I got into my game to test out a fix for meal serving annoyances.It looks like my meal serving issues are finally solved and I can stop them from trying to eat outdoors on cold days in late fall before they pack the outdoor dining area away for the season.

Now that all of my original MooVille couples are either elders or deceased, I thought it would be fun to get an overall picture of where my Hood is at. I started out with 6 couples and 12 townies, and later I moved in 2 townies to make a 7th family. This hood has been really fun to play, I think because my rules are pretty well defined, and also because there are so few Sims that I feel like I get a chance to know them all, even the townies. I've decided all townies will have a chance to become playable and have a family; they will be moved in if they fall in love with another playable or each other. If I do move a townie in and they become an elder without having any children, then I make a new townie to replace them.

These are my families as of now. I have 10 households. (Retired elders live in the retirement community and basically are on free will until their time comes.)

FLEXOR (1 household)
The original family was Max (deceased) and Christa (retired), who had two daughters, Eleasha and Marta.
- Eleasha lives in a mid-level house with her fiance, dormie Clarence Lum, and their three children, who will keep the Flexor name going: Grady, Georgina, and Kara. Their net worth is $32K.
- Marta married into the Wade family.

INDIE/O'FEEFE (1 household)
The original family was Mitch and Delilah, who had two children, Aaron O'Feefe (born out of wedlock) and Gwen Indie. The family still lives together in a mid-level house; Mitch is unemployed, and Delilah is at the top of her career and perma-plat as a Business Tycoon. Aaron and his wife, townie Lacey, live with them, as does Gwen, who is single. There are no grandchildren yet. Their net worth is $38K.

FURLEY (1 household)
The original family was Phineaus (deceased) and Marla (retired), who later got divorced; they had three daughters: Brooke, Halima, and Nuha.
- Brooke and Halima are both single adults and still live in the family starter home; their net worth is $8K.
- Nuha married into the Day family.

DAWN (2 households)
The original family was Connor (deceased) and Marylena, who had four children: Chloe-Anne, Judy, Shanaya, and Tobi. Marylena still works in the business career and lives in her original starter home with her single adult daughter, Shanaya. Their net worth is $10K.
- Chloe-Ann is deceased.
- Judy married into the Whippler family.
- Tobi just graduated from college and bought a starter home with his fiancee, Victoria Wade. Their net worth is $17K.

WHIPPLER (2 households)
The original family was Chaz and Amber (both deceased), who had two sons, Farley and Patryk.
- Farley married Danielle Wade, bought a starter home, and had four children before he died prematurely. The children are Adam, Antony, Courtney, and Edan, and they currently live with their maternal grandmother, as their mother is also dead. Their net worth is $3K.
- Patryk married Judy Dawn and they have one child, Jonah. They live in a starter home, and their net worth is $8K.

WADE (2 households)
The original family was Destry (deceased) and Debbie, who had three children together: Danielle, Luis, and Rafi. They got divorced, and Destry remarried townie Margaret (also deceased); they had one daughter, Victoria. Debbie also remarried townie Matthias Dodd, and they live with and take care of her four grandchildren by Danielle.
- Danielle married into the Whippler family and is now deceased.
- Luis married Marta Flexor, and they have three children: Bo, Benito, and Diana. They bought a starter house, and their net worth is $1,700.
- Rafi is living with his college boyfriend, Jerome Nanale, in a mid-level house. They have no children, and their net worth is $30K.
- Victoria is marrying into the Dawn family.

DAY (1 household)
The original family were two townies, Sahra (retired) and Kaleem, who bought a starter home and had one child, Zoya. They got divorced. Kaleem remarried Nuha Furley, and they had two children, Hayden and Henriette. Kaleem still works in the Criminal career. The children are all underage. Their net worth is $21K.

Well, I have every intention of keeping this neighborhood going through another generation at least. Wish me luck. So far it doesn't feel as overwhelming as my previous neighborhoods have been.

I've been away for a few years but have always checked in on these forums every now and then. I LOVE the Sims community. I'm always in awe for people that can keep long-running neighborhoods going. The longest-running neighborhood I've had lasted...
... one generation.

