Well it has been a bit over 8 years since I have written here.. is anyone still reading?
Waving at Dennis

It has not been tooooooooo long.

Previously it took over 9 years for me to write a log! I am improving! Pretty soon I will be writing every 5 years - a more reasonable amount of time for updates, yeah?

Tamagotchi has been around for nearly 30 years. When I created this website, I had no idea I would be writing about Tamagotchi all these years later. Tamagotchi changed my life. Tamagotchi changed the toy industry. And Tama's are still loved and enjoyed by many people of many ages. Not all inventions get that privilege in toy history.

I am so happy Tamagotchi was celebrated at the 20 year anniversary and more recently the Connection has been celebrating 20 years too. And soon enough Tamagotchi will be 30 years old and people will still have them and still love them. That is so amazing. I would have never thought Tama's would be still around now when I began this website way back when I was a teenager. Many news and TV anchors in the 1990's painted Tamagotchi as a "fad" and more specifically a "Christmas fad". Sure, it was huge at the holidays, but over the years it maintained an ever growing group of fans around the world.

I have not always been a part of the Tamagotchi and virtual pets communities, but they have been out there for at least as long as my website has been online. I have poked my head in and read some things here and there through the years, but I have not gotten overly involved in a long time.

Thinking back now, I wish I had been more involved with those communities. I was a reader and not so much a contributor. I guess I did a lot of my talking on this website. But you might ask why I was not more of a talker in virtual pet groups? After all I made this website. Well.. I have Social Anxiety Disorder and CPTSD. I do not think I have written that anywhere on this site before. And I have been betrayed by too many people online and I have been hurt too much on multiple levels. So those things combined makes me often reserved and quiet. I often have felt misunderstood because of this. I am not always good at expressing my thoughts (...says the person who enjoys writing.. ;-P). So I have always found it easier to listen instead of talk when it comes to people I do not know super well. Everyone has a story to tell, and I enjoy hearing about their adventures.

Anyway, let us swerve back to the topic. It is amazing how different Tamagotchi has become. It has grown with a life of its own.. and the community has grown with it.

Of course anyone that has known me, knows I have always been an Originals kinda person. I will always love and appreciate the very first Tamagotchi I ever laid eyes on. That Tama, which I have always referred to as my Mimitchi Tama, is still with me. While the chain has broken, and the buttons wore out, I still have my yellow and black shelled P2 (which was tiger striped before the paint wore off). The one that started it all for me.

Why Yes! Yes, I will!

My dear friend Dennis is sending me a gift of both the new anniversary re-releases of the P1 and P2 Tamagotchi. And the P1 is the Japanese version! He is so awesome to me! I am very grateful and honored he is doing this for me! He told me all about the differences from the originals and the conversation I had with him made me SO excited! Yes, I still love the original Tamagotchi. So it will be quite interesting to see what little tweaks they made in the programming of each of them! And it will be so much fun to see my little virtual pet buddies from back in the day.

Maybe I will be lucky enough to meet Mimitchi again!

I do not even have the words to thank Dennis. He has been a huge supporter of this website for years and years and years now. Also more than anything he has been a close friend. He understands me and accepts me just as I am. He does not judge me no matter how imperfect I am. I can just talk with him comfortably and know that I do not have to tip toe around things. Thank you so much, Dennis, for being the keeper of my website and for reviving my interest in Tamagotchi now and many other times.. and well thanks for being you.

I intend to get some more P1 and P2 re-releases as well as a couple of the new 20th anniversary Connections. They have made so many beautiful shells! I have looked around online and it seems there are lots of new Tamagotchi out there. I have sure missed out on a bunch of stuff. It blows my mind that there are color screen Tamagotchi. For now, for me, I will try the anniversary remakes of P1 and P2. I will be writing more on them when they arrive.

Update 08.19.2024: They arrived!! A picture of them is at the top of this page! More to come soon! I am just finishing this log, that is why this info is added before being published ;-)

Tamagotchi has changed my life in many ways. I could write a much longer discussion on this topic alone, but instead I will specifically talk about how I went from Tamagotchi to raising and taking care of unique little pets.

