Tuesday, August 16, 2011

New Day

Round 5: March 2012 (Spring)
Jeff Reid is 60 and Helen is 58
next update / last update
Narrated by Helen

Last summer, Jeff had a press conference announcing that the government will start collecting taxes from all citizens early next year. Understandably, the town has been upset and Jeff has been inundated with phone calls and letters expressing their concerns.

There was nothing Jeff could really do about it anyway and luckily things have calmed down since the announcement. Still, I recommended he show a sign of good faith by putting together some kind of function to raise everyone's spirits. I suggested we host a spring festival at the park where there'd be food, drinks and games for everyone.

Jeff loved the idea so I helped him with the planning. It took a couple of weeks to research prices for food, spread the word and plan the structure of the event. We scheduled it for the middle of the month so I didn't have a lot of time to pull everything together.

I met with the restaurant owners in town to ask if they'd cater the function and they were both more than happy to. Belinda Meadows agreed to cater the main dishes and Will Robinson agreed to cater the desserts.

The day of the Festival was a beautiful one, thankfully. I was so pleased to see that everyone from town made it with their families.

There was no formal structure to the day. We just wanted to have everyone in one place to unwind, enjoy some food and each others' company. It was great to see everyone mingling with each other instead of just staying with their close friends and family.

Everyone, no matter their age, was having fun. The kids kept themselves busy catching butterflies and jumping rope.

The teenagers played kicky bag, punch you punch me, had water balloon fights and just hung out by the trees.

The adults and elders kept busy with chess, axe tossing competitions and games of catch.

With Spring comes love and there was lots of it in the air.

I think I even saw Michelle getting friendly with a boy she dated in high school. I don't know if they're still dating or what but I hope Jeff didn't see them together. He wasn't too fond of that boy if I remember correctly.

Everyone complimented the extensive buffet that was provided.

Well, mostly everyone. I guess some of the food wasn't especially child friendly. But it was very good.

All in all, the Festival was a success and everyone appeared to really enjoy themselves. Jeff was pleased with the turnout, too, and is going to suggest that we hold this event every year. He sometimes comes across as cold or insensitive but he really does mean well.

There was only 1 incident where we thought 2 teenage girls were going to fight, but it looked like family members got the situation under control.

For the time being, anyway.

Except for the short time at the Festival, we haven't seen the kids much this year. They're so busy with their studies that they rarely get the opportunity to come back to town to visit us. But they all managed to make time for us this Sunday when we invited them over for an early dinner.

Everything is going well for Michael, Michelle and Celeste at the university. Michael enjoys studying law even though he's just scratching the surface and Michelle is looking forward to being a student teacher later next year.

The only real complaint they had about UCC was the dorms. The rooms are too small and they asked Jeff to talk to some contractors about building new dorms when the town gets the money. They might not benefit from the new dorms by the time they get built but it's definitely something the town council can work on approving.

Paul typically doesn't say much during the family meals but never fails to irritate us with his lack of table manners.
However, it appears that he and Jeff are beginning to come around. Now that we're hitting our golden years, I don't think Jeff wants to miss out on any of his kids' lives so he's been making more of an effort. His and Paul's relationship has been strained ever since Paul was a teenager but they're starting to bond a little more over their great love for music.

Paul has turned around since his first year of college which makes us both proud. He's going to all of his classes and is even trying to get a band together. We're both glad he's finally taking his education more seriously.

After such a great month, it ended on a bad note. Over the past 2 years, we've had an increase in the amount of burglaries in town and while most have been caught, some have gotten away. Jeff's going to talk to the town council about beefing up our police protection. Hopefully with the tax money the government collects next year, they'll be able to start building a police station in town.

Until then, it will be hard to sleep soundly knowing that our neighborhood has become so unsafe.

Notes:
-I think this is the most times my sims have ever been burglarized since I've been playing this game. I don't know why they're being hit so much but it's really going against my whole vision of the hood as being a quiet and safe suburban community.
-I am so pleased with how the Spring Festival turned out. I wanted to get everyone in the town to meet and socialize with each other and that's exactly what happened. I wanted more activities for them to do but couldn't decide on placement and such. But they all kept themselves pretty occupied.
-Lots of stuff happened at the Festival that I didn't talk about because Helen and Jeff wouldn't necessarily know the details but I will definitely touch on them during the appropriate updates ;).
-I've come to hate all of my dorms. Even though I have 3 placed in the hood, I only use one, which I've grown to hate. I'm going to search for some new ones but when I searched in the past, I was never satisfied with them. So I'll probably end up building my own *grumble grumble*. But I feel a little more confident about building after having built my high school.
-I added a Custom Content post to the sidebar. I joined Pinterest after Carla @ Sullivan Sims mentioned it and it's a more visually appealing way of doing a custom content list than I had originally planned. Plus, you can follow others and get all the goodies they download, too lol. It's going to be very dangerous for my downloads folder.
-Oh, and today is my birthday! So I will probably be late in replying to comments. But you all should know that I appreciate any and all comments and will respond when I get back :).