Yup. I suck at this. I either get bored or forget the families I'm playing after taking a long break, and thus playing with them is not as magical. I then think getting new CC will help, and... it's a cycle.

My favorite neighborhood lasted one generation but had 13 families and was quite intricate. Subsequent recreations of it don't seem to hold it's charm like the first version did (which died when that computer died). Other neighborhoods couldn't capture the magic of that one. I tried to do a sequel of it five generations prior to them, but... well, for someone bad at following through with their neighborhoods, that did not last.

So, I'm trying again. I've got the bare minimum (for me) cc added. I'm going to add more after playing each family a week so it feels 'natural' (and so I can try the items I add without getting overwhelmed!).

This session the Singles were played.

Kristen had the flu, in addition to being pregnant, so looking after her was a chore. She gave birth to a little girl called Erie, while everyone gathered around. Lola picked up the flu from this, so now two sims had to be forced on bedrest.

They recovered after a day, so crisis averted.

Lola recovered first and during the period when Kristen was ill, she was Erie's main caretaker. This carried on even after Kristen had recovered. Lola fed her, changed her nappies, put her to bed, and gave her love. When Erie transitioned to a toddler, it was Lola who taught her the toddler skills and bathed her if she got filthy. She never got that Law career she kept looking for and became an unemployed elder.

Lola's husband, Ratna, helped with Erie when he could. He mainly went to work, where he got one promotion, and wanted to play sports. He aged into an unhappy elder by the end of the session.

Chloe also pitched in with the baby when she wasn't exhausted. She still works in the Slacker Career and calls Nolan for the odd booty call. She aged to an elder this session, too.

Kristen was career driven, constantly working out and building her skills. She got promoted twice upon her return, once based on her skills, and another due to a chance card. As a result, she has to work extra hard for that promotion she wants. Her elder transition was delayed by a little over 12 hours, but she aged on her return from work. Kristen isn't letting age stop her from being a Hall of Famer.

Erie is a toddler now, who had all of her toddler skills taught to her by Lola. She is the closest to Lola, understandably, and they are close to being best friends.

That was it for this session.

@Noa_4ever -Hi there!I used to be like you and couldn't stick with a town though for different reasons like not having any CC or hacks in my game and I'd have issues with community lots being sites of brawls and fights breaking out because the game would decide that it was a big city when I had just started a new town.I have a heavily Modded and hacked out game with my active town of Dodge being my BACC with only two couples moved in so far and more to come over the next few years once the winter of 1841 is over.I would go with empty terrains and have strict rules of building my town from scratch with only one couple at first and slowly add more over time and get the town to grow slowly like in real life.

Am back to playing Strangetown; probably the 5th time I've played it from the start, and I haven't played it for months. It's Tarlia's, plus 3 other pre-mades, Sedona, Shady Shores, & Widespot.. And my own Uni. Johnny Smith (as usual) has to be abducted for his 1st child. In this play, he never married. His son, Johnny2, is about to go to Uni. Like his father, he will only marry if they have 3 bolts. Can't wait for Johnny5 (Star Wars). In Uni I have created many aliens, but they are not always picked by anyone. They can't go to the other hoods until someone loves them..guess I didn't make them very lovable.Circe & Loki both had PT children, who were adopted by different families; I have to keep notes and add info to those kids bios - and other kids whose parents are "impossible", as Maxis family trees won't show the relations right. All those Sims who where adults when the game started have died of old age, and most of their children.
==
I enjoy my special CC; playing a grand Victorian, or a charming Craftsman just FEELS good!

Charles Wolff confessed to his wife Winnifred that he slept with Diane King. She took it really well- unsurprisingly since she is so understanding about this sort of stuff. They've had to make lots of adjustments since starting the married life. He promised he would never look at Diane that way again and that it was a mistake. He then took Win on a date and they had lots of make up Woohoo.

I played the Indie/O'Feefe family. Lots of doings. Gwen seems interested in dating only married men, and she still has her professor over when she feels lonely, but she doesn't want to settle down right now. Aaron is also having an affair, with Shanaya Dawn. His wife, Lacey, got pregnant and had a son, Lachlan. Delilah retired, and Mitch threw her a retirement/anniversary party. They are the only one of my original couples to reach a golden anniversary. Then right after it was over, the Grim Reaper came for Mitch. Delilah has decided to stay in the house, because she only has a day or two remaining herself. Mitch left Delilah and both kids a lot of insurance money, so now the family is sitting on a lot of cash and are definitely the wealthiest family in the neighborhood. The next level of housing is for the truly ultra-wealthy, though, and they aren't quite there yet.