In the past, I have spent much time raising Tamagotchi and enjoying the other Japanese Tama releases too. In particular, I always really loved the Morino Tama. I love insects (will not ALL of them - Fire Ants are my enemy!) and I love exotic pets, and well.. I love animals in general.

I live in Florida now and there are some unique (and big) insects here. I have raised Monarch Butterflies, Zebra Long wings, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Gulf Fritillaries, and all sorts of other beautiful butterflies and critters that are native to this area. I started raising them when a Monarch fell to my feet outside in the grass and when I picked him up I found he had a broken wing. It was fate. I took Marty inside and made him a little home and researched how to take care of him. Marty gave me a peek inside the beautiful world of butterflies.

Eventually, after much research, I went out and found Monarch eggs on Milkweed plants. I raised the caterpillars until they hatched from their chrysalis to emerge as butterflies. At which time I would keep them in their habitat until their wings were dry and then release them into the world. I kept the butterflies that got sick or were unable to fly and gave them a good life until they passed away. Marty was never able to fly again, but he was loved for the rest life.

And so that adventure began in 2017. I have raised hundreds of little butterflies of several different species since that time.

I have befriended many of nature's little critters, not just butterflies.

I am friends with grasshoppers. I met my first Eastern Lubber Grasshopper in 2017. I was so not prepared to see such a huge, colorful beautiful creature. That grasshopper was female, and she landed right on my shoulder when I was in the garden. She let me handle her a little before jumping away. They so fascinated me.

Eventually, several months later, I ended up adopting my first Lubber Grasshopper. His name was Orange. He was a big cutie. He traveled with me to Alabama to see family. My Mom had been so curious about my little insect friends for a while. I had been sending her photos for months of my butterflies. She was so happy to meet Orange in person. He was a little shy so she did not get to hold him, but she saw the friendship I had with him. Grasshoppers are individuals, very different from each other in personalities.

Lily was my first female Lubber and she made a lifelong impression on me. I believe she thought she was a human, or was reincarnated from a previous human. She wanted to do everything with me. She snuggled up to me to sleep, she bumped noses with me, she would sit with me watching TV, she would eat with me, and she sat on my shoulder like a parrot when I walked around the house. She learned all sorts of ways to communicate with me. She would flap her wings up and down making a sound that let me know when she wanted to come out and play, or that she just needed to be held. I looked forward to her waking up in the morning. I would open her habitat when I sat down to have coffee. She would slowly crawl along the walls to the front panel and slowly extend a little foot out around the edge of the zipper door. So only a tiny black foot tip is seen. Then she would put her two other feet around the edge of the door opening. She would then peak her eyes out, waiting for me to extend a hand for her to crawl on. She was an amazing little person. She lived with me for nearly 11 months. I loved her so much and she knew it. I still love and miss her so so much. I could talk for hours about her.

My first Katydid was a little guy who was young and still going through the last two changes of his growth stages (molts). His name was Didi. Something did not go right before I met him because the right wing never grew like his left wing did. By the time he became an adult he was missing the right wing entirely. Didi liked to walk on the top of my head, he was cute and funny like that. He was often not happy about storms, so he slept in his habitat in my room. He was so expressive and energetic. I really enjoyed having him stay with me. I had him in my life for almost a year. He was such a fun little person. I love him so much and I will never forget him.

I have more stories about Lubbers and Katydids, but this is getting long already, so I will talk more about them in the future.

In the last few of years I got over my fear of bees and wasps. But first, I had to meet my honeybee visitor. And yes, I have another critter story...

One day my soul sister Cay brought out a honeybee who had his legs caught up in a spider web. It bunched up around his back legs making it impossible for the bee to collect pollen and thus he would die without help. So I held him up to look closely and he turned around and faced backwards for me. He rubbed his little back legs in an up and down motion trying to get the web unstuck from his legs. Even though the sight of the stinger worried me, I used a finger nail and pulled at the webbing around his legs. He pulled the web away trying to help me remove it. We were working together when he accidentally fell out of my hand. So I put my hand on the floor and he waddled back over to me and pulled himself into my palm again. He quickly turned around and began pulling at the webbing around his back legs again. This time I got my fingernails in there really good and managed to pull it most of the way off his legs and he quickly removed the remainder of the webbing. He was saved! I opened the back door to let him go outside. He sat on my hand for a few more moments, then off he flew outside. But he came back to me and did a couple of big figure 8 patterns in the air. Then he was off. That was his 'thank you' message to me. It was an amazing breathtaking experience. Insects are far smarter than most people understand.

