Spring Cleaning in the Fall

Do you go back and read your old blog posts? (Hey, I think I'll make a poll about that...)

I was pretty careful at first with what I shared in my blog 'cuz I didn't want to pollute the waters, so to speak. It didn't take me long, though, until I was pouring out all kinds of doodoo, and my blog took on the appearance of a stagnant pond.

I've decided my first approach was the best one, so I've read through my blog posts and cleaned out all the "spoiled food" from my inventory. (Haven't I seen a reference to bad "pudding" somewhere?) :P

I had been considering going on a vacation from the Sim world, but have subsequently changed my mind. I found some real downers in my blog posts from last year and experienced deja vu, because I actually am now where I was last year. I felt bad then. I feel bad now. I need a reboot, or as my daddy might say, a boot in the butt.

But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's Fall!

I love the Fall in our little corner of the world. It's time for the trees to change. You can drive with your windows down. It's football season. We have beer-b-ques and tailgate parties. We can go up on the roof of the building where I live and enjoy the night air; none of our buildings are very tall. We can walk around downtown and hear the music of local bands. We can sleep with the windows open. Children catch lightning bugs at night and keep them in jars.

This is rural country. Pots full of colorful mums are everywhere. We have corn mazes and hayrides. People put out Indian Corn clusters, hay stalks with rag-doll Scarecrows, pumpkins and colored gourds, make caramel apples and spiced cider. There are harvest pageants in almost every county. It's time for the Arts and Crafts Fairs. The third weekend in October is practically treated like a national holiday; everything shuts down except War Eagle Mill. Later in the season, after most of the leaves have fallen, you can smell the bonfires.

It's just lovely. Heaven exists in the Ozarks during the Fall.

And I'm going to reboot. :D

Times, they are a changin'

Another year has passed, and it took a lot with it! My adorable (ha!) nephew told me over the weekend that my hair isn't even gray with streaks of auburn anymore. It's too gray to notice the streaks. Maybe it's time to consider that dye job I've kept putting off!

Hair from a can won't solve everything, though. My skin isn't wanting to stay put. It has begun the slow, downward slide. I've always hated putting cheek jowls on my simmies, but can't do much about the ones forming on my own face!

I changed my avatar to something a little more fitting because the one I was using (to remind myself to exercise) gave up on me and asked for a replacement. I freely admit, I've doctored the new gal up some. It might even be fair to say I've retained some of my dignity by fixing her up quite a bit.... After all, I do have Dr. Amelia Richmond, plastic surgeon extraordinaire, on retainer to "pretty up" my sims.

At the rate I'm going, Dr. Richmond will be very busy keeping me beautiful--at least in the sims world. I desperately need her to keep my sim nose from looking like my real nose, and I need collagen injections into my lips more than Tia Rose did. And don't even get me started on the emerging crows feet, frown lines, a furrowed brow! (Oh yeah, don't forget that unmentionable chin hair! (Thank god for facial wax.)

I choose to think of myself as taking on a distinguished look. That's a bald faced lie, but.... at least I'm truthful about the lies I tell!

EDIT: I forgot to mention one of the principle reasons this year was so painful. When I turned 35, I stopped having birthdays. The years continued to come and go, but no more birthday celebrations.

I decided to celebrate the anniversary of my 35th birthday, as opposed to actually having another birthday. That sounds all well and good, and I would gladly share that frame of mind with anyone else who chooses it.

This blessing comes with a curse, though. One day, you will wake up on your birthday, look in the mirror, and no longer be able to remember what that 35-year-old looked like! Maybe my mind is sliding downhill as quickly as my face....

MY FIRST STORY: A Snag Jumped Up And Chopped Off My Best Tools, autobiographical

Things were going great, so I started drafting a story line. A lot of my community lots took on new meanings, so I revamped several of them, and added some more. I bought WA to enhance the Sim's life-styles. Gran's and Nana's lot are set, necessary characters CAS'd, Midtown District is a real center-city hub now, and new games have been saved relative to each unique story line.

I was tooling right along, Then The Unthinkable Happened.

My favorite hand, the right one, lost a bitter war with a fragile glass vase. Not good since I'm right-handed. The fingertips on the middle and ring fingers were sliced off, down into their nailbeds, and my pinky was cut pretty deeply. It isn't permanently disabling, but I won't have readable fingerprints on my middle or ring fingers, and my pinky will be numb because I severed some nerve endings.

I'm not taking any pain meds, just antibiotics, so walk around with my right hand held up in the air above my heart to lessen the throbbing. I can't get my right hand wet (thank gawd for day spas), and my left hand is a complete idiot. It's my own fault, though. I never have paid my left hand much attention.