I made a "cloned sim" neighborhood to experiment with genetic cloning.sci fi story. I didn't use the moveobjects on cheat, but I made different "clones" by using the avatar of one of my sims from bodyshop and made them all exactly identical in personality, traits, etc. I made 2 sets of clones, 6 males and 6 female. I did this to see if there would be any variation in the genetic makeup of the next generation to see if the genetic pool breaks off from the 2 parents. Should be interesting to say the least.

I played the Flexor and Wade families.

Despite there being babies all over the place, Eleasha and Clarence (now the Lums, although the children are still named Flexor) had a roof raiser of a wedding party, and then the twins aged up to toddlers. They are run ragged looking after three young kids. Eleasha's mom, Christa, came over for a visit, but she barely helped with the kids and kept getting into fistfights with Clarence, interfering with him while he was trying to change diapers or clean up dirty dishes, so thanks for nothing, Grandma.

Luis went into aspiration failure after his father died of old age. He decided to change his aspiration to Fortune and build a better life for his kids. He quit his job in music after getting a demotion and got a better job in the business career. Now he's doing very well; he has paid off half the mortgage and bought a new truck. The youngest, Diana, did not grow up well due to neglect, so Marta tried to make it up to her by teaching her how to study.

Just to warn you, half of this is rules establishment for my game and the other half is an actual household update.

This session... took quite the turn from a narrative perspective.

So the Tribal household was played, which consists of Johnny and Zidane as I mentioned many updates ago at this point. I also mentioned, in that same update I think, that I gave Zidane a little 'surprise' with the Sim Blender... that was basically just a fancy way of saying that he got pregnant... with Johnny's kid... through Sim Blender magic...

Why? If one wants the 'Watcher's' motive, then the reason is because I was curious about what a genetic child of theirs would look like. In addition... I wanted a bit of spice... without the burning of the tongue part. This is the part where the post gets a bit gobbledegook and we see how my brain works when world building. So the way I saw it, Johnny is a half-alien and half-aliens could have at least something from their life state that isn't visual.

And thus I decided, with the inspiration of other sims stories I have read, that hybrids could reproduce with males regardless of their gender. However, this can only happen once per hybrid, the hybrid has no say in when this happens (it's done unconsciously/accidentally), because they're not full aliens, and it can only happen if they feel a strong connection between themselves and their... partner, I guess we'll say. The reasoning for these rules is simple; for the first point is that I have to do it with cheats/mods, so it's not as spontaneous as a regular conception, and I also don't want to use a pregnancy for all mod; for the second point, the reasoning is just what I'd like to call 'Watcher's convenience,' it's self explanatory; the reasoning for the last point is if it's done unconsciously based on an emotional response, it would be logical that a hybrid would unintentionally get their romantic partner... knocked up, if I'm being informal. The partner doesn't even have to necessarily feel the same way, which could lead to some conflict down the line.

Some additional notes: if the baby is lost in some way, then that's the one chance for a hybrid to have a genetic child with their male partner gone; this does not affect standard conception, so Johnny for example can get a female pregnant through the 'standard procedure,' if you catch my drift; Jill, for example, can get Buck pregnant, but only once (totally not foreshadowing here), while Buck can also get her pregnant. She can't however, impregnate other females, though I may change this later (these rules are still in their infancy and are not very well defined); this form of impregnation is sort of pollen based, and this pollen does have the hybrid's DNA, obviously... if you're curious, it comes from downstairs... yes, I did think this hard into it...

I'll flesh this idea out more in the future, but yeah... it's time for the actual household update now!

Johnny wanted to get his job in the Music Career back to continue his life goal of being a Rock God. He looked in the paper every day, but had extremely terrible luck, as it never came up. For the time being, he is a stay at home boyfriend and although he doesn't hate it, he wants to put his creativity to use.