These stories are super condensed (except for the bee story), but you understand.. the desire to help insects and raise them had some influence from Tamagotchi. :-)

I feel if we as humans lived along side the other creatures of the world, instead of just killing them to put up shopping centers and hotels, then the planet would be a better place for everybody.

Website Thoughts

I have not written here in a long time. I am not so sure that anyone will actually notice that I am publishing this log at all.

As someone with a far different life than I ever expected and as someone with many hobbies and responsibilities now.. I am not going to say when I will write again. I hate when I say things and forget to do them. So instead I will say that I have intentions of writing here more than I have in the last 8 years, especially in the next few months. I have missed writing, I have missed Tamagotchi. I have frequently wondered if I could afford some new Tama's or try to get back the ones I sold on eBay. It would appear that retrieving what I have lost would be very difficult though. Everything is way out of my price range at this time. It saddens me how much I have lost and will likely never get back again.

I have been sorting through old boxes and finding things I did not sell - like my Tamagotchi GameBoy game. And I ran into my Tamagotchi computer game as well.. which I do not believe will run on current day computers, but I will have to look into that. I also have a Win3.1 laptop from back in the 90s. You know those giant thick laptops that very few people had at that time? Up it even has a way to connect to the internet! Dial-up... how I do not miss you! I wrote this website when I had dial-up internet. Well the interesting thing is I also have some very old Tamagotchi games and animations on that laptop that I downloaded from who knows where and they still worked when I packed that laptop for my trip to Florida. When I find that laptop I need to take some pictures or video of them.

I am aware that there are some links on the site that no longer work. I will be working on fixing that stuff down the road. I have to divide my time between many things, so I can not do everything all at once. But I definitely want to make things better.

How are things? Where have I been?

This is the part about me, if you are not interested in non-Tamagotchi stuff, no need to read further.

I have found happiness and joy since my last log. There is plenty that is stressful and not going well for me - but I am extremely grateful for the overall picture. I have a Bearded Dragon and insect pets. I have a soul sister. I live in a nice neighborhood in the country. I have great neighbors. I have a house with a nice yard. And Hurricane Ian did not leave me homeless.

I had a heart attack earlier this year. I am grateful to be alive. It was a scary experience.

I was in a rough place for a long time before I moved here. I felt alone even when I was not, so I kept all the emotions to myself. I got more and more withdrawn and fell into a dark place as years passed. I was not doing so well both physically and mentally. I wasted a lot of years on the wrong people.

I have my life back. I am able to be who I really am, not what others expect of me. I finally feel free of the BS that held me back so many years ago.

Many of the right and wrong things had to happen for me to go from absolutely lost and living on the west coast to feeling joy on the east coast in Florida. I want to share some of those stories in the logs ahead.

A Road Trip Across The United States

One morning several years ago, just before the sun was due to arrive, I tossed the last of my things into the back of the car.

I slid into the car seat and took a deep breath. Cay and I looked at each other with tired smiles as we began our journey. As we took turns along the familiar roadways, I felt an excitement within that had been building for several months.

The cold morning air bit at my skin as I hung my arm out the window. Coffee was loaded and prepared to be deployed over the span of the day. I was so cold and shivering, yet I welcomed it. I knew that this would be the last time I would see snow or feel that chill possibly ever again. I was nervous, excited, scared, and very happy all at the same time. It was a lot for me to take in. A whole load of events had happened in the span of a year to get here. And those things all had come together and fell into place to pave the way into this future. When I looked at the road ahead of me.. I knew we had finally made it.

As the birds woke up and the sky merged from dark to warm colors.. I took one last look at the town I wish I had never left so many years ago, and I left it one last time.

There were no hotel reservations, no plans with required dates, no schedules on some checklist. Nothing set in stone. There was a road in front of us and lots of opportunities ahead.

And I smiled. I smiled for real for the first time in over 15 years.

This song really captures some of my feelings at that time...

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