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.

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

Sims 3 toddlers look a lot alike to me, so I’m not sure yet who she favors. But she is cute so far for my first born in TS3 Pine Hollow resident!

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.

He’s called to a small kitchen fire at his in-laws’ house. Sunny is on the front lawn, freaking out. She’s already gotten Sasha out of the house while Ian and Eric are still inside, trying to put the flames out before anything major is ruined.

“Thank you!” Sunny gushes once Sinjin has the small grease fire out. She smiles at him like he’s a hero. Sinjin doesn’t really feel like a hero, he’s just doing his job, but he does feel proud of the work he does.

“This is a sight I love coming home to,” Audrey says as she walks into the house that night. “A hot fire fighter in the kitchen, making my dinner.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Sinjin says. “It’s only salad.”

“I got called to a fire at your mom’s house today,” Sinjin tells her.

Audrey nearly chokes on the mouthful of salad. “Oh my god, what? Why didn’t you call me? Are Mom and Eric okay?”

“Everyone is fine,” Sinjin assures her. “I didn’t call you because your mom said not to. It wasn’t a big deal, just a little grease fire that was contained to the stove. Just some minor smoke damage. I put the fire out quickly.”

Audrey smiles at him. “My hero,” she says.

Sinjin can’t help the blush that creeps up his neck. “It was nothing, just doing my job.”

After dinner, they clean up the dishes together and then cuddle on the couch. Audrey snuggles close to him, enjoying the feel of his solid body next to her.

“I should probably go change,” Sinjin says. “I smell like smoke. And sweat.”

“No, stay right here,” Audrey tells him, leaning closer. “I’m enjoying my hero fire fighter too much.”

Audrey stays busy at the hospital and has taken on a few new patients. But she still sees some of her old patients, including eleven-year-old Baine Austin.

“Stepparents really aren’t that bad, once you get to know them,” Audrey tells Baine. They don’t talk about his mom much anymore, but they do talk a lot about his dad and his stepmom. “Your dad thinks that Viola is a good addition to your family. Maybe you should trust his judgment and get to know her.”

Baine hops off the couch. “I think it’s time to go,” he says.

Audrey nods. “It is. I’ll see you next week, okay?”

She sighs as she watches him leave the room. Even after all this time, Audrey just isn’t sure how well she’s getting through to Baine or if her talks with him are even helping at all. He’s very hard to read and insists on keeping himself distanced. The times she manages to get through his walls are few and far between.

Sinjin’s heart races as he runs toward the truck where his coworkers are already scrambling onboard. The call just came through–large house fire, flames everywhere.

The owner–Tucker Craig–is called out of work by a neighbor and he arrives just as the fire fighters are fighting the blaze.

Sinjin fights his way inside where the flames are much worse. They’ve been told no one was home–the adults at work and the daughter at school–but Sinjin does a brief scan of the area for any victims as he works at extinguishing the fire from inside.

The rest of the family arrives home and gathers on the sidewalk with neighbors and passersby.

At last, the flames are out and the family is allowed inside to inspect the damage once it’s deemed safe.

“Why did this happen?” Violet asks.

Sinjin doesn’t have an answer. Faulty wiring, overloaded circuit…who knows. But he knows Violet doesn’t want to know the technical reasons, she’s asking why this had to happen to her family, to her home?

“I don’t know,” he tells her honestly. “I’m sorry.”

When he gets home, Audrey is already there and he sweeps her into a tight hug.

“I’m happy to see you too,” she says laughing.

Sinjin kisses her cheek, happy to be home, where everything is safe and as it should be, where there are no worries for the moment other than what’s for dinner.

————————————–

• The house fire seems like an ROS, but it wasn’t. It was game-generated while I was playing Audrey and Sinjin. I had mentioned this fire on Twitter back when it happened and was asked if the house was still burned when I played the Craig household. It was, even after changing households a few times, the items were still burned and needed to be replaced.
• The “fire” at Sunny and Eric’s house was a gnome attack. But since I don’t want garden gnomes running rampant around Pine Hollow, I rewrote it as a kitchen fire. I was surprised to find Ian there visiting with little Sasha when I sent Sinjin to deal with the gnomes. How cute that he was taking his daughter to visit her grandparents all on his own!
• No babies for these two yet. Neither has a wish for a baby and risky woohoo didn’t result in a pregnancy this round. I’d be happy to see them have at least one, but I’m trying not to interfere.
• Been dealing with really bad allergies that have left me exhausted this past week, so I’ve been slow to post and comment.
  

