My self-sim's daughter (who isn't even a teenager yet) is close to maxing out her cooking, logic, and mechanical; has about half of her cleaning and charisma points; and has completely maxed out her creativity and sold four Masterpieces... without any cheating! I haven't set her age back, cheated her skills, or anything like that. She doesn't have the Stuck Smartmilk bug, either..

At first I was amazed.. I hadn't even noticed how much skill-building she was doing. But then I realized that she lives in my custom 'hood where 3/4 of the seasons are Fall.. lol! I guess I've found the secret to sim-success! ;P

At the moment, I'm doing a lot of background stuff, this includes anything from breaking off relationships to modifying a sim's home, I have SimPE open almost all of the time, and I'm trying to make sure that my neighborhood is perfect; I.E. getting a grocery store, a big one (:, and then more and more stores and community lots, check the Housing and Landscaping thread in the picture forums to see the buildings in my Pleasantview.

I feel in love with the Twilight series, so I made them into sims. Any one who read the books will know who I am talking about. I had Isabella marry Edward and then I had Alice marry Jasper, I had them move into gather and they each had a kid (even though it is impossible for vampires to have kids) Isabella had a girl, Elizabeth (after Edwards mother) and Alice had a boy, William. The kids are teens know, and they are going steady. I can't wait untill they can marry. One day I may do Roselie and Emmett have kids, but one step at a time.

My Sim family (The Mitts... weird last name but it's modeled after my cousin's family who's last name is Pitts.) Anyways, Helen Mitts just had her third child, and it's another little girl. Her husband just got a promotion at work. And the teen daughter moved to college. That's about it right now. Helen started a business before her pregnancy, but she stayed home until she had the baby.

So I've been playing my favorite teenacy family for a while (the Wartons.) They consist of Chase and Amelia, two teen parents who had a baby named Emile. Amelia quit school and her job to stay at home and take care of Emile, Chase had to work minimum wage and going to school to support his family. It really hasn't been tough for Amelia and Chase to take care of Emile except when she wakes up at 4 in the morning screaming for Daddy. In which amazingly, Chase has become an overachiever, well almost, he hadn't enough time for skill building to be promoted. When Emile grew up to be a child, it was Chase's decision to pursue his career and moved to college. Now Amelia is jobless and out of school and has no means of supporting her family with only 1000 dollars in her bank account, YET she is going to wait until Emile grows up to be a teenager or when Chase comes back and has a better work schedule. Now Amelia calls Chase at least once every week to catch up.

Lets see - Brandi lost all her tapestry and floors when somebody decided to delete her download folder that contained all the stuff that came from installing lots (except the ones downloaded in august as the Acosta girls skin is in that bunch) - so Brandi was forced to use what little monney she had on renovations. The outside of her hut is still bare as she ran out of money. Also having the dog forced Brandi to make a bathroom renovation so it could fit a tub and in case that's not enough money well spent - thanks to the expensive bills x10 + a 320 simolean rent Brandi was forced to take a job to support herself. Her 150 simolean retirement just wasn't doing it. Tomorrow will be her first day in the adventure acreer. I'll let her work through the winter, but in the spring she will quit her job and focus on growing plants so she wouldn't need to spend money on grocories.

Due to bad micromanagement Anita ended up dead from lack of rest while having the flu and while having the real sickness hack. It came as a bit of a surprise as her stats were pretty good really - no hints on death approaching. Well - I don't like this girl that much but I didn't want her being dead either - so I exited without saving. Anita has 20 simoleans in her account - a 302 simolean bill that's due tomorrow - and a 210 rent that's due in two days. The repo man has visited once - it seems he will be doing at least two more visits. Due to having so many enemies Anita always had her trash on the ground which of course led to roaches. She hired the exterminator - he took a chair and a computer as payment. As I really wanted to know what happens if you use the money machine while on low aspiration - I let Anita counterfeit some money (but not take it - I want to keep her poor). For the dissapointment of all my sims - counterfeiting money while on low aspiration doesn't get you busted - it will just set a fire to the machine. Anita will be an adult today at 18.00. When that happens i'll put her fuming dirty toilet, her fridge and her dirty counters in her inventory - put a tv-dinner in the oven and go for a ride - I want to see how the fire will spred. Then I'll let her move out of the house.

I started an economy based neighbourhood that is running on the very basics now. My sim, Halle, who sells household essentials, will eventually be moving on from the necessary furniture (as soon as another sim can take that over and make it into a full fledged furniture store). Halle already has aspirations of owning an art deco store, selling things to beautify the home like home made paintings, and little deco items for around the house. I'm currently making pictures for her to paint and sell in her shop.

As for the neighbourhood itself, I've taken care of the food source...the mayor, Jean-Luc Picard (I really love the fact that he's the mayor) is getting some taxes. It's small for now because really, I'm only a week into playing and there are only 3 other households. Once this neighbourhood gets a bit more on it's feet, the taxes will probably either go up or the population will get bigger.

