That's funny, my Strangetown Ripp once gave a stove to his girlfriend as outing gift. The cheapest one
(Picture 1 , picture 2)

The Parker's got a new cat named Thorn and their dogs had a puppy! They now have 3 dogs and 4 cats on the farm. I like for all of my pets to be in Family Trees eventually, so I breed pets to keep the lineage going. Their elder cats Tiger and Lily had kittens Bam and Boo (Bam was given to the Frasers), and now that Boo is getting older they want to breed him soon with Thorn. Rescued stray Alia had a puppy with Forrest's German Shepherd, Gump. They named the puppy Buford and are thinking about giving him to another family. They like having a lot of animals, though. It keeps them busy!
Shenandoah is also no where near ready to retire. Land Grant University just got contracted with Luna Canyon, so she wants to keep working on campus to make sure the education is good enough for her son, Forrest, and all of the other kids in town. Forrest is very intelligent but has no interest in school or doing homework. Shenandoah doesn't let that slide, though. That boy better get his grades up and go to college! Pictured is Shenandoah with Thorn (note Forrest's giant pile of unfinished homework), and dogs Alia and Gump with their new baby, Buford.



The Bakers are starting to feel like a real family. Evan Baker and his long term girlfriend Brooke Jung have been a lot more affectionate with each other ever since Brooke got pregnant. Brooke sometimes still daydreams about past lovers and wants to befriend a lot of teens & young adults, so she's struggling with coming to terms that she officially has to settle down now. She feels like she just fell into this life: being a step-mom to Bud, being in a relationship with a middle-aged man, and helping take care of the family bakery. Now she's having a baby of her own. She doesn't want to marry Evan, but since they're raising the baby together she figures it will take Evan's last name. Bud will be so happy to have a younger sibling! He doesn't remember his mother at all, so he definitely has no clue that she's raising a new baby of her own now.

At the Blue Pool Motel, Sugar and Alvin Riley are still struggling with being new parents. Sure, Sugar had a baby with her ex husband Evan, but she barely held the baby before she left him and has no idea what she's doing. She can't run again, she has nowhere to run to and no one to take care of little Cherry. Besides, this new marriage with Alvin is pretty dang great. Alvin goes to work, Sugar stays home and entertains many of her lovers. They're also doing better financially and can possibly upgrade to an apartment soon! Here is how they feel about their current living situation at the motel (you can spot poor baby Cherry on the floor):

It's that the town is preparing for all of the new settlers comoing out west to populate Dodge with another couple arriving in the spring as the town is about to enter into the winter of 1841.

That's hilarious! But not entirely unexpected:



@raise20puppiesorkittens That cat has beautiful markings!

@TadOlson Will Dodge have a long winter, or just one normal season? I have two consecutive winters in one of my worlds and I find the weather gets more severe with two seasons together.

You got me there, I went and checked Ripp's bio in game.
I know Circe Beaker officially collects coat hangers, so I thought, why not, maybe Ripp too has a collection.

Thank you, Simsample!! The calico preset in the game has a white base, I really wanted one with a black base with spots of white and orange. It definitely doesn't look much like a calico, but I like how it turned out

So, I'm back to playing my Widespot/LGU modern game. Long, long ago, Hugh Knowe and Cliff Notes got engaged, moved out of the dorm and into a residence, and had a cow mascot incident. Cliff being the grouch he is, it took a lot of chess to get past it, but today, at last, the day of their second sophomore final, he finally outlived his fury. And suddenly, as if he knew, Hugh started rolling romantic wants and autonomously flirting with him. They went on a date and finally finally finally had their first woohoo after being engaged for more than a year!

About the time they were getting up anyway, the phone rang. Cliff caught it, and it was his father. He appears to have had a frank conversation with him, if I may so interpret the kiss icon followed by the rocketship icon.

Afterward Cliff was more relaxed than he's ever been before, and as they counted down the hours to their final, they were both all over each other. Cliff suggested cuddling under the stars and Hugh agreed. I don't see this very often, as I'm a little afraid of falling satellites, but I saved the game and allowed it, and holey cheese, that's a cute animation! They kept talking about constellations, and somebody went to a certain amount of trouble to draw a bunch of simlish constellations. They went to their exam at the same time, returned at the same time, and had the same grades. Though they are in different course of study,they now have class at the same time, so that'll be nice for them.