I know I must look like a lunatic. I just hope no one thinks I'm "throwing them the bird."

I'm "hunt-and-peck" typing with the one reasonably good finger on my right hand, but can't wrap my hand around my mouse. I never did master that stupid touchpad, so I've been placed on the Sim's Injured List, to use baseball terminology.

The poor Brownings are on their own for a while.

I am studying stories posted here with a passion, as far back as I can. That's best anyway; I may have the imagination for story-telling, but not the finesse.

I hope to get called up from the minors again soon (more baseball terminology). I was hyped about this story development thing; I get so bored just playing the game.

Update on Gran's and Nana's lots

I've put in screenshots of Grandmother Burrisoph's Bakery Lot (starring main character, Jonathan Browning), and Grandmother Burrisoph's Coffee Shop. The coffee shop shots were taken in build/buy mode so I could move around without so much Sim interference. Who do these Sims think they are anyway? I'm trying to take a picture and some Sim wanders through the shot!

I've gotten quite a lot done on Nana Johnsonoph's lot as well. I loaded some screenies of the boutique distant cousin Dina Johnsonoph is opening and alluded to a storyline between Dina and her architect friend, Archie Pennington. He may end up being related to Extreme Home Makeover's Ty Pennington, but I'll never tell (unless in a story).

My first creation was just published. His name is Butler Laurent, but in real life he is a butler. His clothes are hilarious! There was a freeby from the Sims store, a t-shirt with a rubber-duck floatie around the waist, and I put it on Butler with long shorts as his swimming apparel. It cracked me up at the time, and looks really funny when you view the character with all his different outfits on! What a hoot!

Gotta go; Simbots to train, lots to flip!

EDIT: More stories I had planned. I must find Dina, Archie and my beloved Butler Laurent!

Grandmother Johnsonoph's Design Studio

As I continue to struggle with my Grandmother Burrisoph community lot, I sat it aside for further inspiration and started working on Grandmother Johnsonoph's Design Studio. It will have a retail store and coffee house on the first floor. The second floor will be used for custom designing (lovely fashion-themed wall art and some Ambitions studio skill objects). An architect's office shares the second floor. The third floor is where Grandmother Johnsonoph, in her day, would have worked. It resembles an office, design studio and workshop. Miscellaneous junk is stored, along with the Sculpting skill station, and a break area for the architect and designer to relax and enjoy bakery items from Grandmother Burrisoph's Bakery and Java Josephine's Cafe' Haus (from Grandmother Burrisoph's lot).

I'll look over Grandmother Burrisoph's lot and load a couple more screenshots. I have the patio cafe' and Java Josephine's Cafe' Haus completed, more or less.

Grandmother Burrisoph's Kitchen Update

Thanks for the comments/suggestions. I'm getting ready to put together the movie theater and children's entertainment center buildings on the other side of the canal, so may snap off some shots for more input. The original residential lot was 40 x 30, but I placed it on a 40 x 40 lot for more room in front and back.

Comment on my thought process: I thought it would be natural for a kid hangout to be near a sweet shop. It may not make sense to anyone but me, but around here, the commons/green (or square, as we call it) in rural towns usually have one contiguous building that spans the whole block on each side of the square. The larger buildings are then partitioned off into small businesses. For example, a theater may share space with a diner, an arcade, a hardware store, and a gas station at the end of the block facing the next block.

As I pondered how to design the kids theater on the Dutch conversion, that idea bloomed into a new creation: design an entire large lot (64 x 64) similar to a theme park, like Disney Land. I'll place it at the end of the Pinochle Point subdivision. I just happen to have a cathedral that I plan to flip into something resembling the Magic Kingdom Castle. Too bad there aren't many games for kids available in the Sims 3, so I'll try to do some of my own: a waterslide? I'll snap off shots of it as I go...

I already have one community lot there (La Grosse Cloche was what I downloaded; it lays on top of rabbitholes for a suburban bistro, market, theater, and spa.) Does anyone remember the Snooty Patooties from Sims 1? They would love it out here.

Also in response to fredbrenny's question about the fog emitter under the chocolate fountain in the sweet shop. I changed the command to "waterspout" so a small shoot of water should jump out of the top of the fountain.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go....

EDIT: Hey, I forgot about the theme park. Now that I know how to use more cheats and WA effects, I need to start working on that again!

Shamelessly Seeking Input On My Flip

I downloaded one of fredbrenny's lots and asked her permission to flip it from residential to commercial. The screenshots on my minisite show the first phase of the flip. I started with the main house and turned it into Grandmother Burrisoph's Bakery. (No, Burrisoph is not my name, but Grandmother Burrisoph's storyline, if one develops, really is my grandmother's.)

