Still Workin' On It

I haven't played Laurel since putting in my clean template, so I have to redecorate her apartment before I can do the next update. And I have to finish her store! Holy crap, she's been so worried about being ready for the grand opening in time and here I am goofing off and causing her delays! Bad Beverly!

Poor Nigel (and: So Much For The Hiatus)

Yeah, yeah, I am supposed to be working on my family tree project, but I couldn't resist a little Simming.

When I put in a clean template for Belladonna Cove, I unintentionally deleted the Drummond house, so I decided to renovate the Eaxis Witch Sisters House (the Cordial family, I think) and move Heidi and family in there.

I converted it to a four bedroom, four bath home. Sylvia (Grandma) and the boys have very small bedrooms, but the Drummonds are all about family togetherness, so they will be spending most of their time in their lovely new family room or in the kitchen.

While I was looking for some toilet paper for the bathrooms ('cause I am compulsive that way - my Sims always have TP and soap and towels and light switches and heating vents and so forth), I stumbled across a UNICORN.

I had to have it.

But, what to do with it?

I remembered that the last time I played the Drummonds, Nigel was constantly turning on the TV to watch the movie about fairies. And I thought "Oh, no, what would Sophia say if she knew this?"

*Evil snicker*

So now Nigel is a sensitive boy who likes fairy movies and has dreams about unicorns.

He's going to have a rough childhood, but don't worry. I have a special plan to make it all up to him later.

Short Hiatus?

I think I'll probably take about two weeks off Simming. I signed up for a free trial at Ancestry.com and I want to get a lot of work done there before I have to cancel my trial subscription. 'Cause yeah, it's like $200 or something. And guess what? It's as user-unfriendly as an unpatched, un-Pescado'd version of the Sims!

I might get fed up and work on my Sims instead.

WTH? That's Unsavory!

I know that AL causes the Unsavory Charlatan to show up in all sorts of odd places, but the local elementary school? JEEZ!

I didn't see any children running away screaming "BAD TOUCH", so I guess he was just there to steal their lunch money.

Too bad for him - Sophia probably already did that.

Be Gone!

I just can't deal with the overabundance of townies and Eaxis playables SWARMING ALL OVER Belladonna Cove.

And I do mean SWARMING!

Just because I got interested in one Eaxis family does not mean I wish to be subjected to SWARMS.

So I cloned everysim of importance yesterday, installed a clean template, and am now busily making decent Sims to provide a background population for the hood.

Some notes of interest (or not):

-- Never, never ignore an error message in SimPE. I did and ended up replacing Laurel, Sophia, Marcus, the Drummond twins, and the twins' grandmother with clones of Kate Seldon. WTH. Luckily, I am aware of my ineptitude and had made a backup since I knew I'd screw something up. So it's all good now.

-- Even with a blank template, there are still over 50 characters required to run Belladonna Cove! I could do NPC replacements, but that's a bit too much effort for right now. I'll never see most of those NPCs, anyway. My main interest is decreasing the SWARM!

-- I've prosperity rolled about 15 or so families so far and guess how many teenagers I've gotten. One!

-- I said I prosperity rolled them, but that's a lie. I actually DO start the families out that way, I'll add, subtract, or split up families to make things more realistic. For example, I always seem to get a jillion single parent families, so after a while, I just start adding in another parent. Or, if I get too many elder-adult-children families, I'll break them up into smaller households.

-- I really like making Sim families.

Oh Noes! What Have I Done?!?!?

I adore Sophia, but I am starting to feel pretty bad about putting all these other innocent chillens in her path. First the Drummond twins, now poor little Brianna Seldon. Oh, bad, bad Beverly.

Do y'all ever feel sorry for your Sims after you make bad things happen to them?

By Request - AL Toddler Interactions

For those who were wondering what the new toddler interactions look like, here are some screenshots.

By the way, that's custom hair on the girl and a custom outfit on the boy. Custom clothes for the parents, too, but the Mom's hair comes with AL.

PEEKABOO

Or, as we say in the South, "Peepeye".

This is my favorite new toddler interaction, because the kiddos laugh so much.

In picture 1, you can see the little boy raring back in excitement.

In picture 3, you can see his sister pointing eagerly at Mommy. "Ah-ha, Mom, you can't fool me!"








THE HORSEY

A parent helps the toddler onto the horse. See Dad guarding the little one's noggin?

The kid rocks back and forth and when he gets into it, he does a cute little rodeo cowboy hand in the air thing.

Exit from the horsey comes via the Toddler Butt Flop. You know, that way they have of sitting down abruptly on their bottoms that would cripple the average adult.









THE HUGGLE

Although these toddlers can't yet walk, they did stand and lumber toward each other for the huggle.

The girl initiated this huggle. See her little arms waving in the first shot? Her brother didn't look too thrilled with the idea at first.

They kept huggling with their faces turned away from me for some reason.