It took awhile, but they are now all set to be one of those Knowledge/Knowledge couples who are all in all to each other and never want to do anything except skill and canoodle. Nice work if you can get it!

Not in the game per say, but I feel like I'm going a tad mad. the game wants purple flashing? I'll give it purple flashing.

I put in the gift-giving mod and Priya threw herself a baby shower. It was a lot of fun, and she got some nice things, too!

However, I'm in a bit of a quandary in my townie hood. I have four couple households now, all either married or engaged (based on their wants), and all of them cheating (also based on their wants). Everyone has gotten caught and no one is happy, but I never see anyone roll the want to break up. I think I've only ever seen that want once in all the time I've been playing, and that was a teen who was going steady and got cheated on. Priya is having Sanjay's baby but cheating with Brandon, who is engaged to Andrea. Marylena is having Benjamin's baby but she is cheating with Komei and he is cheating with Andrea. Komei is married to Marisa, but I'm pretty sure Joe Carr got her pregnant while he was at work.

Should I just take the reins and straighten all this out? Or should I wait until they actively start fighting? Usually, if two Sims can't stop fighting, I just break them up and move one out because otherwise that's all they do.

@Simsample -Dodge is currently in a drought and is expected to have a milder winter than usual for 1841 with the construction crew staying on for the winter.

The town construction crew is staying for the winter with Dodge in a drought and expected to have a mild and very dry winter this year and hoping the drought is over in 1842.They've got a few new additions to the service center.

Played some households in my downtown, Cliffrose Heights:
At the Fromage household, the youngest kiddos, twins Cottage and Kurt, woke their parents up by having a pillow fight in their bedroom! I love the simple things kids do.

Pepper and Jack both have artistic careers- Pepper being a whittler and Jack a restaurant host hoping to open his own place someday. They are definitely starving artists and struggle to make ends meet. Their eldest son, Ched, is a teen and follows his parents' artistic ways as a painter. He has a maxed creativity skill, which is very rare to have in my game. He's also already sold a masterpiece. After school, he stayed behind hoping to make some friends, or maybe even find a date like his best friend Sebastian King just did. He had no luck, so he went to the art classroom and tried pottery for the first time.


Next door at the Silva's, Betty wanted to call her son, Bill, studying at LGU every hour. He's lucky she doesn't drop by unannounced! Henry Piccolo called Georgette and took her on a date to the bar. Georgette let her younger, underage teen sister Carol tag along. Carol, who plans on going to college, loved playing adult and ordering drinks at the bar. She's very studious and not interested much in romance, but she enjoyed getting a taste of the adult life waiting for her at LGU. Georgette, a fresh adult who wants to Woohoo with 30 Different Sims, has only accomplished her first woohoo. She is very aware of Henry Piccolo's reputation and figured he'd be easy. He's seemed to change in his old age. He still loves the ladies and loves pursuing as many as possible, but he's not willing to woohoo with just anyone anymore. And maybe he doesn't want to take advantage of someone young enough to be his daughter...

The Wolff's aren't living nearly as glamorous of lives as they'd wish, but today their lives felt full. Charles and Winnifred always pictured themselves as a power couple throwing fancy parties, but here they are in a tiny apartment they can barely afford with a toddler. Their day was not glamorous- working their low level jobs, cleaning the apartment, washing the dogs. A few friends, Kaibab Parker and Amin Sims included, came over in the evening for some dinner, Bubbles, and dancing. Amin helped take care of the little one, too. Life is good, especially with so many great friends. And their little girl Scotty is adorable


At the Sims household, Amin received a promotion to Theorist, toddler Dane learned to walk, and Eleanor was all over her husband. As a Family aspiration, Eleanor wants another baby so badly. They seem to be struggling with fertility, though. They also want to go on vacation (I'm waiting until Dane becomes a child so he can come), so maybe that'll give them some time to work on another baby. There was a glitch where Amin and their dog Pluto wanted to get on the bed at the same time, so it happened. I thought it was sweet since I allow 3 dogs & my boyfriend to share my bed lol, wish my Sims could sleep with their pets like that normally.


