Saturday, December 11, 2010

Fancy

Round 4: February 2011 (Winter)
next update / last update

Cheng is 71, Ping is 70, Jun is 51, Jia-Li is 49, Mei is 17, Xia is 15 and An Hu is 8
(Darren Stevens is 16, Tony Mendez is 15)
Narrated by Xia


I'm starting to get a little bored with living on the farm. My parents, grandparents and now Mei wake up at the crack of dawn, weed, harvest, fish, run the store, sleep and repeat... everyday.

I help out doing other things around the house (I've gotten much better at cooking since last year) and worked at the store for a little while but it's not really what I want to do.

Mom and dad don't pressure me, so while they're all busy tugging at the weeds in the cold, my nose is in the books. I'm in the honors program at school so I have to make sure I keep up with all my assignments.

And since I'm thinking about becoming an architect, my parents surprised me with an easel so I'd have somewhere to sketch. It's not the drafting table I wanted but it's a start. We really don't have the space for one anyway.

Mei works at the store after school some nights now and I think she really likes it. She says it's really busy there so the time doesn't drag at all. Next year she'll be taking classes at the technical school to earn her certification in sales, so she'll be doing even more at the store.

The store's inventory gets pretty low during the winter months. When our pond freezes over, they can't restock the fish. And the fruit trees are dormant now, so only strawberries are available until the spring.

Even with the inventory troubles in the winter, dad loves working in the store. He says things are going so well that in another few years, he'll be ready to open up the second store in Summit Heights.

While everyone's so busy with farming and the store, I'm usually stuck watching An.

She's usually pretty good and can keep herself entertained, but she gets bored easily.

So we take many trips to the park after school and on weekends. I usually end up playing chess with some random stranger but she has a good time catching up with her friends from school.

Some days she's not a problem but other times she can be really annoying. She wins 1 game of chess against me and I never hear the end of it.

I think it's because she feels left out. Mei and I are much older than her and we can't help but leave her out sometimes. She's grossed out by boys and we're over playing with dolls and jumping rope.

Besides school, boys are the only other thing that's been on my mind. Well, boy, not boys. Recently I started dating my friend Tony.

At first I was scared that dating would mess up our friendship but so far it's been good.

We've always had fun together as friends so it makes sense that we'd do ok as boyfriend and girlfriend.

But it's still pretty early in the relationship so we're taking it slow.

Mei on the other hand, I don't know. Ever since she and Darren kissed for the first time last year, they've been going out together a lot more. But they both claim they're not dating each other.

They could have fooled me and anyone else, I'm sure. I guess you can fool around with a guy without him being officially your boyfriend but that's not something I'd do.

I told her not to get too serious with him, though. He is very smooth and friendly with other girls at school and I don't want to see her get hurt if she sees that.

Notes:
-This entry is a little bit shorter than my other entries but I think I touched base on everything. I was struggling for a while with this family trying to see if they'd do anything else interesting to make this a little longer. After playing them for the whole winter, I gave up. The shorter updates might be better for me anyway to get things moving along in my hood a little faster and because of my lack of time to play.
-Neither of the girls are extremely boy crazy. Mei constantly has wants to go out/sneak out with Darren, but not go steady. Xia didn't have the want to go steady with Tony but she had the fear of being rejected. So I took it as her fear outweighing her want to ask him out. I made her do it anyway since I knew he'd say yes :).
-The honors program I mentioned is still a work in progress. I want to somehow reward my more ambitious sims for working hard. Basically, after they're out of college (which will also have an honors program), I may allow them to enter a career at a higher level than those who weren't in the honors program. Since I work in an admissions office at a college in RL, I've been trying to copy how we do things. I haven't figured out if that's a good or bad thing yet :). I've been revamping my higher education requirements and careers and will update those posts next round when I have everything worked out.

13 comments:

  1. I can't wait to see how the honor program progresses in your game and this family is cute. I think I'd be bored at a farm as well, but at least she's free tp persue her interests.

