Away from raising Sims, I've been working on another house to upload here. First time I'm tackling an existing housing floor plan with a basement.

Shortly after the Livingoodt family, I've been working on the Know family. I repeated the process of having two Sims in college who are very fond of each other, then put them in an apartment complex until they've earned enough simoleons to live in their own house. The couple's aspiration meters are maxed out, their newly adopted cat is already at top promotion in Service, a new dalmatian has moved into the family, and there's a little one on the way. Still buying more stuff for their home as they continue to work their butts off almost every day. I honestly do not want to deal with nannies or butlers again, so I might have one of the Livingoodts give them a Servo as a special gift.

This rotation I've had three deaths of elders. The first was Lucille Straight, former mayor of Bluewater village. She died age 75, leaving a daughter and grandson. Her husband had died 9 years before. The second was Captain Hero, John Noir, who died age 68. He leaves a widow, two sons and two granddaughters. Lastly, the death of rock god, Chantal, caused an upset. She was also 75. She leaves a widower, three surviving children and four grandchildren. Her twin brother is devastated (and I think he'll be next). Chantal did, however, see the wedding of her youngest son, Tom, before she died.

The residents of Sedona are popping like popcorn.

The Widespot residents have all been resettled into my medieval 'hood. I first opened each house to see how moving had affected everyone's wants. Mary Land had become almost completely fixated on Junior - she had a want to get engaged to him, a want to marry him, a want to talk to him, and a want to kiss him, as well as a fear of being rejected for engagement and a kiss with him. She did have a fear of being rejected for engagement to Valentine, too. Valentine had a fear of getting engaged to Mary, and his wants didn't include her at all. Candy feared commitments to both of the Manns and had generic romance wants. Junior's wants were all about Mary. Sandy Beech had wants to talk and flirt with her husband.

At the Land household, Homer has indentured the family to Baron Valentine Hart. That gives the Land family access to some funds immediately as well as the right to use mortgage shrubs, but they will have restrictions on the whole family and obligations to the Harts until they pay off the indentures. Fortunately, Valentine was fairly generous and the obligations are fairly minor right now; he's also happy to help send some of the Land children to university if they are able to get in, both because it will help them and he sees it as an investment. Dixie promptly took the opportunity and left for university; she'll have to move back to Hart lands when she graduates. The other families are merchants or yeomen and live on land controlled by the Gavigans.

I've set the Mann family up as merchants. Rich will be running several businesses in the port, some legitimate and some illegal. The first he opened was a fabric/clothing shop, and he's hired a playable peasant to help there. Lana loves the shop and its imported fabrics, and she enjoys making fashion suggestions to customers. The next business will be in a warehouse by the docks - Rich will run it with the help of other criminals in town and sell stolen and smuggled goods. While his parents were busy with their shop, Junior had a dream date with Mary and proposed to her. After the date, Junior, Rich, and Mary talked for a while; Rich seems to get along well with Mary. Lana was less impressed by the engagement; she wanted Junior to marry up in class, not someone from a lower class.

Mary Land invited Junior over to the Land farm meet any of her family that he didn't already know. He asked if he could bring a friend; he showed up with Valentine just after Mary had her pregnancy pop. Mary rolled a fear of being caught cheating. There were no flirtatious interactions though, and she and Valentine chatted and then Valentine went to talk to Homer. I think both men were aware of who the father of the baby was, and Junior had brought Valentine to discuss the situation and sort out financial obligations. For his part, Valentine believes Junior is a good match for Mary and wants her to be happy. Valentine gave her permission to leave his lands and also offered to provide a very generous dowry to her. Junior isn't happy that Mary's first child won't be his, but he loves her and will raise the child as if it were his own; he'll even lie to his parents and tell them it is (I'm going to use simBlender to set family flags). I had Mary and Junior change their turn ons/offs, and Mary lost the bolt she had with Valentine and now has three bolts with Junior. Junior spent part of the visit building relationships with Homer, Scot, and Beulah, while Valentine played chess with River.