“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.

When he finally gets there, he has some excuse about traffic, but Terri is only barely listening. She’s had two drinks already, nothing to eat, and everything is a little fuzzy.

“You’re cuter than my husband,” she tells him.

“Whoa,” the guy says. “You’re married?”

“Is that a problem?” Terri asks.

Apparently it was, at least for him. Terri ends the night by heading back home to crawl into bed next to the same man she’s slept with a thousand times since college.

Not that Nathan isn’t good at what he does. It’s just the same old thing. They both crave excitement and new adventures. It’s what made them attracted to each other as teens.

Terri had never really thought they’d be together long term. But then, life has a sense of humor and they found themselves forever stuck together.

Terri just opened up her own fashion shop and things are going well. She feels it’s her duty to help all the unfashionable people of the city.

Of course, they don’t always listen to her. Richard Norman insisted on swim trunks instead of the Speedo she tried to talk him into. “You have a great body,” she told him. “You should show it off!”

The work days aren’t always frustrating. She recently hired John and it didn’t take long before he became her latest date.

Older men are different than younger men. More confident in themselves, but also eager for the attentions of a younger woman.

But John isn’t the only one Terri is seeing on the side. She’s started seeing James pretty regularly as well.

He’s romantic, whispering in her ear about how beautiful she is.

It’s been a long time since Nathan has said she’s beautiful. And yeah, maybe she knows she is, but it’s still nice to hear it.

So really, it’s partly Nathan’s fault that she has to go to other men. She knows he’s been trying to be all monogamous and good these days, claiming he’s turned over a new leaf or whatever other crap he’s pretending, but not Terri. No, thank you. She’s happy just the way she is, meeting new people and seeing what else the world has to offer her while she still has her beauty and youth.

Let Nathan waste his time at home pretending to be the good parent, like he doesn’t have the same urges she does.

Terri can be the good parent too. She wakes Phoebe up on Easter morning, telling her there’s a surprise waiting downstairs from the Easter Bunny.

“A stove,” Nathan says, casting a look at Terri. “You got her a stove for Easter.”

“So she can learn to cook,” Terri says. She’s an attentive parent! She’s noticed how Phoebe usually eats cold sandwiches because she can’t reach the big stove to cook something hot. So Terri thought a kid-sized stove was the perfect solution.

“She’s a child,” Nathan says. “She’s not supposed to cook.”

“You’re never happy with anything I do, are you?” Terri snaps. “I need a drink.”

Like Nathan is so perfect. Terri thinks her gift is a great idea, better than some stupid basket of chocolate that wouldn’t last more than a couple of days. At least now Phoebe could learn how to make real food for herself.

“We’re going to meet Kat at the park later today,” Nathan is telling Phoebe as Terri walks into the dining room. “And we’ll have our own little Easter egg hunt.”

Phoebe grins. “I bet I can find more eggs than Kat,” she says.

Terri clears her throat loudly. “Nathan, I’d like to speak to you in the other room.”

“Why are you always trying to belittle me in front of Phoebe?” she demands once they’re alone. “You take every opportunity to make yourself look like the best parent and make me out to be scum.”

“Why would you buy a child a stove to cook her own food?” Nathan asks. “You’re her mother!”

“So?” Terri asks.

“So,” Nathan says in an exasperated tone, “maybe you should try cooking for her instead of expecting her to do it.”

“What am I, her maid?” Terri asks.

Nathan shakes his head. “You know what? Forget it. It was a great gift, Terri. I’m sure every little girl dreams of getting up and cooking her own muffins for breakfast each morning.”

“What do you want me to do?” Terri asks. “Hire someone to cook for her?”

Nathan sighs. “Do whatever you want, Terri. You’re the super mom around here.”

Nathan and Phoebe meet Kat at one of the parks later that day, after Kat is done with Easter celebration with her other family. They intrude on someone else’s picnic, which Kat gets mad about and refuses to eat anything. Phoebe doesn’t mind and eagerly eats her hot dog.

Nathan tries to enjoy the evening with his daughters, but he’s still annoyed by the conversation with Terri. He’s tried so hard these last couple of years to be a good dad and a good person.

He takes care of his kids, spends as much time with them as he can, he goes to work at the grocery store, he hasn’t slept with anyone other than his wife in so long that he can barely remember what it’s like to meet someone new.

