schneefink

45 hours of work in a 4-day-week *flops over* Tomorrow I'm leaving for three days to spend New Year's with some family members I haven't seen in over a year, I hope it'll be fun. The weather forecast is mixed and I don't know who exactly will be coming, but I'm sure at least the food will be good. Maybe I'll even have time to read the book I got for Christmas, we'll see. Hopefully I can catch up on sleep a little on the train.

Last Minecraft update of the year:

There was a thunderstorm and I could finally summon lightning with my trident! I even managed to hit phantoms with lightning strikes, that was cool. I made a few charged creepers and ended up with a skeleton skull and a zombie head. Not sure what to do with them but they're cool to have :)

I finally built a vine "elevator" between my cellar and the cave beneath so I don't have to take the stairs every time, very convenient. Then I did some expansion & renovations on the outside of my base: I like having a balcony around my library, but the rest I was less happy with. I made some more adjustments the next day and that was better, but there's still room for improvement. On one of the surrounding hills I made a third small farming plot, melons this time because that's another thing the farmer in the village nearby will trade for (and it can't hurt to be able to make health or damage potions.)

I did some more cave exploration after getting the brilliant idea to mark my way out with brightly colored carpets, it worked really well. Even though I wore full enchanted diamond armor I acted so scared of mobs as if I had never seen a piece of armor in my life, but I took zero damage so it clearly worked. Thanks to Fortune III I got fourteen more diamonds and have seven blocks now. Not that I need them, but still, nice.

I went back to the taiga village, which felt almost nostalgic: I spent so much time there in the early game and then didn't go back for a long time. This time I dared to explore the abandoned mineshaft nearby, and I finally ran into cave spiders. Annoying, but definitely much less so now than they would have been in early game, I didn't even take that much poison damage. I found a spawner too, which might one day be convenient. (I'm still annoyed that I destroyed the spider spawner I found very early on practically right next to my base.)

Then it was finally time to explore the end! I bridged to the end gateway where I took the carved pumpkin off to admire the gateway and the view, and I was promptly almost thrown into the void by an angry enderman, so it already started with a scary moment. Not a good omen one would think, but I found a big end city after barely five minutes of walking across the island I landed on, and there was a ship too. Exploring the end city was fun! Scary at times, especially at first when I floated up into the void, but I quickly learned to stay under roofs at most times. I specifically got Looting III on my sword before to get more shulker shells, but I ended up shooting shulkers from a distance as much as I could. My aim isn't half bad, so that was fairly successful. I only explored maybe a bit over half of the city and found a lot of great loot, including 23 diamonds and very good enchanted diamond armor. The shiny new shulker boxes were very convenient, otherwise I would not have been able to carry everything home. I got enough shells for four shulker boxes, very nice for now and I can always come back for more later. The other highlight of course was getting elytra! Very cool.

As soon as I got them, and after a brief detour up to the crow's nest of the end ship to enjoy the view, I made my way home again, and as soon as I was in the overworld I tried to fly. It took me a few tries but I figured it out! At least the basics. My firework use was very inefficient. It was really annoying that I flew so fast that the world had trouble keeping up with loading and then I didn't know what I was potentially flying into. I definitely need a lot more practice, and probably to adjust my settings a bit.

I did a little bit of exploration to find some red mushrooms and try saturation suspicious stew, the effect is nice but not being able to stack it is too annoying for me to use it regularly most likely. And I started making a bigger pen to get a sheep herd and dye it all different colors, an idea I got from one of Philza's streams and loved. I also learned that you can hop over fences if you place a carpet on them, gamechanger. I can launch off my balcony now!
I went to another village not too far away that I knew had several shepherds, and also managed to fully level up a butcher which is very convenient because I have so many chickens. I want to finish leveling up a couple of shepherds so I can get paintings. On the way I managed to find among other things a ship wreck with a buried treasure map that led to a chest almost right next to my base, nice.

I started building a road to another village so I can ride my horse there but I got fed up trying to find the best path through the hills and forest, so I started to just build a straight bridge over the water and then dig a flat straight road across the hill bc why not. (I'm only about halfway done yet.) I did some more base renovation and I think it looks okay for now, I especially love having a balcony.
I also did some more cave exploration: it feels like the entire area near my base is just full of caves and tunnels. So many! I have ten diamond blocks now.
And I finally built a portal next to the treasure bastion in the nether. It's "only" a little over 2500 blocks of distance in the overworld, so not that far, especially once I get some more elytra practice. I did get some, and flying is just so cool! (Takes a lot of rockets though.)

Sidenote, I liked the Christmas versions of chests, I either had not known about that or had forgotten about it so that was a nice surprise.

I really should stop hunting for creepers near my base, it ~~ruins the property value~~ does not look pretty, but now that I need gunpowder for rockets it is tempting, especially during thunderstorms. Summoning lightning strikes is just so cool, and trying to get mob heads via charged creepers is risky but exciting.

DD went back to her demo world and worked on her base there, and then entered the nether. Such a great nether entry: right between a crimson and a warped forest, fantastic view, including a nearby treasure bastion. Her nether portal in the overworld is on top of a (naturally generated) floating island near her base and she can now get up and down there via weeping vines, it looks very cool.
She also broke into the bastion treasure chamber from above and made a magma cube farm, very cool. Then she too started making a multicolored sheep herd on my suggestion.

As soon as she gets back we're planning to start a new game to play together, I really look forward to that :)