A few days ago I started a legacy family, the Donovans. Anthony is a Fortune Sim with a LTW of being Business Tycoon. He was quite fortunate that the very first job in the paper on day 1 was Business. He's married to Andrea Hogan (the chick with the slanty haircut and gold-ish formal dress... she's since had a massive makeover LOL) and they have a son named Blake, who just became a child today.

At the moment, Anthony is doing very well as a Vice President and Andrea is looking into getting a job in the Education field now that Blake will be in school. When she and Anthony married, she was in the military (don't remember what rank though) but she hated it and wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
Nothing too exciting yet, except Anthony got electrocuted the other day while fixing a computer himself (they couldn't afford the repairman at the time). He's fine now though.

After Jonathan and Alexandra got married, Jonathan’s brother Henry moved out and quit his education carrier. He spends most of time, having fun, doing nothing particularly. (He’s a pleasure sim.) His creativity skill is high enough so he earns good money by playing guitar in community lots and gets really good tips. He is dating Lilia Santana who is also lover of his best friend Jake Henderson at the same time.

Lilia is a romance sim. She seduced most of the married men in West Port. She wants a rich husband so she got herself pregnant by Jake Henderson who is promising doctor. But Jake has no intention to do anything serious with Lilia because he’s married to socialité Isabelle Henderson with twins Royce and Liana.

Isabelle doesn’t know yet that his husband is having an affair with Lilia and has a child by her. She’s a fortune sim and wants a wealthy life for her family. After the twins were born she hired a nanny Julia Martinelli to live with them so that she can keep working.

Lilia gave a birth to baby boy Ricardo. Luckily Gloria Alvarez moved in to the flat next to them and made their life easier. While Lilia is working, Gloria is taking care of Little Ricardo.

Meantime Serge DiMera was caught by his wife Natasha while he was cheating her with Lilia. Serge is a family sim and he works a lot in their garden by selling the fresh products that he and Natasha produce. Though he loves his wife very much, he cannot keep himself away from Lilia who is beautiful and seductive. On the other hand Natasha wants to keep the family together. She forgave Serge and they had three children whom they called Lucas, Ariel and Stephan.

Jonathan and Alexandra are having their best time at the moment. They are happily married and both of them has a succesful carreer.

I've just reinastalled my game, so I'm building lots and creating sims to build a new neighbourhood, big process ö I've just finished building a mall =)

Bigfoot just started up a hair salon.

Bigfoot's Big Hair. And it's doing splendidly

All my Sims moved to another Neighborhood. Most of them need a new home. It's a really big move.

My husband's game last night: He was building a new house for a family and after spending almost an hour on it he learned one very important lesson. Never put one of the fire jets in a giant fountain. Water burns quite nicely, and he hadn't gotten around to putting a phone or fire alarm in yet. The whole courtyard went up, with the parents and the toddler in the middle of it. The teen had driven herself and her younger brother and sister to school, so they were out of it at first. The parents both died. After that, the teen got home from school and incinerated herself trying to get the toddler out of the middle of the fire. Then the social worker came. Unfortunately she didn't burn up before claiming the toddler. When the two children came home from school my husband used the age sims cheat to turn them temporarily into teens so they could extinguish what remained of the fire, unlocked the resurrect-o-nomitron and used motherlode to get enough money to recover their parents and sister, then used the teleporter shrub to get the toddler back. Then he re-set the kids as kids. Now they have nightmares, but at least he didn't lose all the work he had done on a lot that hadn't been saved at all yet.

Still in the Donovan legacy:
Anthony reached the top of the Business career and is now working on maxing out all skills. Andrea *finally* got a job in the Education career the day Blake became a teen. Because she already had so many skill points and tons of friends, she's zooming along. His parents thought Blake would follow his father into Business but opted instead for the Adventure career. At the moment he's still at the first teen level but should be promoted today. He's dating Brittany Parker (the little redhead in purple that often comes home with child sims. They were best friends so I decided to grow her up when Blake grew up). Note that this is not a strict legacy as I'm using a few cheats along the way (like growing Brittany up, though I dunno if that counts or not).

Anthony is about a week away from being elder; Andrea's a couple of days behind him. Blake is about a week and a half from being an adult.

Sidneyjo that all sounds hilarious.

I just installed the hack that allows teen sims to become pregnant. Well, I got my sim all cozy with the another sim. But I wanted her to hurry and get pregnant. So I clicked on her biological clock and told her to have a baby with a sim. Well, I got the names confused and she accidentally had a baby with her father. Now I think it's so gross that I am making the teen move out of the house with the baby.

Yeah that's gross. You could also end the pregnancy, and have her get pregnant by the right sim.

I haven't started any other families since starting the Donovans, so I'll continue with that update.

Anthony & Andrea are both elders now; Blake is an adult and married to Brittany Parker (once again I aged her up when Blake aged). They are expecting their first child in a few days. Andrea is I think at level 8 in the Education career. Brittany expects to follow in her mother-in-law's footsteps once her unborn child is in school. Hopefully she'll have better luck getting a job sooner than Andrea did LOL

Later Update:
Brittany became unbearably annoying during pregnancy. She gave birth to a son named Christopher and then died in a "tragic" swimming-related accident shortly thereafter.