Mainly as a point of reference for fredbrenny (since this is her lot I'm flipping), I'm going to outline my future plans in a blog entry (or more than one, as needed).

The building to the right of the main house has been emptied of the sculpting station and etc., and turned into a hot beverage hut. I will put in several countertops to place the variety of "hot beverage makers" I've collected and place several pieces of tea- and coffee-appropriate wall art throughout the hut. There will be no interior walls.

Between what is now my bakery/sweet shop and the new beverage hut, I have placed small to medium tables/chairs covered with more clutter to make it look like an outdoor cafe'. I already have a buffet table inside the sweet shop, but there are no tables in there, so I assume if a Sim uses the buffet, they will go outside to eat.

Drifting organically, I hope, from between these two buildings to the back of the lot, I will intersperse the tables and chairs among outdoor seating arrangements and sun shades. I want another buffet table out here, but haven't decided if it should be on the ground, on floor tiles, or up on a new foundation.... I'm leaning against the foundation because I want it all to flow smoothly (I hate using CFE and am afraid to do so with so many buildings so close together). Anyway, I'll probably just use a combination of terrain paints from paving to grass to flowery grass..... (input here please?) I kind-of suck at terrain painting and am never satisfied with what I do compared to other people's work (actually, I suck big time).

The building to the left of the main house is the old barn, converted into a garage. I un-converted it and made it into a Gnubb (sp?) game room. Amazingly, the game fits exactly inside the building. That is all I am doing here. I've dropped two butterfly spawners behind the bakery and put two ordinary fish spawners in the canal. Are the fish appropriate? I'm just looking for the splashy goldfish fx.

I have a set of urban city clutter to make bus-stops, phone booths, newspaper stands, bike rental (is that like mo-ped rentals in the US?) parking meters, and more. I'm adding this clutter and added the lot to my M-DART line as a stop/station. (M-DART stands for Midtown-District Area Rapid Transit, i.e., a bus line. Quirky.)

Using sub-basements, I'm dropping in bistro and theater rabbitholes. I want the bistro for Grandmother Burrisoph's bakery, but the theater is for my mock Children's Theater building. (Details about that are forth-coming.) Any suggestions of a quirky, yet appropriate name for a European Children's Theater/Cinema for that rabbithole? The Punch and Judy Show? No?

The biggest aspect is last to come. Fred, could you tell me if it would be appropriate to expand the green building that runs over the canal at the right side of the lot back across the lot in the other direction? In other words, can I make it run parallel to the main set of buildings you started with on the other side of the canal?

• From left to right, back of lot (behind canal): 
  

1. barn,
   
2. house,
   
3. sculpting room,
   
4. building in front of sculpting room,
5. green building attached to building in front of sculpting room (end of right side).
   

• Canal running down center of lot.
  

• From right to left, front of lot (in front of canal):
  

1. same green building at far right (#5 above), pulled out toward the front of the lot (it is now 40 x 40, not 40 x 30), then made wider toward the left of the lot so that it faces the original set of buildings on the other side of the canal. 
2. space left between canal and green building, similar to behind canal for a commons (chess tables, easels, etc.)
   

It's easy to envision, but hard to explain....... Grrrrr..... This is where I want to build my mock Children's Theater using some electronics and clutter I downloaded from TSR.

By the way, I WILL NOT be clicking off as many shots of the remainder of the lot as I did the bakery and sweet shop. That building is the main reason for having the lot, therefore gets the most attention. If I need to, I will be glad to grab shots of the "green building dilemma" to get assistance, though.

I've written too much to digest it all. I'm going back to work and will check back later for responses (I hope!!)

In the beginning.....

I started flipping one of fredbrenny's houses today from a residential to commercial lot. I love the Dutch flavor, with the canal running through the center. While I was planning the design (a "fake" sweet shop adjoined to a kid's "fake" cinema featuring Disney classics), some ideas began to germinate about stories I can write describing my current world. I think I'll introduce the Browning family: personalities, aspirations, background on conflicts that may develop into story lines of their own.... From there I could lead into the Browning family contributions to Sunset Valley, i.e., a tour of my Midtown District venues. This will have to tie in to another story line concerning the Burrisophs and Johnsonophs, from which inspiration for several of the existing venues sprang. My over-caffienated brain is spinning. I need to stop for a while; take a breather and really focus on what my goals are where the Sims world is concerned. I may be spending too much time in it. To be continued.

EDIT: I have written a story using Gracie Browning, singular, as a main character. The story series above described about my Brownings will just need to be renamed. Maybe Carlson....