very own house was completed.

It’s not much, but at least my new pet fish Hilda and I now have a warm place to stay.

I was very busy these first few hours on Celine. During the night, I focused on fishing and catching a few insects that will be displayed in our future museum.

The racoons stayed up with me, one of them buying fish and seashells from me all night.

I made enough money to pay off the little house first thing in the morning, placing an order for it to be expanded.

Also in the morning, the owl who will be in charge of the museum arrived. He gave me a vaulting pole so I could explore more of the island and in return, I went looking for fossils for him.

I built two perfect snowboys, saved a stranded seagull, helped the racoons to gather materials for a shop and earnt an achievement for catching over a hundred fish.

Then I went on some Mystery Island tours, looking for potential future residents. I only had a limited number of tickets, so I couldn’t be too picky. Within five tickets, I found a small bear, a duck and a deer to invite to come live with us. I think the racoons don’t know about that yet, but they’ll find out soon enough.

At that point, it was almost eight in the morning, so I figured it was time to get a few hours of sleep.

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 5 2023 (2/2)

When I woke up, it was dark yet again – one of the dreadful aspects of Winter.
I really would give anything for warm clothes at this point, but at least I found a cute knitted hat in a balloon:

Otherwise I tried keeping myself busy to stay relatively warm.

First of all, my little house needed some love. At this point, I don’t own many things, but I tried to work with what I have.

Who are the people in the photo, one might ask? I have no idea – the picture randomly came in the mail today, so naturally, I’m displaying it in my home.

The hat was a gift Biff gave me before I found the pink one I’m wearing now – very thoughtful of him!

I bet Hilda is happy to be out of the cold – doesn’t she look absolutely delighted? Such a cute little fishy!

Anyway, I also crafted some décor for outside, like an icy tree which is actually made of glass. It looks lovely right in front of the provisional plaza, and I also added a bonfire so us residents can have a chat there while staying warm.

Once the town – that's the section of Celine where currenty everyone is living – was a bit more cozy, it was time to do some late night gardening.

As mentioned above, we do have a vivid local flora; orange trees grow all over Celine and I think that I saw some windflowers up on the hills, but those are out of reach for now.
Personally, I find the taste of oranges rather unpleasant – I will eat tangerines all day any day, but oranges are just sour and only really useful for making juice. The trees do, however, look quite lovely, so I will keep them scattered around town. Who knows, maybe the other residents would like to pick some here and there.
As for fruit to work with, I planted an orchard to grow cherries, pears, apples and peaches. Cherries came in the mail today and I stumbled across some more during my island-hopping, the other fruit was ordered via express delivery – a service I won’t take too much advantage of.

My brave little saplings withstanding the cold:

I really hope that I’ll get my hands on more produce soon.

Currently Timmy is selling some flower seeds, but the variety is limited, to put it nicely. So far my only flower growing project is breeding blue hyacinths:

Yes, we have a long way to go.

Regardless, I feel like the first 24 hours on Celine were very successful and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 6 2023

So, day two (or three, depending on how you want to count) on Celine and my little house is bigger!

I bought some cute wallpaper from the newly opened island store, realizing that I’m not quite sure of what I am doing with my new life. Old me would have never looked twice at pastel green wallpaper, and new me doesn’t exactly know what direction to take with her interior. She did, however, decide that the flooring Tom Nook added is cute; a little fact old me would have vehemently disagreed with.

This morning I managed to get some pretty shots of the island during sunrise:

Now, if anyone happened to ask me whether I woke up early for that or hadn’t slept at all – I would rather not answer. But I will say that I got see some daylight today! For proof, here is a picture of my little fruit tree saplings being as strong as ever:

As mentioned, we have a shop now which is super useful! Their selection of decorative wares wasn’t the best today (a BBQ? I’m almost freezing to death because I’m still wearing a t-shirt in the snow, and you are offering me a BBQ?) but I acquired a few little somethings besides the aforementioned wallpaper: some DIY recipes, a bathing suit (because the icy cold ocean is calling out to me to risk a lung infection) and some more flower seeds. I should have enough to get started on breeding windflowers as well as pansies, and that is all I need for now – I wouldn’t want to overwhelm myself with too many challenges at once.

Speaking of challenges, Tom Nook found out about my independent project of recruiting new residents and needed my help with setting up their future homes.

I have a latter now which I used to explore the uncharted parts of the island, and at this point, I’m having a bit of a vision for Celine. Of course, I will be giving it time to grow.

This new home is placed awfully close to my own house, but I’m sticking it out for now as I want to relocate as soon as possible anyway.

Helping out Tom Nook for most of the day kept me from working on my own projects; I didn’t have time to do any fishing and my newly acquired flower seeds went straight into storage. I will probably do some gardening later before going to sleep at a somewhat reasonable time for a change.
However, as long as the store is still open, I might go and do some fishing in order to make bells to pay off my next loan.