He threw a party and invited friends and family. It was a roof raiser, despite sims fighting for the bathroom.

Zidane made no advancement in his career, but did gain a body skill point. He wants to gain another point, but has no interest in building charisma, despite that being a requirement for him to get promoted. Speaking of charisma, he lost the only point he had in it, due to a chance card. He became best friends with Scout during the party Johnny threw, which was nice.

Scout's dad kicks the bin over most days... Damn it, Tank!

On Thursday, Zidane gave birth to a boy called James in an effort to keep the plain J names running for a bit. He has the S1 skin tone, green eyes, and blonde hair. In terms of personality, he is almost exactly the same as Zidane, except he has one less neat point and one less active point.

Johnny wanted to throw a party, so that's what he did. Family and close friends were invited to see the baby. Jenny finally has a grandchild.

The house got burgled, where nothing was stolen, but a car was set on fire. The officer won and the household was given 11,000 simoleons... seriously...

James aged to a toddler, where Johnny taught him to talk and potty trained him. Zidane taught him to walk.

Johnny wanted to ask Zidane on a date and during that date, he rolled the want to get married to him, so he proposed. They are now engaged.

Luna Canyon Birth Announcements

Henry and Catherine Piccolo welcomed their third child to the world on Tuesday. His name is Louis Piccolo. He has two older siblings Clarissa and Francis and an older half brother Sebastian King. This child was a surprise for the parents, but has caused them to stop fighting and reconcile after Henry's affair.

Julius and Aemilia Romana have finally reached their goal of having 10 children by the birth of their daughter Decima. They are thankful for their teenage twin daughters who help around the house and farm. The 1st generation of the Romana family is now complete: Regina, Corona, Crassus, Marcus, Luna, Sol, Pastor, Septimus, Julia, and Decima.

It's getting to that time when many of my elders are passing away.

First, the Dawn family. Shanaya got a job in the Medicine career. She is currently having an affair with her sister Judy's husband, Patryk, and with another married man, Aaron O'Feefe. She seems to prefer Patryk. She got a big bonus at work that enabled her to pay off the mortgage on the family home. Marylena then died of old age; hula dancers appeared, and she left a platinum urn, plus plenty of life insurance money for all her children.

I then went over to play the other Dawns. Patryk is unemployed and takes care of Jonah. Judy is the breadwinner and keeps getting promotions in the Natural Science career. Shanaya came over for Jonah's birthday, and he grew up well. Patryk is also in love with Shanaya, but Judy is either oblivious or she doesn't care. Judy got pregnant again and had a daughter, McKenzie.

Tobi and Victoria got married in a small ceremony. She got a job in education, and he got a job in adventuring. Tobi paid off the mortgage with his inheritance. Victoria then got fired and was so upset she wanted to get pregnant, which she did. They put pork chops and a TV dinner in the oven at the same time somehow and started back-to-back kitchen fires. So they had to take out a small loan to remodel the kitchen and furnish the nursery and kid's bathroom. They had a daughter, too: Nicola. Now Victoria wants to get another job.

Finally, I played the Whippler orphans. The house is still chaotic, and one day the kids all skipped school for no apparent reason, but things are starting to get straightened out. Edan grew up well. Adam and Antony became teens; Adam is romance, and Antony is family. Farley continued to haunt the house, so everyone was always tired. Grandma Debbie then died of old age. She didn't have much life insurance, but what she left to Matthias enabled him to hold a funeral for her, Farley, and Danielle, so no more ghosts, and they bought a new computer. They also now have a little cash buffer, so things are looking better there.