At the Hart's, Rich Mann walked by and was invited in by Candy. She made it clear to him that she had no interest in marriage to Junior or in causing a scandal, but avoiding a scandal was going to be an inconvenience - staying home, hiding the pregnancy, finding someone to care for the baby.... Rich doesn't want Lana upset by an affair, and didn't know if the child was his or Junior's, so he offered to give Candy a lot of money for the care of her and the baby (3x the amount Valentine gave to Mary for her dowry). I wasn't sure what Candy was going to do with the baby until she and the rest of the Harts showed up as the welcome wagon to the new abbey being built near their lands. When little Joyous Hart was born, none of the Harts had very high relationships with her but had friendships with the two nuns, so she was placed in the abbey orphanage. Rich visited the abbey and played with her, but he isn't willing to have her around Lana and he's not sure how Mary would feel about her. Once Junior meets his daughter, he's likely to want to bring her home though, and Mary would be happy to adopt her the same way Junior is adopting her child. Valentine and Rhett spent the fall meeting new people, and Valentine also spent a lot of time with Goldie. Her grades have risen slightly, and she has started showing an interest in the local government. As for the arrangement between the Lands and Harts, Candy is more annoyed about the gifts to Mary, while Rhett isn't sure that the terms of the indenture will benefit the Harts. He's not as sure as Valentine is about the investment benefits of educated tenants and he thinks the Lands should be providing more labour or food than the contract describes.

Back at the Mann's, Mary and Junior had a quiet and private exchange of vows. Valentine had given Mary some clothes as well as the dowry money, so Lana was somewhat satisfied. Lana still wasn't friendly with Mary, but she was polite. When Mary's family came over for dinner, however, Lana chose to ignore them all and spent the evening by herself on the piano. In contrast, Rich seemed to be trying to make friends with all of the Lands, and spent a lot of time playing with the children. A day or so later, Mary gave birth to Annie Mann, and while not part of their family tree, the Manns all recognize her as family.

After finishing the fall with those three families, I went on to the Weiss household. Skye is working at the school run by the monks and nuns, but he isn't comfortable around them, probably because he's not sure how they feel about supernatural beings and he's afraid to loose his children or his job. Woody had a quiet but successful outing and then date with Virginia, and spent most of the rest of autumn painting. Penny read, did some repairs around the house, and made a couple of new friends (including one of the nuns) while waiting for the end of her pregnancy. She eventually gave birth to a boy with her green skin and with Skye's eye colour; she named him Cirrus. After nursing him and having a snack, Penny was exhausted so I sent her to bed. Woody then played with his nephew and spent some time chatting with visitors; Beulah had dropped by, presumably to be sure Penny was OK and that the baby was being cared for. I learned that Penny had woken up and started stargazing when the picture-in-picture window popped up to show her being stolen by fairies (Almighty Hat's mod and PT set). She came back pregnant by Corrigan Moth. Both Penny and Skye were thrilled that she'd been taken by fairies, but Woody was horrified and fears it may happen again. They'll need to get more infant and toddler items.

I was thinking of ways to reduce the number of paid employees and controllables for a restaurant, so I had an idea - I'd put several neat ghosts at the back so that they could help clean up. I know that I can use mods to control them but I was curious if it'd work out this way (yet gathering the ghosts probably defeated the purpose of finding an easy set-up).

It half-worked and half-didn't. They did clean up the dirty dishes and bathrooms but some of them kept scaring the customers away, though at least they also mopped up some of the pee puddles they caused. Well, I predicted that, but it was still kind of funny to me. I'm considering keeping them around.

That would be a neat idea for a themed restaurant tailored towards knowledge Sims.

Anyone recognize that pair?

Might be a bit hard, here is a hint


Hint 2


I decided it was high time to make dedicated farms from all of the newer farm/animals/food uploads and as I was about to go to CAS and start creating farm couples I thought I should tidy up that family bin. My medieval game has all the townies, sim bin sims etc in it. So I decided I would have Herb and Faith be my melon farmers with Aysarth wonderful addition to maxis garden plants. Check it out http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=602665

There are TWO babies in the family.....

I am sure Trent Traveller and Chester Gieke will be pleased with their new grandchildren.

Teen Sally Reilly brought a male townie friend home from work. They were hanging around by the mailbox and I was busy making sure Timothy and Vivian took care of themselves while giving toddler Karen everything she needed. Then I got a pop-up about "Sally, the word in the neighbourhood is that you're not a very nice person. You'd better look out for yourself," so I scooted over to see what was going on. She was slapping Justin, he was crying, and their relationship score was -70. Something tells me I won't be sending him to college as a potential husband for her.