Before concluding this diary entry, I would like to add a little style update which sadly doesn’t involve a warm sweater or jacket:

Last night, I spent some nook miles to order this knapsack!

Isn’t it absolutely darling? Perfect for carrying seeds and small gardening tools.

And I got this adorable skirt from a balloon which will be perfect for my new preppy self once either the weather gets warmer or I’m able to obtain some warm tights to go with it.
(Note that these pictures are only to showcase the skirt and the knapsack, not the outfit as a whole! I know it looks atrocious, but there is no way I’m taking off my socks and hat when those are the only somewhat warm pieces of clothing I own.)

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 7 2023

Dear diary, you won’t believe it: I’ve got a cardigan now! And boots! And I got my hair done! And my hat doesn’t go with anything but that is besides the point. The dreadful days of freezing are over.
Last night, during some ghost hunting (yes, really!), a balloon came flying in carrying this wonderfully warm cardigan. The boots are a bit more on the DIY-side.

As you can see, my room is looking much more coherent today, thanks to some customization kits Tom Nook gave me. Also, the house underwent another expansion and I now own a second room. Did I need a second room? Well, no … But I wanted one! Plus, extra storage space is always useful.

Today was another eventful day on Celine.
A vendor came by, selling shrubs and flowers and – potatoes!

I finally got to set up my little farm, my future livelihood.

On that note, of course I wouldn’t want to forget the obligatory update of my precious saplings:

Beautiful, just perfect!

The non-vegetable population is growing, too. The deer I invited the other day moved in (of course he had to pick the house right in front of mine, making me wish that I could relocate right now), and I briefly dropped by his place to say “hello”.

His name is Beau and while he looks cute, I’m not too sure whether we will get along – I don’t enjoy the things he says or the way he says him. (Maybe that’s old eccentric stuck-up me talking. New me should be more welcoming; I’ll try to be more welcoming).

We’re getting there, even though I don’t know where exactly “there” is. I noticed that due to the snow, I’m having a bit of a hard time decorating around the island. All I see is a white wasteland, picturing it as anything other than that is proving difficult to me.
Regardless, I feel like everything is slowly coming together. I really can't wait to finally be able to relocate to my farm!

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 11 2023 (1/2)

Another eventful day is coming to an end and I think it is time to sit down and collect my thoughts in this little diary of mine once more.

Standing right next to my house, I took a picture of the farm because I thought the view was pretty.

Starting tomorrow, the view from my house will be different – I finally had a chat with Nook to have my home relocated. This is only possible due to the developments within our community. As of today, Resident Services is no longer provisional.

The hedgehog in the photo selling clothes has started to visit Celine every other day and even though her selection is small, she is a bit of a lifesaver.

Also, the two animals I met in the very beginning of our island adventure finally moved in.

Cheri is a very outgoing little person.

Molly seems to be a little more on the quiet side.
Both of them are very cute and I think that we will get along just fine.

Even Beau turns out to be a nice guy:

Despite me originally thinking that we probably wouldn’t have much to talk about, his attempts of becoming my friend are kind of melting my dark preppy heart.

(Yes, I do love compliments.)

We are all slowly getting acquainted with each other as well as with our still new home.

Funny enough, turns out I wasn’t the only one who didn’t pack clothes appropriate for the weather conditions:

Although some animals never seem to get cold at all, as Biff relaxing with a lollipop in the snow makes me believe.

Sometimes I think that winter is pretty, the sky can be so gorgeous:

On the other hand, I can’t wait for spring to finally bring some life and warmth.

 

[VelveteenCat]

February 11 2023 (2/2)

My fruit trees still don’t seem to mind the cold, they are finally fully grown.

Also my flower projects are coming along nicely, our first hybrid was this pink windflower:

Appropriate, considering windflowers are native to Celine and pink is one of my favorite colors.

Most of these days, I spend my time swimming (the water may be icy cold, but it is pleasant nontheless!) and building snowfolk (which is pretty hit or miss).

Also my home décor keeps evolving:

I turned the second room into a kitchen, despite the fact that I did not obtain any cooking recipes so far.

I think the general direction our life on Celine is heading could be described as “rustic”, but who knows, maybe things will change yet again once the snow has melted. So far I’m sticking to my rule of trying out new things – it took me three trips to Resident Services and back until I finally decided what style I wanted for the first incline of our island. It turned out to be one of the pricier ones and I really hope I won’t regret that decision!

Either way, between moving buildings, building inclines, breeding flowers and produce and slowly making friends with the neighbors, things are developing nicely. Since I don’t plan to demolish every cliff there is, I don’t even feel like I have to hurry things along.

Nook is currently dreaming of getting KK Slider to come to Celine, but my own wishes …

Well, one shouldn’t tell, not even to a diary.