But it’s like Terri doesn’t even care or notice anything outside of herself. And it makes Nathan wonder what exactly he’s trying so hard for.

She doesn’t really want him. She’s not trying to be the perfect wife, so why should he be the perfect husband?

And so, when Terri sticks to her word and hires someone to do all the cooking as well as the cleaning and everything else around the house, Nathan decides to give up being perfect and just be himself. That’s what Terri wants, right? Why should he the one who’s miserable while Terri does whatever she wants?

Who is it really going to hurt anyway?

————————————

• I did not plan for Phoebe to walk in on that, but she did and she is now furious with Nathan. She doesn’t know about what Terri has been doing all over town, so she’s not angry with her mom.
• The lady is their new butler and it’s my first time playing a family with a butler. I actually expected a man, but then the woman showed up and Nathan couldn’t resist flirting with her.
• Terri had the ROS “Take a different Sim on a date each night for 3 nights.” That ROS suited her, lol!
• Terri has become such a drunk. She constantly wishes to go to bars and lounges, and she LOVES the bar I put in their house. If I leave her alone for five seconds, she heads to the bar to make some more drinks.
  
• Their family portrait is fitting, but sad. None of them look very happy.

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.

But it’s getting much better. I have to admit that I could never have handled these last four years without Seth. He’s an amazing dad, very attentive and willing to change diapers and do all the other dirty work that I always hear other women complain their husbands never do.

Zachary and Zoey are four now and have started preschool, which definitely makes things much easier. They’re able to entertain themselves most of the time. And they have such active imaginations. It’s not unusual to find Zachary “driving” the couch around an imaginary racetrack.

Or to find Zoey wearing a crown and cape, and proclaiming to be Queen of Pine Hollow.

The kids are even starting to invite other kids over to play. Zoey has become friends with Isabella Smith, who is a couple of years older, but you wouldn’t know there was an age difference when you listen to the two girls giggle. I can imagine that in a few years our house will be full with our kids’ friends!

Zachary and Zoey are really great kids, but they can still be a handful at times. Zoey seems to have taken up her dad’s habit of tinkering with various objects around the house, which usually results in leaking faucets spraying water everywhere.

But I can’t get too upset over leaky faucets. At least Zoey hasn’t set the house on fire yet, unlike her father!

That was very frightening. Seth had just made some adjustments to the stove the night before, even after I asked him to please leave it alone. While he was cooking breakfast the whole thing just went up in flames. Audrey had just come over and she panicked as much as the kids did. For long moments, I imagined our house burning to the ground and losing everything. As long as my family was okay, it would be fine, but I was very relieved when Seth was able to get the fire out. The only damage was to our stove, which had to be replaced.

Audrey visits a lot, which I enjoy and the kids do too. They love all their aunts and uncles, but Audrey and I are very close and the kids have become close to her too since she’s over pretty often. They think of her as the fun aunt because she’s always playing around and goofing off with them.

I keep telling her she’ll make a great mother, but Audrey usually finds a way to change the subject when I bring it up.

When she’s not working, Audrey is always willing to baby-sit the kids while I work extra hours at the toy store.

I love my family, but I really, really enjoy being at my job. I know most people wish they could spend more time out of work, but I’m looking forward to the day when I can devote even more time to the store. I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic!

——————————

• Audrey had just arrived that morning when Seth set the kitchen on fire. Such a nice greeting!
• I’m glad the kids are getting older, but it’s still a hectic household.
  
• Emma can sell items at the toy store by using this mod that allows other Sims to shop from the store inventory, so she can place toys and things in there that go along with the kinds of items she has on display.

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

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.

StoryProgression

StoryProgression has an option to allow you to set certain households on stasis, which means that the households won’t age, progress in their careers, or anything else while you’re not playing them. Normally, this would be fine, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted. There are some things I don’t mind my Sims doing while I’m not playing them. So instead I set the options for only the features I want to control for each household. In the household options I set the following:

Allow Aging – False
Allow Breakup: Married – False
Allow Breakup: Steady – False
Allow Careers – False
Allow Celebrity – False*
Allow Marriage – False
Allow Move – False
Allow Pregnancy: Progression – False

So my sims are still allowed to flirt, make new friends, study skills, and earn money while I’m playing other households. Allow Careers – False is very important if you don’t want your Sims changing careers behind your back. As soon as you leave a household, story progression will attempt to find a job that it thinks better matches your Sims and suddenly you’ll start getting notices that so-and-so has changed careers (if you have the SP pop ups enabled). This seriously annoyed me back when I first set up Pine Hollow and I found that my Sims were suddenly working in careers I hadn’t chosen for them.