Things got more difficult than expected when the Nordins, Errol and Alvia, were finally going to open the first bakery in Simsby-on-the-Fjord. They had a cash register and rwo bronze badges each from their home business selling rocks and bones and they had enough cooking points to supply a bakery, but lacked the necessary funds to buy a suitable lot for the business or the equipment they'd need. They had been working hard and saving up strictly, not even giving in to their longing to have a child, as that would mean spending money on adding to their tiny house. In the end their funds seemed enough to start planning both a business and a family, so they tried for a baby, which was due the night after Alvia expected to come home from work with the last thousand simleons needed to buy the community lot. Tgen a chance card came up and involved two colours, one of which happens to be Alvia's favourte colour - and the result of choosing that colour this time set them back 20 000 simoleons, leaving them without a nickel to buy baby stuff or expand the fouse for, let alone buy a community lot.The resourceful Nordins got themselves out of this scrape by first winning a cooking contest each (question: the food the sims make for the contests is supposed to cost them money, but are they ever actually charged that sum? The Nordins are not the first of my sims to walk into Sue's Secret Kitchen with absolutely no money and walk out with prize money and an extra meal in their inventories), then opening a new home business and selling all the leftovers in their fridge at michelin-level prices. When their daughter Björk made her appearance they had more than enough money to build a little space for a crib and changing table and two buy said items. When she aged up to a toddler two days later they had 16 000 and only need 4000 more to finally get their dream business running.

This session the Grunt household was played, which consists of Ripp Grunt and Meadow Thayer.

Ripp wanted to get married, as did Meadow, so he proposed to her and she accepted. With him being a romance sim, he wasn't overly thrilled with it, though. He also had the fleeting desire to get his job in the Slacker Career back, which wasn't in the paper, unfortunately. This desire was fleeting, because he didn't roll it again.

That night, Ophelia called asking if Ripp wanted to go Downtown. He accepted and brought Meadow with him. Zidane came along too, since he was generated as a walk by just as Ripp accepted the invitation and got a blue plumbob above his head. He hitched a ride. Upon getting to the Londoste, it was revealed that Sandy Bruty, Skipp, and his brother Beau, were invited. They all ate, after Ripp got food dropped on him, and played darts before going home.

The next day, Ophelia payed the couple a visit, where they had dinner. Nothing much happend there.

Wednesday was their wedding day, where Meadow also got pregnant that morning. Friends and family, excluding Tank, were invited. During the ceremony, a random man in a Santa suit crashed the party, where he ate cake and turkey. He got along with everyone, though, but it was weird. Meadow became a 'Grunt.'

Saturday was when Meadow gave birth to a little girl called River Grunt. In appearance, she has Ripp's dark blue eyes and brown hair, but Meadow's medium skin colour. In personality, she is very sloppy (2 neat points), and is very outgoing, active, playful, and nice.

Ophelia walked into the house and after River was born invited Tank in after he kicked the bin over... he proceeded to attack Ripp in front of his wife...

Sunday the couple just spent time with the baby.

Eleanor and her husband (prior townie) Amin just had their first baby, Dane. This makes the third baby born this rotation! I'm pretty sure no one else was born on the same day/is the same age as my born in game Sims, so it'll be fun having these guys in the same class together if they all go to college.

In Sedona, the Gavigans' last-chance baby turned out to be twins. Little Dennis and Eve are named in honour of Gilbert Jacquet's parents, Denise and Yves (head canon in this hood is that Gilbert is intellectually challenged, and that's why he lived with his mum well into adulthood; after Denise died on the Highway, Gilbert was taken in by the Gavigans and now lives with them in Sedona). He was very excited to have the babies named after his mum and dad, and is spending a lot of his time cuddling them.

I have been playing some families where not a lot is happening, so I'll just focus on the Indies/O'Feefes.

Aaron's affair with Shanaya Dawn is apparently over, and his wife is still oblivious to the whole thing. I personally think that if you're married and having an affair with someone else, then you have no right to get upset if your affair partner has other lovers, but Aaron doesn't agree with me. He saw Shanaya with newly widowed Matthias Dodd and lost it at both of them. Then, as expected, Delilah died of old age, leaving a platinum grave and a huge life insurance settlement for her children and grandchild. The next day, Gwen threw a birthday party for Lachlan that was a good time, despite Shanaya (who is Gwen's friend) being there. Later, she took her parents' graves to the church and gave them a funeral. The household net worth is $101K now, far more than any other family in the neighborhood, and they are considering a move to the upper-level housing tier at the end of the week. Even with that much money, they still are on the lower end of that tier of housing. There is a nice three-bedroom villa that would suit, even if Gwen continues to live with her brother and his wife.