Anthony retired so Blake could keep working without having to hire a babysitter. Andrea should be reaching the top of the Education career today.

Alot actually - and on the other hand not much. I spent the whole of yesterday playing with Anita - have to say that trying to keep a popularity sim who's living alone happy and alive is really hard. Anyhow - I won't bore you with more dtails regarding this - as I think that the business controll thingi I downloaded destroyed my neighborhood. First all was good - I had it in my game but it was not being used by Anita in her flower business. Then suddenly people would buy things - but never pay for their purchases - they'll just play water balloon fight untill they got hungry and then left. So I exit the game in a hope that what ever broke would be fixed by a restart - but when I get back - there's no pleasentview any more - gone. Anyhow - after looking around for a while - I got the hint - did a major celanout in my download folder - only kept a handfull of items I knew what they were - then deleted the whole ea games folder from my computer. Fresh start So I downloaded Basin City from MTS2 - the layout is perfect - you have two parts that are perfect for dense habitation and you can seperate them to a rich part of town and poor part of town - then you have parts that are good for farms. I called it Basin City - it's a good name and I have no imagination when it comes to naming things. The majority of yesterday went into finding items I know I would miss not having. As I also delted all my clothes and hairs - I downloaded some Nouk hairs - and a few sets of underwear - so no woman of mine needs to wear maxis default underwear. I'm still missing four items and one curch that I really would love to have back but I haven't found them yet. My download folder is organized to the limits - no more bulk downloads and no more set downloads and no more quantity - quality is better.

Anyhow - after all this initializing - I did have time to create my first family in Basin city - Arwen Miller. It's the same idea as with the Pleasentview Arwin - living of the land. I let her join the gardening club - forgot it was forbidden. But I'm going to have a nother living of the land family coming soon so I'll keep that in mind. As I don't have any rich people yet - or nobody I can lend money from - Arwen's bakery is completley outside at the moment. She doesn't even have a pet yet. But she is 0 outgoing so the littel interaction she gets keeps her happy for long periods.

Ever since chase went to college, he's always wanted go move to a Greek house. unfortunately, Chase joined the sorority instead of the fraternity! (That was obv. my error) I thought the Tri-Var house was the Fraternity. Woops. Well now he's moving there tonight.

Ok the Donovans are looong gone. I didn't like the way the neighborhood was going so I deleted it. Plus I downloaded a terrain that I like better so I started a new legacy neighborhood, with two rules: only one child per generation (unless I get twins of course) and all heirs must be male. I wanted to keep the founder's last name throughout the line (I have a hack that automatically chooses the male's last name at marriage, regardless of who proposes). So if a baby turns out to be a girl, I quit without saving until I get a boy.

So I have the Steeles: Alexander is the founder, married to a Downtownie named April Copur (no apparent relation to Ivy Copur)... Alex is a Knowledge Sim with a LTW of being Media Magnate. He's well on his way! April came into the marriage at the top of her career (Slacker) and brought $70k with her! Her LTW is to earn $100,000... so since she doesn't have to do anything career-wise except go to work, she's working on maxing out skills plus earning badges in fishing and gardening (I don't have OFB so I can't do the rest of the badges). Oh and they have a son named Bradley. He just turned into a toddler so not sure exactly how he'll turn out.

Irish when I did my legacy, I had the same rules. Except I kept getting girls. So most of the legacy was born out of wedlock to keep the original name.

LOL when Bradley was born, I had to quit 3 times before I finally got a boy. The last time I tried this, I had to quit so many times I eventually just gave up and had the girl.
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Both Alex and April now have a silver fishing badge (they won't be running out of food anytime soon LOL) and April has a silver gardening badge as well. She's not in the gardening club though 'cuz all I'm doing is four apple trees... for now anyway. Maybe in later generations I'll make a small veggie garden along the back of the house.
Oh and they're also both excellent cooks... there have been no fires in the kitchen! (Watch, I say that now and the next time I go into the game, one of them will burn the house down :p)

Bradley has already finished learning how to talk and walk and has been potty trained. Smart Milk is awesome! He's also about 1/2 way through beating the bunny to death... I mean, learning charisma I can't wait 'til he's a child 'cuz I hate the toddler stage. So annoying.

After finally tracking down the file that was screwing up my game so sims couldn't visit community lots, Tess's bar finally opened.

Opening night consisted of these spontaneous events (I didn't even get to see what caused all the ruckus):

• 1 fight
• 2 people caught cheating (not cause of fight)
• 1 druken proposal by a married, father of 5 and heterosexual (I thought) man to a man he hardly knew (proposal rejected)
• 1 engagement proposal between a couple already in love (proposal accepted)
• 1 puddle of pee of the floor
• lots of tears
• lots of dancing