19 comments:

  1. The festival looked great! I don't know why you have such a rash in robberies...maybe your neighborhood has become the base of a criminal organization.

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  2. I loved the festival! Very nice, and I can't wait to read about what went on with others that attended.

    I think the burglaries relate to RL in a way. Even safe areas have their moments with crime. Hopefully it won't continue to be bad an peace will be back to the hood!

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  3. The festival looked really nice. It seems like so much fun! And yeah, happy birthday :)

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  4. Happy birthday to you! I hope it's a wonderful one!

    What a fun idea! Jeff and Helen did a great job with this (or actually, it looks like Helen did most of the work!). A festival/fair kind of thing is always one of those back-of-my-mind ideas for Sullivan.

    I have to ask, how many people did you have on that lot? Did you teleport everyone, wait for people to show up or a bit of both?

    Trust Alyssa to bring her attitude along! I guess that's why she looks so pissed - she didn't like her sister telling her off!

    And wow, that's an awesome picture at the end there! How did you do that one? Sullivan gets a lot of burglaries too. I don't even bother writing them in any more - it's just insane. I would say 40-50% of households are burgled every round.

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  5. Starr, thanks for reading! Glad you liked the Festival. I’m glad everyone cooperated for me.

    I hope there’s no criminal organization forming in the hood! Although it would be interesting to write about lol. I’ll probably start ignoring the robberies like Carla mentioned in her comment.

    GB, thanks for reading! Also glad you enjoyed the festival. It was definitely a love fest and I’m glad I didn’t have any places for them to woohoo because it was hard keeping some of them away from each other lol.

    And you’re probably right about the burglaries. It’s just annoying because the sims seem to fume about it for so long. The Stevens family were the first to get hit 2 sim-years ago and they’re still mad about it. I mean, get over it already, he didn’t take anything lol!

    Rosa, thanks for reading and the birthday wishes! Yes, the Festival was fun and I can’t wait to do it again. Maybe I’ll have more fun activities for them to do, but they didn’t seem to mind. :)

    Carla, thanks for reading and the birthday wishes! It was a good day. :)

    For a long time I wanted to have some kind of fair or festival in my hood but never knew what to do or how to pull it off. I’m glad I kind of just threw it together, though. Now everyone has wants to be friends with each other which is exactly what I wanted.

    I had at least 40 sims on that lot and I teleported all of them in to make sure they were all there :O. There were some townie stragglers that came to the lot to get the free food but I tried to delete them if they haven’t appeared in any of the past updates. AND I had them all selectable. Yup, I’m that crazy lol! But I didn’t want any of them to wander off. I really pushed my computer to the limit and I didn’t crash! So I’ll probably up the number of sims that appear on community lots since my computer can handle it.

    Yup, you can definitely count on Alyssa bringing her attitude along! LOL I kept them apart for almost the whole day but I didn’t notice them both hanging around the buffet tables until the shoving matches started.

    I’m glad you liked the pic at the end! I almost didn’t have that shot. Helen and Jeff cuddled under the stars/clouds on their own and one of the animations is of them hugging like that. So I quit the animation, did a face overlay and made them do it again. And I’m glad to know that it’s not just my game that the burglars like. I’m going to have to ignore the burglaries, too, or find a hack to reduce/remove them or something.

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  6. " So I’ll probably up the number of sims that appear on community lots since my computer can handle it."

    Ooh, how do you do that? I didn't even know that was possible! I'm pretty sure my PC can handle more Sims on community lots than the game usually sends.

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  7. Carla, I was going to just use SW's Customer Adjuster on every lot and then increase the number as I send sims there. But then I started reading about the intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims # cheat. Some say it should work on community lots, some say its just to increase the # of sims invited to parties. I haven't had a chance to try it yet and I probably won't until Friday or as late as Sunday. But I hope it does work because I can then add it to my userstartup.