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  2. Thanks for reading, Starr. I really like this family, even though gameplay can be a little repetitive at times. I’m with Xia and would be completely bored on a farm, too.

    As for the honors program, at first I wanted my honors kids to earn more money than those who weren’t honors but then I realized I’d have to either remember to give them extra money each time I played them or make new careers with the pay bump. I decided I didn’t want to do either of those lol.

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  3. So this was a shorter entry but I somehow managed to write an epic comment anyway!

    I love Mei and Xia's pose in the family portrait - too cute!

    I was going to ask you about your honours program. Sounds interesting - I'd like to hear the details once you get it all worked out.

    Your signs look so great. I'm loading my game right now, so I might go in and redo Trent's market and add the signs in.

    In this pic: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z7vY6WhEYY4/TP_caBWb6LI/AAAAAAAABok/TCPRvfse6mY/s640/05-Fancy.jpg Is that just one of those EA Decra-Chill shelves with fruit inside, or something different? It looks really cool!

    And also this pic:

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z7vY6WhEYY4/TP_cbBzC-SI/AAAAAAAABos/XeClwl-TLrA/s640/07-Fancy.jpg How did you do that? Is that a shelf on top of one of the EA grocery bins? I should really add some of those to Trent's market because my Sullivan Sims would currently have to go all the way to Exeter to buy anything except fresh produce.

    Anyway, back to the story! Xia and Tony are too adorable together! I love the one of them holding hands - she looks so smitten. As for Mei and Darren...well, I hope she's not keen on commitment anyway, because it doesn't seem like she's going to get it from Darren! I wonder if she knows about the other girls he's "friendly" with.

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  4. I second the WCIF! I want to have a grocery with fresh fish and produce too and I'm curious as to what shelves those are.

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  5. Thanks for commenting!

    Carla, LOL @ your epic comment. That's no problem, of course. I'm glad you liked that pose Mei and Xia are doing. I've been waiting to find 2 really close girl friends to use it on but these 2 are the closest I'm going to get for a while.

    I will definitely let everyone know more about the honors program once I figure it all out. Xia constantly rolled the want to get into private school and I wanted to do something with that (besides actually making up a private school to run). So I figured an honors program is just as special. I created a minimum requirement of 28 skill points total to get into the college honors program (which I will probably increase) so I'm figuring the honors program for high school should be a little less than that (Xia’s very smart with her 35 skill points). And while in college, I'm thinking of making them write a novel/article with Monique's computer as their honors project for the semester. I know I'll be tweaking this for a couple of rounds until I figure out how high/low to set the requirements.

    Thanks again for the compliments on my signs! I tried to get more of them in the pics but it's just enough. Can't wait to see them in your game!

    Now onto the WCIFs. The shelving is by Anoeska @ TSR, the Shop til you Drop Pt. 1 set. http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/484700 The small shevles in the first pic with all the fruit and veggies is the counter display w/ 6 slots http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/484700 and they're sitting on the large shelves w/ 6 slots http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/484700 and they're surrounded by the EA fruit/veggie displays. I don't know why I didn't use those Decra-Chill shelves... maybe because I really liked Anoeska's shelves and wanted to use them.

    Now in the 2nd pic, that's the EA fruit/veggie display with Anoeska's straight shelves with 6 slots http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/484700. I would have used the EA shelf but I couldn't put the crates of produce on them without using an OMSP. And I didn't know if the OMSPs would cause problems with sims reaching the items. I haven't had any problems with it this way. I just used moveojects on to place the EA produce display on top of the shelves.

    And finally, lol. Yes I love that pic of Xia and Tony holding hands. She just looks so cute. When they were all out together during those last pics, Darren was very good. He didn't compliment or really talk to any other girls that night, so Mei probably has no idea how popular he is. He didn't even talk to Xia much (though she'd follow him around when Tony wasn't around wanting to play red hands).