Allow Celebrity – False has an asterisk next to it because of two things. Number one, I set this option for EVERY household in the hood, even the ones that I don’t play with. Every random person in town should not be a celebrity, EA! Number two, I do set this to true ONLY for Sims in the following careers: author, athlete, musician, actor, artist, and politics,  and usually only when they get higher up in their careers when they would have naturally gained some fame. I set this on individual Sims rather than on households because sometimes not everyone in the household should be a celebrity. For instance, Ian Lloyd is a star athlete, so yes, he can be a celebrity. But Nancy and the kids should not be.

Allow Pregnancy: Progression is a tricky option. It sounds like it controls the progression of a pregnancy, but it doesn’t. What it actually controls is whether or not StoryProgression will decide that your Sims need to have a baby and make them pregnant without your permission. So turn this off unless you want surprise notices that someone in town has had a baby while you’re playing another family.

All other households that I don’t play get to have their options left alone (except for the celebrity one). I don’t care if the townies and NPCs age. I’d actually like for them to so that their genetics can carry on through a few generations and provide new people for my families to interact with. The only time I change this is if a certain non-playable becomes important to a playable’s storyline. Like, for instance, if one my Sims is dating a non-playable, I will go and turn aging off for that household so they won’t die of old age while my playable is still a young adult.

StoryProgression has TONS of options in it. It’s a great mod, but very easy to get overwhelmed when looking at all the options you can control. My suggestion is to leave most of them on the default settings and only worry about the options I listed above. Even I’m not familiar with all the options of SP after playing for months with it and there are a couple I saw just now that I think I’ll tweak, but those aren’t options that change gameplay. Just little things, such as charging a fee to families who send their kids to the specialty schools instead of the regular public school. I would think of those as being like private schools, so a fee makes sense.

MasterController

So that brings me to aging. As I said, aging is turned off in all of my playable households. I control age transitions myself and I keep track of all ages for my Sims in my notes:

Aging is turned off in my households, so since installing Generations, the age bars on my playables say that they never age up. Sometimes I set their age bars to the correct age, but usually I don’t even worry about it because hovering over the age bars won’t tell me how long they have left before transitioning, so I just refer to my notes for their ages. I do manually change elders’ ages and keep notice of how far advanced their age bars are to let me know when they’ll die of old age. This is controlled through the MasterController mod, under the Intermediate options. Age transitions can also be done through MC, with the Trigger Age Transition option found in the Intermediate options.

If you’re interested, this is how I have my ages divided up among the TS3 age transitions:

Baby: Newborn to 12 months
Toddler: 1 year to 3 years
Child: 4 years to 10 years
Teen: 11 years to 17 years
YA: 18 years to 35 years
Adult: 36 years to 64 years
Elder: 65 years+ (current elders moved over from TS2 don’t necessarily fit this, but future ones will)

How many days each age lasts isn’t important since I control aging manually for my playables. I let the non-playables age at one of EA’s standard age lengths.

Woohooer

Woohooer is your TS3 option for TS2′s Autonomous Casual Romance and InTeen. It allows teens to woohoo and to also get pregnant (if you want that option in your game. You can turn it off if you don’t). It allows romance between teens and adults, which I would use in cases of high school couples who are different ages. For example, the guy is a year older than his girlfriend, so he ages and “goes to college” (in quotes since we don’t have a real college option, but I do fake it in my hood) but he wants to still keep his relationship with his girlfriend who is now in her last year of high school. Woohooer will allow that. Woohooer also has a risky pregnancy option which I’ve made a rule that every couple who is forgetful about taking their birth control has to use the risky option if I direct them to woohoo. Sims will also autonomously woohoo. I haven’t seen this too often, but I know it does work because I’ve seen Tucker and Cynthia autonomously woohoo and even autonomously try for baby (which I think was just an odd whim they had. They haven’t tried for a baby again since then).