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  8. Ah! You'll probably get to it before I do then (I'm away all weekend), so I'll be curious to read your report. ;)

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  9. Happy belated birthday! Loved the update and the community spring event in the park. It looks like everyone had a great time!

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  10. I've been trying to post this all day but Blogger is being Blogger :\.

    Carla, hope you have fun and I'll let you know what happens.

    Thanks for reading and the birthday wishes, Mandie! Glad you enjoyed the update and I'll have to remember to put the spring festival on my play schedule each year since everyone likes it so much. :) If too much is going on in the particular family's household to do the festival during their session, I'll probably do a mini-update for just for the festival.

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  11. I know I'm very late, but still a very happy birthday!!

    I like seeing all of Crystal Creek's residents together at the festival. It seems like so much fun!

    I think it would be better if Alyssa at least tried to get along with everybody, but this way there was at least a little bit of drama besides all the fun :)

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  12. Happy belated birthday! My daughter is a Leo as well.

    If you are still looking for dorms, try Babbelsim's dorms here: http://www.sims2supernova.com/forumdisplay.php?324-Dorms

    At the moment, the dorms in Meade College are the renovated versions of these dorms, but as they are bigger than what I would prefer, I'll probably just rebuild mine as well. I'm going to aim for no bigger than 3x3.

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  13. Tanja, thanks for reading and for the birthday wishes! You’re not late. We’re still celebrating and just had a birthday party on Saturday lol (which is also why it took me so long to respond).

    I hope I can still gather all of the Crystal Creek sims together once my population grows. It was fun to see who talked to whom and what drama stirred up. I’m glad that I can rely on Alyssa to stir up some drama when I need some lol! She may not realize that she needs to keep her attitude under control right now since she’s so young but she’ll learn eventually! If she learns the easy way or the hard way is yet to be determined ;).

    Thanks for reading and for the birthday wishes, LC! Happy birthday to your daughter! My husband is also a leo and it’s… interesting :b. We’re a strong-headed bunch.

    I didn’t have time to do anything sim related this weekend so I am still looking for dorms. I will register for that site and check those out. Thanks! :)

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  14. Happy very belated birthday! I was very excited to read this update after seeing a sneak peek of photos at N99. Oh my goodness if Alyssa isn't the funniest sim ever! Her face at the table is pretty darn priceless. If a sim were to be involved in strife at city wide festival, who better than Alyssa!

    I really like the landscaping on Jeff and Helen's house, and the idea of the festival was really great. I'd love to throw something like this and just see what happens with everyone. Looking forward to seeing what else happened that Helen didn't happen to see.

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  15. Thanks for the birthday wishes, Maisie! Sorry for the delay in my response. I've been sick since Monday :(.

    Alyssa has the most expressive face I've seen in my game. I love her to death even though she could probably beat me up lmao. I'm glad others like her just as much as I do. She's only 12 but what a hell of a reputation she's building for herself already!

    I take no credit for the landscaping of the Reid's home but I'm glad you like it. It's a lovely home even though it's a little large for just the 2 of them right now. I'd love to see other bloggers hold some town-wide festivals in their hoods. I'm sure you all would have much more drama than mine did but lots of other fun, too! :)

    Carla, it doesn't look like that cheat I found works on community lots :\. So I'll probably just stick to my initial plan and use the Customer Adjuster to increase the # of sims on each lot.

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  16. I'm finally done, reading your blog. I've been reading it (very slowly) since it was featured in Apple Valley. I've really enjoyed the detail you put into your hood.

    I really think you did a great job with the school.

    Also, thanks for linking to your ROS. I've been using it as a base for my own. I'm currently not using a ROS but plan to start when I move my sims to their new hood.

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  17. Welcome, Ani! I appreciate you taking the time to read everything! I’ve been trying to read a few of the other blogs I’m following from the start and I know that it’s no easy feat! So thank you and happy to see that you're enjoying it!

    I’m glad you like the school (which reminds me that I need to get back to packaging that up) and you’re welcome for the ROS. Good luck with it!

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  18. What a great festival. It looks like it was a riot to write and had a lot of things going on.

    Its great to see stuff like that done.

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  19. HC, thanks for reading and glad you also enjoyed the festival. It was fun to write and will be fun to write about some of the other stuff in future updates. Well, hopefully it will. You know sims... they probably forgot all about the festival by now lol. :)

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