I have really enjoyed having my Tama pals with me after so many years. I feel like I am getting back to a part of me that was so restrained for a long time due to some complicated factors that are too much to explain here. But I am happy to get back in touch with this part of me. <3

Mimitchi and Mametchi have been taken care of at the same time throughout their days. Though there have been some minor differences, the rate at which they lose hearts has been the same for both of them.

However, they have had a few minutes variation between poos. On the 3rd day after they became adults I accidentally left Mimitchi with a poo for a little too long (I am not sure how long, not more than a half hour). So the skull showed up and I had to give him medicine twice to get him healthy and happy again.

Now that is sure something different from the originals that I recall. On the 1997's you could let the poos pile up so much that they push the character off screen. I am going to make a guess that if I were to leave the poo too long that it may decrease the length of time the Tama will live. At least that is what would make sense to me. I guess it is something to investigate someday.

Both my Tama's are 18 today. I paused them for 2 days straight when I was so busy with doctor appointments. There have also been a couple of times I have left the house and I have put them on pause for a few hours. I did not let the clock change the years on those 2 days they were fully paused, but I did keep the clock correct on the days with occasional hours paused.

The two of them are getting older now. Their need for attention has been higher than those first two weeks after they became adults. It appears as though they are losing one heart about every 40 minutes. Which is not bad at all, but it is noticeably different from last week.

This morning I woke up before the Tama boys did. When they awoke I tried to lock down the amount of time it took for a heart to empty. I decided I would time how long it took for all of their hearts to deplete... they both came to about 1 hour and 3 minutes to be completely empty all their hearts and ask for attention. I noted a few things.. the time seemed to vary by around 5 minutes and the hunger hearts usually empted faster than the happy hearts. This might be because I would feed first, then play the game.

Today was not a great day. My roommate Cay and I take care of her dog Charlie. Charlie, as I mentioned in a previous log, is an elderly girl. So things happen quickly sometimes. Such as her needing to go to the bathroom and helping her stay clean and healthy. It is not a fun situation, but we loves her.

Cay and I love our pets. We have a Bearded Dragon named Gem, and we have Charlie who is a Jack Russell. The photo of her is when she was younger.

So just to put it out there.. I am totally not trying to blame the dog here haha.

This evening the Tama's beeped. So I played with Mimitchi first, muting the sound while playing the game with him because we were watching Star Trek (yes, I still love Star Trek!) on TV. After we were done, I unmuted him and put Mimitchi on pause because after Mametchi I was going to make dinner. Next, while I was playing games with Mametchi on mute, Charlie needed sudden attention. I quickly put Mametchi down next to Mimitchi.

And this is where I find myself to be a forgetful person when I am in the middle of multiple things going on at the same time.

I forgot about Mametchi being on mute, and I thought I had finished and paused him as I had Mimitchi. So after Charlie was happy, I went straight out to the kitchen and made dinner.

I feel really bad because they were close to the end of their lives and very needy at this point. I should have remembered!

So a couple of hours later I had wondered why my Tama's had not called for attention at all. I first saw Mimitchi was paused.

But on Mametchi's screen showed an Angel. He was 21. :(

I really am unhappy with myself whenever I am this forgetful.

I just had Mimitchi to take care of at this point. I had paused him before bed last night so I just unpaused without resetting the clock. I find it easier to keep track of their age if I have them unpaused for the right amount of time per day (9am - 10pm for Mimitchi & Mametchi), even if it means them not sleeping for a couple of my days.

Not only did I screw up with Mametchi, but today as well I messed up with Mimitchi! Same situation with the pausing and the muted sound. I absolutely could not believe it! I am not going to mute the sound anymore until I stop being so forgetful and easily distracted.

So, I failed this time around too. The first Tama's I run in 9 years and I messed up on both. Argh. I will be way more careful about using mute. Still.. Argh. Argh. Argh. :( I am so sorry, guys.

This past few weeks I have been working on the website. While there is a lot going on in the background you will not see much of a change from a reader's point of view.

I am going to end up touching every page on Mimitchi.com because some things just need to be updated. I have been focusing on the logs section to start off. Some of the pages just do not load right. The background image doesn't load on the really old logs, the music does not load on the older pages were it is embedded, and the font is not consistent with the rest of the Tamagotchi site. There is also just little things, like weird typos and layout issues. In addition to all of that, coding standards have changed, some of the code I have used is obsolete. So I will be fixing that too.

Another thing I have needed to do is make the website useable on mobile devices. I thought that would be a big deal, but really it is not, much to my relief. It will not look perfect, but it will be more useable than it was before.

While some of the changes can be automated, I will end up looking at each page due to all of these changes.

Many people have stated they do not want the site to change, that it is like a time capsule from the 1990's. I definitely will not be changing anything in huge ways. It is mostly just little things like I mentioned above. Since most people use their phones to browse the internet, I am making sure that they can zoom in proper and load so it is rendered at a level that is readable. That is probably the biggest change you will notice.

In addition to that, I got the whole SSL site security issue taken care of. It is strange to me that I would need to do SSL because I do not have a shopping cart on my site, nor do I collect sensitive information from anyone. That used to be the reason someone would get SSL. Now that the internet is mostly run by corporations and businesses, the standard practice has become a blanket requirement for all websites. Now of course it is not required, but if I did not put that security on the site, than the website would be blocked with a security warning that is worded sternly about the safely of the page you are going to be loading and the chance of hackers being involved with your decision to load the website.

