Adventures in Pineford...

Look at those sad trapped Villagers...

Cat and mouse is my favourite show...

Drinking expensive coffee, Starbucks eat your heart out!

But it is...hmmm...

Conducting the first ever Pineford meeting...

Is there a badge for "making better coffee than Brewster"?

Shaking my booty with previous villagers...

Breaking and entering houses....

Listening to my villager's...interesting dreams...

Getting a new room mate...

Some things are...a little creepy but also kinda sweet...

Stalking my villagers...

And exterminating their fleas (He actually later bought the flea off me!)

Keeping my villagers awake all night!

Apparently Mott has the hots for me...

It would be nice if you helped...

Trying to figure out how a potty is a fine item...

Getting hit on by Porter...standard 

Being told I have a perfect pear...

I'll let this one speak for itself...

Umm, yes, yes it would...

Becoming a spy with Derwin...shhhh

<3

Enjoying the rainbows...

Happy adventures in Pineford <3

Panic attacks

I've suffered with panic disorder for a good few years now and with the criticism surrounding zoella at the moment I thought I'd share my story. 

I remember my very first panic attack like it just happened minutes ago. 

I've pretty much always hated school, right from the start I had undiscovered dyslexia that prevented me from being able to read or write at all until I was 8. I've spent my whole school life lonely and dealing with constant bullying. There's nothing I can think of that is worse than school. Even just typing the word makes me feel sick. It took every ounce of my natural love for learning away from me, I hated every subject and was failing at everything. No matter how hard I tried. 

I was quite and reserved, I spent the majority of my time drifting between friendship groups. In class I was always very quiet, I never wanted to answer questions, ask questions or get at all involved in the lesson - for fear of giving bullies more ammunition against me. 

Fast forward to maths class. I'm about 13/14 years old and I'm sat in class, alone. My teacher points me out and asks me to answer a maths question. I hated anything like this, I don't want to answer questions for fear of looking stupid. But even when I tried to answer...I opened my mouth but no words came out...

Suddenly I was frozen. I started to sweat. I could hear people talking and expecting an answer but I couldn't talk, in fact I couldn't move. I was just frozen. The voices of the teacher and my peers seemed like they were getting further and further away, untill all I could hear were muffles inbetween the loud quick beats of my heart. I could feel my heart racing and I felt numb. It probably only last a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours. 

When I was finally able to move and mutter "I don't know" I was immediately reprimanded and sent out of the class room for being "disobedient". Left outside alone, confused and scared. Not knowing what had just happened to me, or if it would happen again, wondering why I was being punished for something that I had no control over. 

I just stood outside with tears rolling down my face. 

After that things went from bad to worse. My panic attacks stopped me from wanting to do things. Gradually I became so afraid of having panic attacks that I would avoid most social situations. I never spoke to anyone that I hadn't already known a long time. If I were unwell I'd have to tell my Mum or Dad what was wrong with me and get them to tell the doctor, I would simply sit there, if they asked me a question I'd immediately look at my parent(s) and signal for them to answer for me. All the isolation led me to become depressed and start self harming. 

I'm still on the mend but I will get there eventually. 

Anxiety

It's hard to understand something you've never been through. I don't understand alcoholics, how could someone spend all their money on booze and drink themselves into a coma? For an ex alcoholic it's probably easy to understand because they've been through it, they've experienced it for themselves.

It's the same concept with anxiety, for someone who has never had anxiety disorder it's hard for them to get it. They don't know what it feels like and it's hard to explain it to them. My mum once said to me that she only truly understood anxiety disorder after going through it herself, and that it was worse than she thought.

It's easy to underestimate it.

I mean what do people have to compare it to? Usually a time they were scared or nervous, like before a test. To them they just see it as nerves. They don't get how debilitating it can be.

The truth is anxiety is so much worse than that. It's a mental illness that can effect your everyday life. It's that uncontrollable feeling of panic and dread. It makes you feel ill. It makes you sick. It makes your guts feel like they are trying to escape. Your heart takes on a life of its own. Your brain runs rings around you. And before you know if you are having a major panic over seemingly nothing at all. But you can't make it stop. It's so physical. It's so real. It's terrifying.

Every time I get anxious my body gives up on me. My mind drives me wild. It's not like any nerves or any fear I've ever had. It's different. It's more scary and more real than anything else I've felt.

But it's hard for people to understand. You can't just "snap out of it" you can't just make it stop. You can't just face your fears and be done with it. It's not a matter of "manning up". It's not as easy as just moving on.

It might seem ridiculous.

And maybe it is.

Maybe it's over nothing, maybe it's over something you could do easily. That you could face. But it's very real to them, it's very scary to them, and if nothing else it's very physical to them.

It effects every part of that persons life.

Even if you don't understand. Or you can't understand. It doesn't stop being real to them. It doesn't stop the palpitations, the dread, the sickness, everything.

Just trust me when I say, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life and every day I wish I could man up, move on and face it.

It's not that easy.

I'm the water drinking designated driver and here's why...

So this is more me having a rant about how boring people think I am.

I'm going to start with my favourite drink to have on a night out; water. I've always been able to have a good time without drinking, I've been known to jump on pianos and sing loud and proud, I rarely drink but it's never stopped me having a great night out.