Additional Crucial Mod

Thanks to Laura, I now have a solution for handling pregnancies in my hood. I use this mod, but I’ve edited it in s3pe so that pregnancies last 45 days. (It’s not exactly the same mod that Laura linked to on her mod list, but it works the same way. The other mod gave me errors and crashed my s3pe when I tried to edit it. So I found this one that works for me instead.)  I decided on 45 days because I figured that since one household covers one month, I will play nine households throughout a pregnancy. Dividing 9 households into 45 days gives me 5 days max to play each household. I don’t have any set number of days that I play before changing households. Sometimes I play two or three days, sometimes I play five or six days, it just depends on what’s happening in that household and how interested I am in their story at the moment. Giving myself 5 days max for each household allows me some leeway in checking back in on pregnancies to get the necessary pictures for each trimester and then also getting back to the household before the birth. When a Sim gets pregnant, I already enter it into my round schedule, so I know when I should go back for progress pictures in between the other households.

——————

I use a lot more mods than this, but these are the ones that are my absolute must-haves. Without these mods, I couldn’t continue the prosperity style playing that I like. I love that I can still have some control over what happens with my playables while letting the rest of the hood age, marry, and give birth without me guiding them. Random thing I’ve noticed: It seems like a lot of the hood elders like to marry young adults once their first spouses die, lol! Apparently, all the elders in Pine Hollow are cougars and sugar daddies. There is an option to stop this in StoryProgression, but I keep forgetting to turn it off.

I’ll do more gameplay posts if you guys would like to see them. If you have anything specific you have a question about and want to find out how I do it, please let me know!

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.

The wedding is fairly simple, though Nancy insisted on going all out on the floral arch. They timed the wedding just right so that they would be married before Ian went off for spring training with his team.

At least most of the guests managed to actually sit down at this wedding, although most of them are sitting at the reception tables instead of the ceremony chairs. (Everyone refused to sit at Audrey’s wedding.)

Sarah, Emma, and Sunny just love weddings!

They say the vows, exchange rings…

kiss and after twelve years and two kids, they finally become Mr. and Mrs. Ian Lloyd.

While her parents are getting married, Sasha spends the ceremony playing with a toy bunny. She’s not interested in weddings yet.

Ian is very excited that now it’s time for cake!

Matthew is pretty excited about cake too.

Like father, like son.

Somehow, Jason ends up being the one to tend to his little cousin Sasha when she starts getting bored with her toys.

Her mom is too busy dancing with Seth to notice. Emma wonders if she should be mortified by her husband’s awkward dance moves.

—————————————-

Wedding portraits:

And a couple of outtakes:

“Um, honey, what are you doing?”

I said “smile,” Sasha, not “shove your finger up your nose.”

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!

The first floor contains a waiting area for patients and family members, as well as the reception desk for check ins and patient information. The elevators are behind the desk, but apparently I didn’t take pictures of those. The bathrooms are also just behind the waiting area.

Across the hall is the cafeteria. There’s a food register so visitors can order food and eat here if they want. (Those chairs are actually supposed to be red, but they never show up as red, no matter how long I wait for textures to appear. I may end up changing them.)

You may be thinking about seeds, but I’m thinking that outfit is a little too revealing for work, miss.

Second floor, we have Audrey’s office area where she speaks to patients. Since she has young clients, she wanted an office that was fun and relaxing that would maybe get them to open up more.

She has an enclosed office area to the side where she can type up patient notes and other office work.

Across the hall, we have a room for patients admitted to the hospital.

Next to that is an examination room, for the patients who just need a quick check by a doctor.

And then for the more serious cases, there is the operating room. This is the prep area where the doctors and nurses can wash up or other staff can observe the surgeries from here.

They go through the door into the operating room itself.

Third floor is the women’s wing. There is a large delivery room, with a curtain for privacy and various chairs for family members.

Just next door to the delivery room is the waiting area for extended family and friends, and the windows looking into the nursery.

And the nursery, where all the newest citizens of Pine Hollow are taken care of until they go home.

I just finished this version of the hospital, so I haven’t had any babies born here yet. I have used Audrey’s office for her counseling sessions when I played her household over the weekend. I use the Multi Owner Doors for her office area to set it as hers and to keep other Sims out. The hospital objects can be found here. Some of the objects in the cafeteria came from this cafe break set.

There is also the rabbit hole rug place in a room on the first floor. I didn’t show that because it’s just a big empty room, with only a rug in the center. Not exactly exciting. But that’s where everyone will actually go when they visit the hospital, go to work, or give birth. Audrey works as a counseling psychologist, a job I created from my Sims 2 version of the career. The job is set to work at the hospital and it seems to be working okay, but I have a few things I still need to fix before I release it. And I’d like to have some other people test it out before I release it publicly (let me know if you’re interested…whenever I manage to get the last kinks worked out).

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.