That would be enough to keep most people away from unfamiliar websites. So I did pay for SSL and now I have to update the certificate once a year. It is not expensive, but it does feel like an unnecessary obligation to update the SSL code once a year. Perhaps they do not expect everyone to keep their site online for 27 years haha. .

Anyhow, I am happy to do it so people can come and enjoy Mimitchi.com. I really felt the need to explain why you may have seen it in the past though. That warning is pretty harsh, and makes it look like the website is unsafe. I promise this website was never unsafe - I just was not aware of the needed change until now :)

I will get you back, Mimitchi.

So will I be starting up another Tama?
Yeeaaasssssssss, yes I will.

You will have to read the next log to find out who! I will be starting 2 more Tama's with Dennis on video chat sooooon. :)

So yesterday Hurricane Helene came by us in the Gulf of Mexico. I watched it approach us through the week. Cay and I spent a lot of time monitoring the weather and taking in prediction maps. We decided not to leave and it was a good decision. While there was a lot of rain and winds, everything was okay. We are in Southwest Florida.

Helene happened exactly 2 years from Hurricane Ian back in 2022. Ian was my very first serious hurricane. Ian was originally predicted to landfall further north than us, but it gradually turned right into us. I can't really explain what it's like to have a hurricane, only a little bit short of a 5, go right over my house. There was no where to go at the last minute. The highways and streets were filled with people trying to leave, it was either stay at the house or sit in the hot car somewhere. I would rather enjoy my air conditioning instead of hot and humid yuckiness.

We lost power early that morning and spent all our time looking online at news reports and cuddling Gem, our bearded dragon. We also took turns playing Animal Crossing New Horizons. :)

Around 11am Ian cranked up the volume on the wind so that Cay and I had to talk much louder to hear each other.

Two years later I am still without words to fully explain that experience though. I have a lot of respect for mother nature, but I really felt how powerful she is. Ian made me feel small and insignificant compared to the size of the storm. We could have easily been wiped off the map and left no trace of our existence. Thankfully our house kept us safe and held together as that huge storm moved right over the top of us. The worst of it was how slow Ian was moving. The slower the storm the bigger devastation it does to everything it touches.

Interestingly when the Eye Wall came and it popped right over us, it got SO quiet. After all that noise, suddenly it was completely silent. Not quiet like most people experience that includes city noise, cars, talking, animal noises, electronics, etc. No it was dead silent with only the wind in the distance. It's like that feeling your ears get after being at a very loud concert and you've somewhat lost your hearing, but you don't notice until it's over.

We were in the eye of the storm for at least a half hour. The eye was massive. During that time Cay sprinted outside to see if our neighbors house was still in tact. I texted them to let them know it was okay. Eventually the silence slowly went away. In the distance we could hear the backside of the eye wall approaching us. It was much like a bunch of jet engines approaching. I remember bracing myself for that moment. It was scary even though I knew it was coming and what it was. I was wondering how much longer my house could handle this fierce storm.

When the backside of the eye wall hit us, it was like a switch that was flipped, it was suddenly so loud as it was before. There was a definite difference in loudness between the approach and being smacked back into the storm.

I was non-stop stressed and worried as you can imagine for the entire day. I had no idea how long the house could handle that kind of abuse and pressure. Ian tried so hard to make us homeless but we came out with a roof over our heads.

The fallout from the storm was bad for everyone in this area. There were trees blocking the road from both sides. Someone had a tree fall on their house devastating the whole thing. Other people had so much damage that, like us, they still haven't been able to repair it.

Our yard got ripped up. Many of our fruit trees were killed and our two huge oak trees have died. My house is not so strong anymore, there's many problems with it such as the roof and the foundation. We have tried to get help from FEMA and the Red Cross to help replace our roof, but we have gotten the runaround for months upon months now. I hope we can get it fixed before the next major hurricane. The house absolutely cannot handle another storm like that. The corner edge wall in the kitchen is cracked open at the seam. We have a temporary fix in place, but it is very much involving duct tape and by no means is it anything more than a covering to keep rodents out.

Cay has tried her hand at fixing some of our house problems. She fixed the front porch, it was pulling at the roof, but it's stable now. We might be able to do more fixing ourselves, but the roof is a no-go, we can't do that.

So our house is no longer secure as it was when Ian initially hit us. And we can't seem to find someone to help us. We aren't rich, we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix this stuff. It is really scary. I feel like I'm going to have to move eventually, but where could we even go? I don't know.

Anyhow, my heart goes out to other people who have a much worse situation from back then as well as with Helene. There are so many homeless, I am grateful to have a roof over my head. If I were a millionaire, I would do so much to help people.

I am grateful for what I do have and for have each day that I do. That heart attack this year made me especially appreciate the time I have in this world.

I have come a long way from being in my mom's basement when I first started this website to now owning a house on the opposite side of the country. I never know where life will take me. Through it all though, I have Cay. We are soul sisters. She is an amazing human being. I feel so blessed to have her in my life.

Below is a picture of our beautiful bearded dragon Gem. She poked her head out during brumation to see us before going back into her cave. I loves her so much!