I started an Uberhood recently with all Maxis hoods, plus Tarlia's Viper Canyon. This is my first time playing a hood with ACR installed, and I have to say, I do not regret installing that mod, it's hilarious. Lola Curious came home from work with a townie, and then proceeded to WooHoo with her - they're not even friends yet! And, even more shockingly, while playing the Brokes, Darren Dreamer and Mary Gavigan showed up as part of the Welcome Wagon, and ended up making out after spending all day at the Broke house. Well, that's a crack pairing if I've ever seen one!

Spoilered for pictures:

.. that is funny

You know the half wall w/ the just basic top, well I was usin CFE and so the walls went up and down, but that top pieces somehow got stuck all my itself on the second floor when I'd deleted the rest of the wall that was on the first floor. I couldn't grab it either so I used the hammer on it and that got rid of it, but like yours it gave me a giggle to see it free floatin out there.

My sweet Tarek Lari rolled a want to have his baby. :lovestruc Phil Collinsworth of course rolled the want first, but I did give him Family as his secondary aspiration. We'll have to see if the others roll their own wants. Aaron Atkins currently wants to meet someone new, so maybe that'll have to be good enough.

So the hostel saga continues...

Bellefleur has another YA engagement!

Mayor Mary Sue Pleasant is pleased to announce that her youngest daughter, Ellen Pleasant, has become engaged to Mark Borgia, the youngest son of Count Armand Borgia.

No date has been set for the wedding.

(However, that would not have happened had Ellen not gotten drunk on beer & proposed to Mark...)

I'm still playing though Emerald Heights, though I'm very close to finishing that part of the rotation and moving on to the next subhood. Jhonattan Goth was having a rough time of it. His horrible reputation and difficult personality make it hard to make friends, much less find love. He kept rolling flirting and dating wants, so I sent him out to various bars and nightclubs. Unfortunately, he just couldn't meet any compatible guys. I'm hoping he meets a potential love interest while I'm playing someone else.

I was very excited when it was time to play the Rotspatz women! Desiree and Esmee joined the paranormal career. Desiree was most focused on increasing her magical skill, however. Esmee was ready for love again, so she started pursuing Dr. Adam Splitter. It's a weird dynamic, given she's also all about the magical and he's at the top of the science career. But really, it's an opportunity for Dr. Adam to study magic up close. Esmee is already envisioning marriage down the line. Between her family's magic and his advanced scientific skills, she's confident she could have at least one more child with him. Dr. Adam now has things going with both Esmee and Mata Dore, so we'll see how this will be resolved. But it is dangerous to mess with a witch, so he'd better be careful!

Katelyna was put on babysitting duty a lot because Desiree and Esmee were out at night with their work. Kat loves her cousin Elvira, and doesn't mind helping with homework and cooking, but it did drive her a bit nuts because she's desperate to meet some guys. She finally got out one night and met a few possibilities, including Bertrand Cortina, a downtownie who's already sleeping with Cecily Wentworth.

At the other Rotspatz household, Isaac did his best to make a nice house for his cousin Isaiah. He got a job as a parking attendant because he knows that while he inherited a lot of money, it can go fast if no new money is coming in. Isaac met Hope DeFirrd and felt really drawn to her. He's had a hard time since losing his parents, and he can't even imagine growing up like her with no family and no money! Hope likes Isaac, and his fancy home and beautiful possessions.

Timothy Riley and Vivian Cho got married! Vivian got pregnant on the first day of her honeymoon and had to order room service a lot just to keep up with the hunger motive. When she got home I bumped her pregnancy up to the third trimester. Of course, she has an amazing sense of timing and decided to go into labour just as Timothy was giving the headmaster a tour of the apartment. The headmaster was freaking out and panicking during the cutscene. They named their daughter Susan...and then promptly went and tried for baby again.

Aside from that, Sally made friends with Jill Smith, and Vivian made friends with a vacation local in the Far East. Rick Contrary moved into Vivian's old apartment and got a roommate.

The Baxter’s Halloween party was a success, at least for Sarah Baxter; she got engaged with Rufus Parker, the lost son of Coral and Herb Oldie. Even with the Police interruption, she got a good memory. Don Baxter in the other hand got caught cheating by Samantha, one of his secret lovers, couldn’t seduce Lupita and got beat down by Rufus after an altercation.

Mysterious births in the mysterious neighbourhood of Sedona! Eight babies were born to four different fathers all early in the morning on the first day of Fall.