There are several reasons I choose not to have soft drinks and alcohol.

1. Migraines. Anyone who gets them bad will be able to sympathise with me here, alcohol and caffeinated drinks such as cola are triggers for my migraines and they are no fun at all - every time I've been out and had a drink I've come home with a bad migraine and it's not much fun at all.

2. I don't want to get drunk. When I do drink the most I've ever drunk were 3 JD and cokes, I've never been drunk. I don't want to either. I'm a major control freak and the idea of losing control scares me.

3. I may put a TMI warning with this one...It makes me pee. A lot. Even after just 2 glasses of fizzy I'm non stop in the toilet wishing I'd drunk water instead. Oddly enough water doesn't do that too me.

All of these things stop me enjoying my night. I can't enjoy anything when I have a migraine, if I'm sitting in a toilet stall the whole night or if I'm worried about how much I'm drinking - it just puts me in miserable, anxiety fuelled place which I hate.

The very last reason is;

4. Water is free! I always end up having a cheap night, usually we get into most places either cheap or free because we get there early and then on top of that all my drinks are free! My purse absolutely adores me for this.

Now for the reasons why I drive to these places.

1. People don't pressure me to drink. It's great driving somewhere, people are aware that drink driving is illegal and so they don't put any pressure on me to drink. Oh, the times I've gone in the taxi with them and all night "have another drink" "I'll buy you a drink" "is that all you're going to drink" it's very annoying

2. I like the comfort and warmth of my car. I love being able to wack my radio up and enjoy my own comfy, warm car. I don't have to sit around waiting for a taxi, and I can sit in my car waiting for them to arrive if I want to. Yes I do offer lifts to people as well which I like doing if I can.

3. Petrol is cheaper than a taxi. It seems to cost so much to get a taxi anywhere, even if there are loads of us sharing the cost, petrol always seems to cost me less every time.

4. I can go through the drive through at Macdonalds while everyone else is standing outside in the cold at the 24 hour slots for pedestrians. And I always get a Maccy d's!

Maybe I don't do things the way everyone else would, maybe I'm missing out on a world of fun, but I like the way I do things. Most importantly it gives me a great night out that I actually want to remember.

Things I would change about AC

Dream Suite 

Dream Suite is one of my favourite features in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I only built it a few days ago but have spent the majority of my gaming time visiting lots of different towns. The only thing you can take away from a dream town are custom designs, everything else disappears when you return to your own town. 

The main thing I would change about it is I want to get more out of it, I want to be able to change my outfit for a start, even when I wear one of my patterns I still have no shoes. 

I would love to be able to order furniture, so many times I've gone to a dream town and seen an item which I have been hunting for for ages, and I have no way of getting it (It's such a tease!). Even if we had a limit of only a handful of items we are allowed to order, even if we could only order 2 items per dream, I would still love to see that become a feature.

Patterns that eat fruit and bells 

I have found this very annoying for a while now. If you have patterns near trees and rocks the bells and fruit will be abosrbed into the pattern - very annoying if you want to have lots of patterns around your town. It would be nice if patterns just acted like other squares.

Disappearing grass

Since this feature came out all it has done is cause stress - I have been spending a lot of time attempting to regrow my grass - I understand the idea behind it - it makes unique dirt paths, I get it, but I'm one of those people that run around my town like a headless chicken and I'd like to be able to do that without losing all my grass.

Problem Neighbours

Villagers can be a pain, they are allowed to place their house anywhere it seems - and that can be a pain when you have spent a long time making your dream town vision come true. I wish there was an option where you can choose to pick a spot where your villagers are allowed to live, that way you could put them all in a spot where they wouldn't mess up your town!

Tool box

I have an issue with the fact my tools take up so much room in my pockets, but you can guarantee when I put them away I will see a reason to have them with me. I think maybe a tool box would work out - where you could still pull them out using the arrows but you don't have to take up precious pocket space.

Grand opening of Club LOL

I was pretty excited to see Dr. Shrunk outside my house asking for my permission to open his new live venue "Club LOL" I said yes right away! I got all 6 signatures I needed.

It seemed to take forever for it to be built, that may or may not have been caused by Kicks being built around the same time, I'm not sure - anyway I didn't know if it was being built or not, no screen around the area, nothing. So I was very happy when Isabelle told me it had been opened today.

Club LOL opened on the 6th of September!

Damn I closed my eyes!

Looks a bit empty and bland, I hope it's not empty later!

The stage is pretty awesome I haven't seen a Gyroid lately

I gave Dr. Shrunk a cherry and he started doing a performance. :) (Cherries are my native fruit)

He gave me the Emotion "Anger" I'm excited about getting all the emotions! 

I'll be sure to go back later on today to see the live music!

Update!

So I went back later.....K.K. Slider is there...but no one else is here!!

Hopefully more people will turn up next time!

Animal Crossing: Kyra is the Mayor!

I became mayor of Pineford on the 16th of August.

Currently Kyra is living in a tent, but the upside is I actually got to choose the location instead of just getting given a random location or set locations like in the older games.

Sleeping in a tent isn't so bad but I only have a lantern at the moment, nothing to sleep on! 

For some reason I couldn't resist buying this item I just thought it was a funny/strange accessory!