It’s Tuesday, and I’m feeling weirdly wishy-washy, so I thought I’d ask:

What would you guys prefer for the next update? The Shanleys? More Brayton saga? Or something completely (well, almost completely) different?

I have pictures ready to go — I just have to write the updates — and I’m having trouble deciding what should be next. I am at your whim.

Again, here are your options, if you want to pick one:

a) Braytons
b) Shanleys
c) something new and strange
d) forget the Sims and go see Batman Begins again
e) I don’t care, I just like commenting on blogs

Choose wisely.

So I was catching up on blogs tonight and noticed that GnomeGrrl over at VillaSim created some Victorian wallpapers in honor of my website. Awesome! And they’re beautiful wallpapers, too. Anyway, I just wanted to say THANKS to GnomeGrrl and tell everyone to go check out her site if you haven’t already. She has a lot of cool stuff over there.

I’m working on the next Brayton post, and then I’m going to try to bring the Shanleys back…though I’m still trying to figure out a way to make them more interesting. I’m open to suggestions!

Hey guys, I’m still here, just spinning my wheels in the mud a bit. I didn’t want to post until I was ready to post a story, but I realized with horror that my short hiatus has turned into a long one, and I wanted to reassure you guys that I DO plan on coming back to my Sims at some point in the near future. My internet access from home is working now, so that’s good, but starting the new job has been sort of mentally taxing, which doesn’t leave much brain power for writing Sim stories (I have a very small brain, apparently). I suspect that as I settle more comfortably into the job, I’ll have more energy at night to return to blogging. I’m just not sure when that will happen.

Also, and I’m not sure how to put this, but I’m having a tough time with the Shanleys. I’ve been trying to write their update for days and just can’t get into it. I’m far more interested in the Braytons right now, and even have a couple of updates waiting to be written, but I promised myself to post about the Shanleys first. I think I might end up putting them on hold for awhile, though, until I figure out how to make them interesting again (I don’t want to give them up entirely). In the meantime, I’ll focus on the Braytons.

I hope you guys will continue to check the site for updates, though I can certainly understand losing interest when there are no updates to be had. Just to leave you with a little something, here’s a picture of what the Grim Reaper did after Dr. Hutchins passed away (Dr. Hutchins was the only person on the lot, so Grimmy wandered around for awhile and, erm, tried out the “facilities”):

Continue reading →

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I’ve mostly moved into the new place, but my internet connection isn’t working yet. *weeps* The cable guy is coming out on THURSDAY (ugh) to check it out; until then, I can only get online from work. I’m working on another Brayton update and hope to have the Shanleys ready to go by the end of this week. However, I will be horribly behind on everyone else’s blogs. My apologies. I’m starting a new job next week and training someone how to do my current job, which leaves little time for web-slacking during the day, unfortunately. ;-) Yeah, my life is pretty much chaos right now. Hopefully the dust will settle soon and I’ll be back to posting on a regular basis. Until then, thanks for reading, and Happy Simming!

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I’m still alive. Life got hectic for awhile there, so I didn’t have as much time to play and blog as I’d like. Plus I’m moving to a new house in a week, so updates may be a little spotty until I get settled in. I have a Brayton update about half-written, and another one waiting in the wings, so I hope to get those posted within the next day or so. And I’m slowly playing the Shanley girls through college, so maybe I’ll even have a Shanley update ready soon. Until then, Happy Simming and all that good stuff!

This week I’d like to spotlight one of my favorite blogs, Heidi’s Sims 2 Blog. Heidi has been blogging about the Sims since October 2004, so she’s been around for awhile! The thing I love most about her blog is that you can tell an intelligent person is behind it all — she brings a fresh perspective to the game and to storytelling. She was one of the first people to make me think Romance Sims aren’t THAT bad and can actually be kind of fun.

Heidi played the Legacy Challenge for awhile but is back to her main neighborhood of Monroeville. She has several families who all have elaborate and interesting backgrounds and live in cool houses. One thing I find really inspiring, as well as entertaining, is that the Sims in Monroeville are all interconnected in some way. When one of them has a party, you’ll often see members of other families popping up, which makes it feel like a real neighborhood. I can almost imagine them mingling with each other when Heidi’s not playing them. ;-)

In short, if you haven’t visited Heidi’s blog, check it out!

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know what I’ve been up to. I devoted tonight to the Braytons and was all ready to post the next story when I decided to take it in a slightly different direction. That meant more pictures and more playing, which took up the rest of the night! If work is slow tomorrow I might get a chance to work on the update, so I’m hoping it’ll be up by tomorrow evening. *crosses fingers and toes*

Elsewhere in the news, the wonderful Kate over at Parsimonious has created a 1920s flapper-dress mesh which is PERFECT for the next generation of Braytons. HappyMoonBelly made some lovely skins for the mesh, and I downloaded all of them. I was so happy, because good 1920s skins are as rare as alien twins. I’m probably going to have the same problem with the 1930s, but I saw another Kate mesh that looks like a 1940s dress, so maybe I can use that for the ’30s, too. Anyway, in my excitement I even made a donation and tried to sign the guestbook so I could thank them, but the guestbook dealie wouldn’t work, so I’m typing this instead. Not that they’ll ever see it, but I just wanted to shout out my gratitude!

Also big thanks to Bitsy for all of the awesome links she has found for my Timely Finds page. I haven’t added her latest links, but I will very soon. If you haven’t looked at that page in awhile, check it out — there’s a ton of new stuff there, and it’s all pretty cool.

Happy Simming!

A long time ago I thought about doing a “Blog of the Week” feature, but back then there weren’t as many Sims 2 blogs, and I would have run out of ones to highlight in a couple of months. But there seems to have been a blog boom recently, so I thought now would be a great time to start this up.

There are a ton of truly excellent Sims 2 blogs out there (many of which are listed in my sidebar under “Sims 2 Blogs”), but my first Blog of the Week just has to be Bringing Up Daysies, run by chattykathy. Her blog was one of the first ones I found when I was hunting for Sims 2 blogs back in September, and it’s still going strong half a year later.

Kathy’s site consists primarily of Sims 2 news and links to the incredible new objects available for beta testing out on Mod the Sims 2, where Kathy is a moderator. She’s also the keeper of the helpful “Getting ready for University” FAQ on MOTS2, so she has a lot of technical know-how when it comes to the Sims. She’s always very responsive to questions about her site or TS2 in general.

Everything is neatly organized by category: Hacks & Mods; Meshes & Objects; Cheats, Tips & Tutes; and categories for her various Sims families. She doesn’t blog much about her families anymore — I’m sure the moderator job takes up a huge chunk of her time — but they’re fun to read about if you dig back into the archives a bit.

Another thing I love about her site is that she tries to update every day if possible, so there’s always something new to check out. I’m sure most of you know about her site already, but if you don’t, then go take a look!