Summer would have been better, but then she’d have to deal with day long baby-sitters for the kids. So really, there isn’t a good time. Hopefully after she finishes this, she won’t be called again until the kids are grown and out of the house!

She finds that jury duty mostly consists of sitting around and waiting. Waiting to find out if she’ll be called into the courtroom. Waiting. Waiting.

And talking with her fellow potential jurors, some of whom seem way too excited to be called for jury duty.

Since Carol is at the courthouse until five each day, Zared rearranges his schedule to get off work early to watch the kids. He likes to take them to the park afterschool so they can play and release all of the energy they’ve been holding in all day. He cooks hot dogs while they entertain themselves on the playground, then they’ll have a picnic dinner and save a hot dog for Carol.

“Can I swing?” Adam asks.

“No room,” Ethan tells him.

“All full,” Isabella adds.

“You’re supposed to share,” Adam reminds them. “That’s what Mom always says.”

“Mom’s not here,” Ethan says, sticking his tongue out at his brother.

Ethan and Isabella have been teasing Adam a lot lately.

All because they caught Lily Gates-Watson giving him a hug on the front porch one night. Now Ethan says Lily is Adam’s girlfriend and he’s gotten Isabella in on it too.

Adam has given up insisting that Lily is just his friend. Who happens to be a girl. He knows one thing: he’s never hugging her again!

“Why did you hug her then?” Ethan asks over breakfast the next morning, after Adam grumbles about Ethan’s teasing.

“She hugged me,” Adam says.

“Mommy and Daddy hug all the time,” Isabella says. “Because they love each other. Do you and Lily love each other?”

“No!” Adam shouts.

“Well, I’m not going around hugging any girls,” Ethan says. “Not even Lily.”

“Not even me?” Isabella asks.

“Not even you,” Ethan tells her. “You have germs.”

Isabella gets up from the table, pushing her chair in as hard as she can. “You’re mean, Ethan,” she says as she stomps out of the room.

At least now Adam has someone on his side since Isabella is mad at Ethan for his germ comment. Isabella likes to read a lot instead of going out to play, but Adam doesn’t mind. He’s always been the more easygoing sibling, the one who follows along with whatever Ethan or Isabella wants to do. He likes reading just as much as Isabella does anyway, so they read together in silence while Ethan plays alone in his room, grumbling something about “dumb old brothers and sisters who never like to have fun.”

After three days of sitting around at the courthouse all day, Carol finally gets the call telling her that she’s dismissed from jury duty for this case. She tries not to feel too relieved. She agrees that it’s her duty as a tax paying citizen…but honestly, she’s really, really happy to get back to her classroom!

Zared invites his brother over a lot these days, trying to get him out of the house, trying to get him involved with regular life again. Zane took an extended leave from the school after Lexi’s death and he’s only just recently gone back to work. But he still moves through his days in a fog, barely talking to anyone.

Zared knows his brother isn’t paying attention to the movie he rented at all. It’s a comedy, something dumb and predictable, but full of easy, mindless laughs. He’d love to hear Zane laugh again, or even just see him smile.

“It’s going to get better,” Zared tells him.

“When?” Zane asks. His voice is quiet, raspy, like he hasn’t used it in a long time.

Zared doesn’t have an answer for that, so he says, “I know how you feel–”

“No,” Zane says sternly. “You don’t know, Zared. You can’t know, unless…” His voice trails off and he leaves the thought unfinished.

Zared is quiet for a moment. He hates this, the way Zane feels as if he’s mourning all alone. As if he’s the only one who gets to be sad.

“We all lost her,” Zared says quietly. “And we all miss her.”

Zane stands suddenly, not looking at his brother. “I should go.”

“Don’t you want to see the end of the movie?” Zared asks.

“I already know how it ends,” Zane says. “They all lived happily ever after in their fictional world.”

As he walks toward the door, he adds, “But it’s just a movie. Real life is harder than they know.”

————————————-

• Carol got the jury duty ROS and had to spend three days at the courthouse. I was so worried she’d end up losing her job from calling in for three days, but luckily she didn’t.
• We won’t see Zane and Belinda’s household until the fall, but I wanted to give a little glimpse into how they’re holding up. Zane really didn’t stay long. He sat down for a few minutes, then got up and left suddenly.
• Isabella should have black alien eyes too, but the alien contacts I have won’t let me put them on a child so she has normal eyes instead (although they are black also).
• When did Zane and Zared get to be almost 40???