Huh. I don't actually know what exactly to put here, now that the big day has finally arrived.
But at least I didn't go with my terrible INITIAL idea of calling it "Frosty Finale".
Well, I'll start things off with Wednesday the 3rd, because my bed had started breaking quite a while ago, but things slowly got worse over the course of last month until accelerating at the beginning of December.
I mean, I also missed out on taking part in a Pokémon online event, but my bed FALLING APART is probably more important.
Dad patched it up as best as he could, but it ebcame clear I was going to have to get a new one and fast, so I simply added it to the "List of Things I Owe My Parents Money For™".
Friday the 5th was Christmas dinner at the British Heart Foundation* shop. There wasn't a huge number of us, but there were ENOUGH of us, and it was nice to have one last Christmas dinner there before leaving.
I also tried pepperoni pizza for the first time, and discovered that I prefer margherita.
*your present for my final blog post is that I FINALLY reveal (online, because I'm sure AT LEAST 90% of readers know me in real life, and so would know this already) where I volunteered
My new bed arrived on Tuesday the 9th, and Dad very kindly set it up then – it's rated to hold 300kg of weight, so I can't see myself accidentally breaking it any time soon. Which is good, because it sure as hell wasn't cheap.
Meanwhile, I'd been trying to get my employee discount for my paid job for a couple of weeks, but I still wasn't getting anything.
Wednesday the 10th saw the release of "Mega Dimension", the downloadable-content expansion to Pokémon Legends: Z-A, but I… well, I actually STILL haven't properly started it, even though I know most of the spoilers now. I blame my volunteering and paid work combining to severely reduce my free time.
Anything to shift the blame away from myself :p
My employee discount FINALLY came through on Wednesday the 17th, and I "celebrated" (not really, it was pre-planned anyway) by going to the local branch of my work and buying some fancy crisps* there that I'd recently got hooked on. I like the ready salted ones – I did try the cheese and onion ones a few days later, but the cheese flavour was too overpowering.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Grandma & Granddad that Saturday (the 20th) because I had to go to work. At least I've got our NEXT visit off as annual leave, so I'll DEFINITELY be able to go up then.
*for those who don't know me in real life, your hint as to where I work is "it's a grocery store chain"
And then, on Christmas Eve, the universe gave me a very special present, called "I tripped and fell on my left knee, and it STILL hurts".
To be fair, it was entirely my own fault, because I left a thing in a place for the sake of convenience, and it was that thing that I tripped over.
I blame my loving mother's genes for my clumsiness (anything to shift the blame away from myself!!)
Well, I'll be fine – I've had worse happen to me, like the time I broke my arm (which was MAIA'S fault, I swear) or the time last year that I slipped and fell down several stairs (it hurt to sit down for over a week afterwards.)
OR WHAT ABOUT THE TIME I GOT COVID???
There's nothing that quite beats a Christmas Day spent at home with your family.
I got a LOT of chocolate, two completely-identical mugs, a NON-identical travel mug, some keychains, some sweets, and a brand-new iPad*, among other things!
*look, the only reason I asked for one is because my old one wasn't allowed to update any more – I've had it for years
And now, we reach the end of this post. Which has no images for some reason. Yeah, I don't know why either.
Well, I've certainly enjoyed writing posts on this blog for the last ten years, I really have.
But unfortunately, now that I have a job, I just don't have the time to keep up with this – the only way I've been able to do so for the last two months is by sacrificing most of the free time I DID get.
But thank you so very much to everybody who's read this blog, because it's definitely been fun making it!
As for what my future holds?
Well, we've got "Happy Chomp" tonight (that's based off of a joke Maia made about Hebe LAST year, when she was "antagonising" him – her words!)
And after that, there's a new update for Animal Crossing coming out on the 15th of January, Pokémon Pokopia coming out on the 5th of March, and both Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream & Rhythm Paradise Groove coming out some time next year as well – so there's plenty of things to look forward to, and that isn't even counting the almost-certainty of new main-series Pokémon games in time for the 30th anniversary!
And as for this blog itself, it'll stay up until at least July 2027, even though it won't get any updates – after that, I'll probably have to take it down (unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to keep paying for a URL I'm not using.)
But I'll make sure to download a copy of it first, so it's never TRULY gone.
Well then, if you'll excuse me, I need to clean up my Animal Crossing town to host Mum and Maia, so we can celebrate the new year together – so it's a fond farewell from me!
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!