    LaurelCrossing, thanks for reading! And have fun setting up that grocery store! I really like mine now that it's reached level 10 and there's always a steady stream of customers.

    Whew!

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  6. Thanks for answering all the WCIFs! I don't think I've got any of those items, so I'm about to go shopping. :D

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  7. You're welcome! She has some great sets. And sorry, I just realized that TSR doesn't give you a link to the individual item, just the set. But you can easily find them with the link to the set that I pasted 20 times lol.

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  8. The honours program sound interesting, I would love to hear more about it, as I would love to hear more about the technical school Mei will be going. I'm planning something simmilar for SimsVille/Simmeria, but I'm still thinking out the details, and I would love to know how others do it.

    I love the pictures with a view of the bar where the girls are hanging out.
    And I love the neighborhood views!

    Anyway, it may be a shorter update, but it pretty much told the story.
    I agree with Xia that Mei has to be carefull, it would be hard if she got her heart broken.
    Tony is a cute boy, and Xia and him make a cute couple.

    The shop is looking good, now that I've seen the signs in action, I can't wait to use them :)

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  9. Thanks for reading, Tanja! I posted pics of my technical school over at N99 in case you missed it (I think this was before you joined the forum). http://starlightsims.yuku.com/topic/48968 And I talk a little bit about it in my Higher Education Requirements post here on the blog (it's called Creek Technical Institute). http://crystalcreeksims.blogspot.com/p/high-education-requirements.html

    Mei will be my first student in the school but ever since I saw Dee's skill center that she made on N99, I've been wanting to redo mine lol http://starlightsims.yuku.com/topic/49255. But we'll see if I get the urge to redo it by the time I need it.

    Glad you like the bar pics. That place started out as just a regular hangout for all sims but then it gradually changed into my teens only hangout. I think I'll keep it that way.

    Tony is turning out to be a really sweet boy. I believe he's a sim I downloaded from a site a long time ago and aged him down. And yes, I hope Mei can find someone else to direct her attention to before her heart gets broken.

    I hope you can put the shop signs to great use! :)

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  10. Ooh I'm intrigued with the honors program, I never know what to do with the private school kids. I let some of them try for it, but then I don't do anything (game play wise) with them, they still go to the high school.

    Poor An, she really is quite a bit younger, it'll be strange for her, I'm sure when her big sisters move out. I really liked the market, I'm glad you answered all the WCIF's cause I was thinking along the same lines!

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  11. Thanks for reading, Maisie. Yup, I didn't know what to do with the private school kids either. And playing a third school (high school, primary school and private) would be too much. I will definitely keep everyone posted since there's a lot of interest in the honors program.

    Yea, An will be all alone in a few years when her sisters move out. I think she might like it, though. Especially if her parents are wrapped up in the business to notice what she does. I know Xia will be going to college but Mei might stay home for a little bit to get her sales certification, unless she gets the want to move out right away.

    And you're welcome for the WCIFs. I wish I knew how to mesh because I'd love to make produce bins like in a real grocery store. But so far, I like this set up.

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  12. I was interested in your shelf placing too. Thanks for the links. I am always looking for new items to make my download folder explode.

    The honors program sounds interesting too. I am going to keep a look out for more information. I might steal it when you are done.

    It's a struggle sometimes to find something interesting for Sims to do that will translate into a blog post. Sometimes I feel like just creating drama to make it happen. But I think you did a good job.

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  13. OV, thank you for reading and you're welcome. My downloads folder exploded last night when I found a site that retextured a lot of my favorite hair. I could have easily added 300 files to my game with all the recolors :O

    Whenever I put the honors info up, steal away! I've stolen so many ideas from other bloggers that I try to give back when I can LOL.

    Yea writing up stories based on what my sims do is still rather new to me. I've had this blog for almost a year now but it's not like I've been able to play and write everyday to get better at it like some other bloggers can do. I thought about creating drama in other households but it just wouldn't have made sense. I'm glad you think I did a good job with this one. Thanks.

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