I've been playing Strangetown today, and once again it annoyed me that the windows on the Maid's van reflect grass and trees. So I dug out the desert envcube images from the game files and made a replacement!
I already did a snow and brick building one for one of my custom neighbourhoods but this one was easy as Maxis already had the textures made for me.

The Ridderstedts saw lots of changes this session. Bo-Erik became The Law, which should have fulfilled a lifetime want for him but didn't,because the sneaky little thing changed lifetime wants without telling anyone sometime before he reached that goal.He is now trying to become a city planner instead. Oya decided she was tired of being a mad scientist and now tries fulfilling her own lifetime want of being Captain Hero. Their oldest set of twins, Rustan and Runika, left for university the same day their youngest set of twins, Ruesha and RuthEmma aged up to toddlers. The dog overcome her aversion to other dogs and the family is now looking forward to a half-wolf puppy in the near future.

The Ridderstedt twins were the last of the first batch of children born in Simsby-on-the-Fjord to go to uni, so they and some townie friends of theirs are now divided up into three university dorms. Among the townie teens is the blonde goth-ish Tricou teen, who dated Tempest Delancey.

To Tarek Lari's great relief, Jared Spurlock finally reached Sedona with his own two kids and Tarek's daughter, Miriam. They'd parted ways at Lost Springs, when Tarek left Miriam with the Spurlocks because she and her twin, Timothy, were constantly attacking each other. Tarek had thought they'd arrive pretty much together, so he was getting increasingly anxious as they days passed with no sign of Jared's group. Having spent so much time apart, the twins managed to talk to each other like normal people for once, so Tarek's hoping they can learn to be friends now. Jared is the last of the refugees to reach safety, so the hood is now switching to something closer to a BaCC.

The waiting list for housing is becoming critical. The Laris and Spurlocks are sharing the Welcome Cabin for now; Jason Larson just had Amanda Carlson move in with him and is applying for a larger apartment; Ginger Newson is waiting for a place of her own so she can live with her townie boyfriend (she's currently in a studio apartment with Gavin, Georgia, and Georgia's dog, Tiffany); there are three generations of Tinkers in a one-bedroom apartment; and several young adults will soon be returning from Takemizu University and looking for accommodation. The Ramaswamis' neighbours are complaining because the ghost of their cat, Noodle, keeps haunting the other apartments and has already caused a couple of embarrassing accidents in the hallway. On the bright side, the Spurlock and Lari kids will be joining the workforce on the next rotation, so the building work should speed up a bit.

I've been setting up the start of my community service center as an outdoor market in Pleasant Valley for today's session and next session is setting up the residence for my first family to settle in there.

It's the end of the week in MooVille. Time for moving, housekeeping details, and new college grads.

The Indie/O'Feefe family did indeed move into the upper-level villa. Lacey got pregnant again, and since the new house has only three bedrooms, Gwen decided it was time she moved out on her own. She bought a little starter house and invited her professor friend to move in with her. Before she left, though, she threw a not bad birthday party for Lachlan, but he didn't grow up well because he never learned to potty.

The Flexor kids have all grown out of the toddler stage. Only Grady didn't grow up well. Even after all that madness, Clarence wanted another baby, so he got Eleasha pregnant again as well.

After his wife Debbie died, Matthias asked Shanaya Dawn to move in with him and the four Whippler kids. Likely, he just wanted help with the kids more than anything, but Shanaya also brought in plenty of money, so now everyone can go to college, and they were able to move into a bigger house. One of the twins, Adam, did go on to college, but Antony needs to bring his grades up before he can join. Courtney became a teen (Fortune).

Halima Furley asked her college girlfriend, Regina, out on a date and then wanted to marry her. So Regina moved in, they threw a wedding party, and it was a roof raiser. With her money, they were able to pay off the mortgage. Halima wanted to adopt a baby right away, which meant there was no bedroom for her sister, Brooke, so Brooke moved out. They adopted a boy named Osian.

In the Day house, Harriette did not grow up well, but Hayden did. Zoya put away some money and got a scholarship, so she headed off to college.

In the Wade house, all three of the kids are teens now. Benito is Family, Bo is Popularity, and Diana is Romance.

After the Boys Ranch, which looks like the last update here, and between and after Nutcracker (woo! We survived Nutcracker!) I have managed to play a bit.