LGU households are next! I'm excited to add some new playables to my rotation.

Dammit I was writing a huge update about Strangetown on my half dead phone which I accidentally posted unfinished. I deleted it and now the empty box is staring cruelly at me.

Alright, so I went backwards and here it is:
I've been playing with Strangetown in a sort of fast forward, non control freaky way and the whole neighbourhood is infested with green siblings/cousins. Pascal married Nervous after he had his alien daughter Tyche. Tyche is in college right now. She's a fortune sim with one grouchy point and she frequently gets into fights with a dormie, Sandy. She reminds me of the Diva, she even primps all the time and she doesn't even have a nose! So Pascal lives with Nervous and their two adopted daughters, Morticia and Ada, in Olive's house. Nervous is cheating on Pascal with Chloe. Oops. Vidcund is addicted to alien abductions so now he has Gladys (pleasure, failed out of college), Ruby, Marie and baby Albert. Lazlo lives in an apartment with his twin alien boys Mario and Luigi. Chloe lives in the same apartment complex with her twins Sandra and Owen, also green. Waylon Menon is the father but who cares, amirite?

Ophelia went to college, got engaged to Johnny on the first semester but on her third year she cheated on him with Robert, a dormie. So she broke up with Johnny who started dating Kristen Loste. He threw a party one day where he invited the two women and well, guess what happened. Ophelia just couldn't restrain herself I guess. So her and Johnny continued their affair while she was engaged to Robert and he got engaged to Kristen, who somehow forgave him! But then dear lord, Ophelia wanted to ask someone to do her term paper so she seduced her other dormie Toby (she didn't have enough influence points and her secondary is romance). He was already smitten with her so it was a piece of cake, but guess what happened again! Yep. Robert caught them in bed together and he'd already forgiven her for going on a date with Johnny, in the dorm, right in front of him! Ophelia felt so bad she broke up with him and proposed to Toby.

Meanwhile Johnny got married to Kristen and rented an apartment in the same apt complex with Lazlo and Chloe. Ophelia moved after graduation in the fourth and last available apartment and immediately slept with Johnny. That woohoo resulted in an accidental pregnancy which is funny because Johnny wanted a baby with Kristen but they had to try like five times for it to happen. So Ophelia told Toby about the baby, trying to pass it off as his and they got married. She gave birth to a little girl, Willow, and Kristen gave birth to a little boy, Leonard. From the moment Willow was born it was kinda obvious who the daddy was but Kristen and Toby tried to push forward in their marriages. Ophelia had twins Olivia and Matthias with Toby. But then it happened: Johnny grew into an elder and Toby caught Ophelia flirting with him. That was it. He couldn't play the fool anymore, so they divorced and he left. Kristen quietly asked for a divorce from Johnny soon after that, so now she lives with just her son Leonard, and Johnny moved in with Ophelia. Soon they'll be moving in with Johnny's mother, who's now a widow.

Btw, Jenny and PT9 had another baby, Jane. She's now in college with Tyche. There's much more going on but this is already a thesis, I feel like. Jill and the Grunt brothers went to college together. Jill got with Ripp at first but then broke it off with him for Tank. That didn't help the brothers' relationship at all, as you can imagine. Buck was abducted by the secret society, which caught me completely by surprise. Now all of them live in the same apt complex. Jill and Tank have a little girl, Lyla and Jill is pregnant again. She'll have a girl who they'll name Mary.

I also had Stella Terrano steal Matthew Hart from Sara Love. Matthew dropped out of college for her and they have a boy, Claudius. Stella actually died because she decided to run around with a pair of scissors at some point but Klara Voldenstein got into the Paranormal career and resurrected her. Klara is married to William Williamson and they have a boy, Charles. Klara also has three bolts with Matthew...

Blossom has twin girls Cherry and Honey with Stella's professor Robert, though I'm thinking of having her have an affair with a dormie friend of hers who lives in the apt above her.

OK. That's it. I'm done. Anyone who reached this part, you're free now. Thanks for reading!