Phil Collensworth gave birth to a girl and a boy whom he named Delenn and Bariel.
Tarek Lari gave birth to two boys whom he named Akash and Najm.
Aaron Atkins also gave birth to two boys whom he named Isaiah and Zechariah.
Jared Spurlock gave birth to a girl and a boy whom he named Ayelet and Moishe.

Of the eight new arrivals, all but one have alien eyes; Najm Lari has Tarek's brown eyes instead. And all but one have alien skin; Delenn Collensworth shares Phil's skin tone instead.

Of the four human fathers, three are overjoyed by their new addtions, but Jared's still not quite sure how he feels about being thrust into parenthood. All four cite their fellow abductees' friendship and support as their greatest asset as they recover physically and do their best to care for their children.

In unrelated news, Aaron was excited to meet the mail carrier because she turned out to be female! Not that gender matters much to Aaron, but he understands it matters to Tarek, so he's hoping to get a chance to introduce them (Tarek really isn't Aaron's type anyway, even if he wasn't straight).

My gaming machine quit on me six times today. On no occasion was I able to make it perform actual work of any type for more than 15 minutes.

The computer guy says it's the hard drive. Or the CPU cache. Or the actual CPU.

Meanwhile, the internet computer went through a phase today of not opening Chrome at all, and another of not allowing more than one tab in it.

If I disappear for awhile, this will be why.

Alvin Curtin was a townie teen. His girlfriend Neveah Watson had 2 sets of twins on risky sneakouts, so he had 4 children before he became an adult. He joined the military as a way of providing for these children, but Neveah got tired of waiting for him to move home from the base, so she broke up with him.

He dated a few fellow soldiers before meeting a townie named Brittany.

His children grew up during his time in the military, and started to have children of their own. His 8th grandchild was born right before he married Brittany. Brittany had their first child, Brianna, a few days before he became an elder.

Alvin is now 85 days old. He is the father of 7, grandfather of 8, and soon-to-be great-grandfather of 2. Brittany just got pregnant again. He will have a child younger than his great-grandchildren.

Here's Alvin introducing his oldest son Alvin Jr to his youngest son Bradley:

Oh, oh...sounds like the Grim Reaper is coming for your machine! I sincerely hope and pray you have been a good pixel player and made backups of everything..the hard drive sounds like its little legs are about to kick up and it's gonna roll over dead.

I hope that it isn't the entire system, but if it is, my condolences. It's tough to lose a computer that you've grown accustomed to..

@Peni Griffin, I hope you're able to get your computer issues solved. Would it be too much to get a brand new computer? Since Christmas is around the corner, I'm sure you could another gaming rig for a good price.

---

Currently, I'm building some community lots in my Elgin hood. I started working on the town's school. When I'm finished with the school, I'll build a bank. So my sims can start taking out loans, and making investments.

@Peni Griffin - Did the computer guy check the Power Supply? (I had such a problem, they checked everything but the power supply, which turned out to be the problem in the end).

From Carr's Crossing:

"Dear Mr. Ottomas,

As you are no doubt aware, your period of National Service will shortly be coming to an end. In the light of your excellent attendance and performance records, the Sims Combined Forces would be delighted to offer you permanent employment at SMB Strangetown, beginning at your current grade of Junior Officer. If you wish to avail yourself of this offer, please advise your Commanding Officer so that arrangements can be made for your transportation and accommodation at the base.

If you do not wish to continue in the Military, your CO will gladly make arrangements for your travel to the university of your choice or for your return to Downtown. Should you wish to continue living in Carr's Crossing as a civilian, please be aware that you will not be able to continue using a National Service room; arrangements for civilian accommodation at the Hostel must be made directly with the Hostel Manager.

Please advise your CO of your decision as soon as possible.

We thank you for your service and wish you every success in your future endeavours."

David considered his options carefully. What he really wanted was to be a musician, which narrowed his choices to two: go to university or move back to Downtown. He knew his mother wanted him to go to university, but he also knew that he really wasn't academically inclined; he barely met the minimum grade requirements and didn't qualify for any kind of scholarship. Yes, he might meet a nice girl at college, as his grandmother was wont to point out, but there were plenty of single women in the 'real world,' too. He'd saved up a nice little nest-egg during his National Service and could easily afford a comfortable condo, even if he wasn't quite ready to buy yet.

"Sorry, Mum," he said to the empty air as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled his CO's number. If he wanted to be a musician, it made sense to get on with being a musician.