The Roths: Everyone's doing great, weirdly Stella is nice and interested in her family and this is a weird Stella, and that's fine with me. Grades, promotions, and scholarships proceeded as such things do. They bought one of the Critter pups from Leod and Sandra is puppy-crazed. Puppy grew up white with a black muzzle. Definitely Sandra's doggy. They also hired a butler, and someone wanted to plant in the greenhouse so that happened, not sure who--I have photos of plants in greenhouse but not of anyone planting them. Xander, maybe? Also much swimming pool.

The Greenmans, Rose wants more babies. Lots more babies. And a few more babies. Fortunately for everyone, toddler plantsims are largely self-sufficient when you have a jungle of them. Also, did you know that the automatic sprinklers will turn on when a dry plantsim is in their range? Well, now you know! Mostly the plantsims play at the toddler tables under a sunlamp and with sprinklers on them. Rose made six more spawns for eight babies (the last was twins), plus has a baby with Jason, also is pregnant again, and also Jason is pregnant by the local aliens. (Strangetown move in store for them. I'm thinking the plantsim group can make an oasis there. What is a group of plantsims? Herd of deer, murder of crows, ???? of plantsims?)

The Veijo Household: After about ten seconds of looking at them (why are you living in freezing Riverblossom, what is it you want, etc) Catherine nabbed a job in Show Business and Betty in LS Entertainment. Catherine is clearly an aging star, and Betty is her agent. They're rusticating in Riverblossom for the moment as, um, that, y'know, incident, and Catherine needed to get her face off the tabloids for a bit, and anyway, it's a quiet little slow town. Catherine is seeing several interesting gentlemen, none of them very seriously, all of them more or less discrete and of a certain age. (20 simultaneous lovers LTW) Betty is seeing one gentleman, fairly seriously, Luis Aspir. (Is that the right Aspir? The elderly gentleman.) Andrew's mostly remembering to go to work, he's had to go shopping for the ladies (no point in rusticating if they see you at the fashionable stores, is there?) which was, um, weird, since he's kind of a whatever's on the thrift store rack guy himself. He's got a miss right now--Candy Hart--who is pregnant by someone else but she doesn't care and he doesn't care and it's not anything more than fun for either of them. Jacob is enjoying dating Sandra and thinking about college or not, maybe yes on college. His 'aunts' aren't staying in Riverblossom past the end of spring, Dad's looking at moving downtown, and while Jacob doesn't know what he wants out of life he's pretty sure it's not what any of them have or want, and college might just be a way to figure out what that something else is.

With Riverblossom in the books (except for the households that have puppies and kittens to sell before finishing their rotation) I jumped over to Desiderata. The Desideratans had managed to get to know the Riverblossomians a bit through computers and parties at the Wan/Shibuku household.

Natasha Una ate grilled cheese for a week, painted, and occasionally talked on the phone to family. I didn't even take a single picture of her.

John Mole worked, got promoted, and threw parties. He wanted a kitten. He got a kitten. He spoils the kitten. As one does.

Jocques: Violet got a job working for her mom's sports team. The Jocques aren't telling me a lot about themselves, but they didn't go to college, and they're not super big fans of hard work. Both Marcel and Sophia wanted another baby, so they got busy on that and welcomed twins Amie and Alyssa, named after their grandmas. Violet is planning on college, has met a mob of interesting teens, and generally boggles her parents. "Do you want to watch the twins?" is often met with "I've got work!" which is followed by "Why are you working?". Because Violet wants things. Things like cell phones and life beyond the confines of Desiderata. Things like fame and fortune. (LTW Entertainment) Her friend group is Jacob Martin, Rick Contrary, Raneka King, Tybalt Capp, and Soda Pop Bonet. Her parents like all of them in general and figure they'll all learn to relax, chill, and take life as it comes later on.

And on trying to load the Contrarys last night to see what's up with Rick anyway (he fought with his dad until they weren't enemies anymore at John Mole's and sulked at Violet's and rejected everyone being friendly) my computer decided it was crashy time. So next time I feel like playing, it'll be the Contrarys.

One of the special moments in my hood - Andrew Henderson - the first born baby in Fountain Ridge - became a teen today.