When I first played The Sims, 21 years ago, my very first Sim was a self-insert, and he lived at 10 Sim Lane. Remember this house? I ended up expanding the bedroom and bathroom a little bit, and added a second story. If you're going to start a family, a lot of default houses just don't have room otherwise. So anyway, I'm a really nostalgic kind of guy, so I got the idea a while back to build my old Sims house in The Sims 2.

The exterior isn't shaped anything like it's supposed to be, of course. But the inside... I enjoyed replicating that. Once I was satisfied with it, I added it to the bin. As for why this one is in Strangetown... I was anticipating the Mass Effect Legendary Edition release earlier this year, so I decided to start a family with Commander Shepard (who's an astronaut... I should get him promoted to general, I guess) and Tali'Zorah (who's a top secret researcher). They've got three daughters. and Tali has a brother and sister elsewhere in Strangetown. So yeah, that's why this neighborhood has been filling up with aliens. Oh, they also have a cat named Chiktikka, named after Tali's combat drone in Mass Effect 2.

I hope I uploaded the screenshots correctly...

Right now I'm going to be scouting out a new graphics card..because this one is giving out signals it's not doing well. I just hope I can find a reasonable replacement for it.

Oh no! I hope you get it sorted out, Fran!

I'm going to be watching it very closely for a while-it is the video card, because it was acting funky last night (and has been for a while now), and I'm just hopeful that it will last a little longer. I can afford to get a new one, but I have to make sure it's matched to my computer set up right now.

And I have to have it installed-I don't dare do it myself because I can't keep a watch on my body without losing it. I'm not good with electronics beyond the basics of unplugging everything and replugging it in.

I'll have to speak to my electronics guru as well to see what he says.

Thank you for your kind thoughts and words. I'm going to need them.

A burglar tried to get Allegra Gorey and Martin Ruben, but their alarm foiled their plans. Allegra is getting out of their comfort zone and throwing a party here and there and making friends. They continued to do very well in college and study hard. They both graduated. Tiffany Sampson and Martin Ruben moved to their own home in Strangetown. That tiny weird one. Allegra Gorey and partner Klara Vonderstein moved to Strangetown as well into their own home (that I made). It's barely furnished at the moment but it should be big enough for them to have a family and live there forever. I realized Monica was already graduated and in the sim bin so I placed them with Hugh Knowe, Cliff Notes and Sara Bellum. Monica helped furnish the house more.

I went around fixing/setting ACR settings (to the best of my ability) for all the sims and worked on some makeovers. ACR made Stella Terrano and DJ Verse pregnant since I wouldn't cancel their auto woohoo just to give them a makeover. Gotta let them do their thing first!

Played the SSU frat brothers. They had a toga party. The printer sisters were there and JoAnn got angry at Daisy and Dot for "cheating" even though they are in an open polyam relationship with all of them set to no jealousy and while playing them it was never a problem. I fixed it with sim manipulator because that makes no sense. There was a pizza delivery person who for whatever reason just wanted to walk back and forth beside their car and never come up to deliver the pizza. Eventually it was sat down in the yard where they could finally get it. Later the grocery delivery person did the same thing. Alicia cheated on Dixie Land with Joshua Ruben at the toga party, surprising me. The Toga party, despite the printer sister fiasco, was a roof raiser. Ashley had a graduation party and it was a roof raiser. I unbanned the cow mascot before the party, still got the clown/french fry boxhead runby, so that is not why. Mod maybe, maybe not, who knows. Ashley Pitts and Jessie Pilferson moved into their own trailer in Pleasantview. Back at the frat house a burglar somehow stole their hot tub. They didn't have an alarm but they do now (too little too late). The hot tub was replaced. I was able to get Joshua up in time to call the police and they did catch the burglar so they got some of the cost back. The guys do well in university. Joshua got into the secret society by surprise. ACR is pairing up the townies. Josh fed the cow plant at the secret society. Josh graduated and had a graduation party, where he made out with Alicia, hopefully Dixie don't find out! It was a roof raiser. Kevin and Castor graduated. They did not have a party. Joshua rents a home downtown, not far from the church for the followers of the great llama, of which he is one. Kevin and Castor move into their own home in Riverblossom Hills.

