What’s been going on

It’s been a month since my last post, so I thought I should at least put a quick note here. What’s been going on is basically: too much to do, too little time. Work has me completely stressed out and overloaded with no hope for relief in sight. I’m not sleeping well. Lots of migraines. No energy to do much these days.

My goal for 2012 is for a big change, so what little energy I have goes toward getting other things done that will help me make that big change.

Sorry for my absence. I just need a moment to breathe easily again and catch up on all the things I want and need to do.

Spring 2020 Birthdays

Xander and Chelsea’s little surprise baby Bianca is now one year old!

Hero

May 2020:
Sinjin Sutton is 40, Audrey is 30
(Sunny Lloyd is 61, Tucker Craig is 32, Violet is 10, Baine Austin is 11)

Sinjin can honestly say that he loves his job. He was never one of those people who knew from a young age what they wanted to do. He used to be envious of the kids at school who swore that they would doctors or lawyers or teachers or writers. Sinjin never had a clear idea of what he wanted or could do.

Then his “lost” years came along and then rehab. Jumping from one dead end job to another became a sort of career for him. But Audrey made him want more, made him want a job he could be proud of, a real career he could work hard at.

Heartbreaker

April 2020:
Nathan and Terri Gates are 30, Phoebe is 8
(Kat Gates is 10)

“My date is late and I need a drink,” Terri tells the bartender, stabbing the bar with one finger. “Anything. I don’t care what.”

She sighs as she looks around the lounge again, still not seeing the guy who had asked her out that afternoon. Not that she should technically going on dates, being married and all, but being married has never stopped Terri before and it’s not going to now. She just hopes this guy shows up and that the night isn’t a complete waste of her time.

Family life

March 2020:
Seth and Emma Lloyd are 30, Zachary and Zoey are 4, Gavin and Garrett are 2
(Audrey Sutton is 30, Isabella Smith is 6)

Narrated by Emma

For a while after Gavin and Garrett were born, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever survive with my sanity intact. Two sets of twins so close in age is not a good idea for anyone, least of all a control freak like me. I like having things planned, so it’s funny that both of my pregnancies were completely unplanned.

Delays

I was on vacation for a week and came back home just in time for Hurricane Irene to pass through my area. We have some damage, but are lucky compared to a lot of other people. But power has gone out again at my house (it went out Saturday morning, came back on late Sunday afternoon, and went back out last night) and we have not had internet access since Saturday morning. I’m writing this from work, where the power has finally been turned back on within city limits. There are still power lines and trees down everywhere, a lot of stoplights not working, no ice or flashlights or batteries or lanterns or generators at all to be found within the county because everyone is sold out. For it being just a category 1 when it hit us, this is the craziest category 1 I’ve ever seen.

So there will be delays in posting and answering comments until things get back to semi-normal.

Adapting TS2 play to TS3

Be warned: this is a “how I play” post and not a story post and it’s kind of long. Feel free to ignore if you’re not interested.

I’ve been meaning to write about my switch from TS2 to TS3 in terms of gameplay and Mao recently asked some questions about it, so I thought now was as good a time as any. One thing that was important to me in making the switch between the games was that I wanted to play all of my households from TS2. I wanted to keep up the “prosperity style” gameplay in which I would switch from one household to another after a few days without too much happening with my families behind my back. Normally, with the open hood in TS3, this wouldn’t be possible or would be difficult to arrange (because EA story progression is terrible). Thankfully, we have Twallan and his mods to make this possible. Before Twallan, when I had first thought about the idea of switching, I had considered using one of the very long age spans for the hood because that would at least allow me to play through all the households without the others aging obviously, but these mods are the much better option.

The crucial Twallan mods to my gameplay are: StoryProgression, MasterController, Woohooer.

Crawford/Lloyd Wedding

It’s a warm early spring day, perfect for an outdoor wedding. Nancy chats with her soon-to-be mother-in-law Sarah while Emma keeps Sasha entertained before the ceremony starts.

Lot Tour: Arcadia Memorial Hospital

I like to have working lots to use for pictures, so I had a hospital I had built when I first created the TS3 version of Pine Hollow. But I was never happy with it, so I recently rebuilt it and since I have the essential areas furnished I wanted to give a tour. This lot is unique in that it’s one of the few I actually built and decorated entirely myself.

The design of this building is based on a building I saw on an episode of The First 48. I think it was the Dallas, Texas police headquarters (don’t quote me on that though. I do know for sure that it was a police headquarters building, and I think that particular scene was in Dallas, but not 100%). I liked the diagonal wing of the building set off in a different color from the rest, so I decided to use it for my hospital. The diagonal wing houses the cafeteria, the psychology department, and the nursery. The entire fourth floor is empty for now. The hospital is next door to the police station, which I haven’t yet rebuilt from the rabbit hole, but it’s on my to do list!

Waiting

February 2020:
Zared Smith is 37, Carol is 34, Adam and Ethan are 9, and Isabella is 6
(Zane Smith is 37, Lily Gates-Watson is 9)

Carol sighs as she walks into the courthouse early one morning after dropping the kids off at school. She had been summoned for jury duty and isn’t exactly thrilled about it. She has a ton of work to be done–lessons to be planned, end of year tests to prepare for (because she knows the end of the school year will be here far too quickly), artwork assignments that still need to be graded. This isn’t a good time for her to have jury duty.