From Arundel-

The baby boom continues.

Brenda Go had twins-a boy and girl, courtesy of Frederick Newman, whose wife Anna also finally had his longed for heir. Now he has to support 5 children in total. He won't be having another affair soon. That one cost him plenty!

Amy Klein had quadruplets-she hired a nanny who, when the parents had left, put the children's room off limits to them-"I don't want those incompetent morons ruining my job! It's hard enough without them barging in and wringing their hands over which baby to feed!"

Lillith Vatore and her fiance, Curtis Gregory were married after he invited her to move in with him. Her brother had been anxiously awaiting such a move so he could propose to Brenda Clark, who has been aggressively courting him. Needless to say, Caleb was very happy to have his sister safely married off. Lillith is also expecting a child on Saturday.

Two townies who had become the newest citizens have gotten engaged-and moved into together: Jacqueline Langerak and Tazama Davidson.

The two teens are looking forward to becoming adults because they're not allowed in the Tavern and feel rather lonely. They both work for a living outside of school.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I had been gone on a several month hiatus from the game. Checking in with Alexander Goth (now a medical doctor) and his wife Camryn (whom I think was a University classmate). I was perplexed at first. Camryn continued to age, while Alexander remained at 29 days until elder. This continued for about 10 Sim days. I thought it was glitched at first. I tried the "aging on" cheat. But he finally aged yesterday. Turns out, he must have drank a couple of people from the cowplant. I'm curious to check his memories to see who they were!

Cassandra and her husband Darren Dreamer finally passed away, but Alexander and Camryn moved into the Goth Manor just before that happened. I decided to name Alexander's son Herman, after Herman Munster. I figured Gomez (as in Addams) would be a bit too on-the-nose. Everything was great until the ghost of Mortimer began haunting little Herman Goth, who just got into private school. I hate to do it, but Mortimer might have to go off to the Bluewater Cemetery soon.

I decided to go back to playing Pleasantview after taking a little break. I've gotten really far along in it and I am still enjoying all the Sims and families. Of course I played a few households just to remember where everybody was before I started noticing some little glitches. Finally realized ALL the graves in the neighborhood were gone. Then I remembered I had been messing with my mods folder. Restored my mods folder, restored Pleasantview from a backup from just before I took the break. All's well, graves restored, wants back to normal, but of course all my play today was as if it never happened. Doesn't matter--I'm just happy I noticed and solved the problem so quickly.

BTW One of the glitches I noticed was each time I sent someone to a community lot, they'd roll the want to ask someone home, even though they weren't even on a date.

In my game, I have the Mystery Sim:

Lol - the mystery sim. I decided years ago that Mystery Sim is simply a romance sim with a lot of elixir of life in his basement

I played the Calientes. They just recently moved into a bigger house after Amber and Mina got married, but then they came into a huge windfall. First, Nina got $75,000 from a chance card, then Amber got $100,000. Amber and Mina decided to adopt an unfortunate townie girl Amber knew named Chloe Gonzaga instead of adopting a baby, so they spent their time working and fitting Chloe into the family. Nina went on two dates with Bobby Broke. The first was so she could public woohoo at the sleazy motel. Then she came home and bought a new hot tub and hammock with her windfall, and she wanted to woohoo in both those locations. Bobby had a great time, but all he gave her was a Mr. Bearlybutts chair, which Nina passed on to Chloe. Now I'm wondering what to do with all their money--should they upgrade houses again or just remodel the one they have. Neither Amber nor Mina is much interested in luxury living, although they might appreciate more space in which to have big telescopes and things like that. I'll have to think on it.

Got back into the game after a bit of a break from simming, finished up my 11th rotation of Baby Bay.

My founder Mina has finally reached 20 grandchildren, has 1 great-grandchild and is expecting another next rotation.

The great-grandchild is Odette Bertino, daughter of Count Andrew Bertino and Zoe Bertino (née Murray). Because I thought it would be funny to marry a vampire and a plantsim - didn't realise that he'd keep biting her whenever she cured herself of vampirism. You're the one rolling the want for her to be cured, buddy, why do you keep doing it?