Still Simming Away

Hey all, just thought I’d do a quick post about what I’ve been up to lately. As you may have noticed, I ran out of steam with my Wishful Living Challenge family, sadly. Generation 6 (Jules’s heir) reached adulthood, moved into Goodwin Goode’s old house, and married a lovely woman. Last I left them, they had engaged in some post-wedding woohoo which resulted in lullaby chimes. For some reason, I never went back after that.

Wishful Living Challenge
The last pic I took of the Shanleys

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One Big Crazy Family

Wishful Living Challenge

Hey all, here’s another update on the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family. This one’s a little shorter than usual – I want to try doing smaller updates so I have a better chance of remembering what the heck happened and so it doesn’t take me forever to write it all up. We’ll see how that goes…I’m actually quite a bit past this point, so it’ll be a couple of updates before I’m all caught up. Anyway, onward and upward!
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Days of Wine and Robots

Wishful Living Challenge

Things are moving right along with the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family. In the last update, generation four torch-holder Gibson had just moved out of the family’s home in Twinbrook. Even though he had §97,440 in cash and was allowed to purchase a home with a value of up to §49,999, I had him buy one of those shacks in the swamp because it seemed like the appropriate setting for him to work on his Lifetime Wish – to make three monsters.
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Upgrade to Self-Cleaning

Hey all, I’ve upgraded to the new WordPress 3.0 and switched to the Twenty Ten default theme, which is completely awesome because I no longer need plug-ins for my “Recent Comments” and “Recent Posts” sections (which is meaningless to non-Wordpress users, but trust me when I say it’s pretty cool!). And check out the shiny new drop-down menu for my Archives! Woot. Also, since this theme has the sidebar on the right, those of you with smaller monitors should be able to see my pictures without them getting chopped off. As always, let me know if anything looks weird/wonky/wacky.

I hope to do a Shanley update soon, if I can tear myself away from playing long enough. ;) Until then, here’s a preview pic:

Wishful Living Challenge

Happy Simming!

Everybody Jump Now

Wishful Living Challenge

Last we left the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family, they were living it up in the Garage Apartment in Riverview. Third generation heiress/torch-holder Violet had married Benedict Driscoll and given birth to two babies, Gibson and Georgia. Everyone was skilling away like the good little Sims they are, when I just up and decided to move them all to Twinbrook, the new Ambitions town.
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Have a Piece of Cake

Hooray, Ambitions is here! I’ve gotten everything installed properly (even added HELS to the mix), put all my custom content back in (in the new location), and updated my Twallan mods (Story Progression and SuperComputer for now). I’m sure I’ll see some weird glitches and bugs as I proceed — and it’s possible I already have — but everything seems to be running smoothly for now. So, moving right along with the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family!

In the last update, third generation heiress Violet Shanley was in the process of moving out of Skunk Haven and into her own abode. Here’s where I ran into a little trouble. According to the rules of the challenge, the third gen heir has a spending limit of §39,999 for the home — that’s for the lot itself, not any decorating or upgrading they do afterwards. Well, at the time I moved Vi out, there were NO houses that cost under §39,999, not even an ugly little shack.

I consulted with my Simming friends who created and tested the challenge, and one of them suggested I merge two families with the same name (reuniting them, in a sense), thus freeing up a house for Violet. I looked around Riverview and saw that a Newbie family was living in the Garage Apartment (near the Broke trailer park), and elderly Barry Newbie was still on the McDermott Farm. So the younger Newbies moved in with Uncle Barry to take care of him in his old age, and Vi moved into the Garage Apartment at 17 Lost Willow Road.

Wishful Living Challenge
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Food of the Gods

I’d like to get caught up with this family before I get too involved in Ambitions (which I hope to pick up tomorrow!), so I apologize if this update seems a bit rushed. I will probably end up moving the challenge to Twinbrook (the new city in the EP) when Gen 4 ages up to Young Adult, so the Shanleys and my attempt at the Wishful Living Challenge can continue even as I explore the new stuff!

In the last update, Generation 2 heiress Hope Shanley had finally married her best friend, Travis, and popped out twins, Fern and Violet. Travis’s LTW was to be a Seasoned Traveler, and since he was already an elder, I had a limited amount of time in which to fulfill this wish. Thankfully Sims do not age while they’re on vacation, so that gave me a little bit of breathing room.

Since toddlers cannot travel, Hope and Travis left them behind with a babysitter and zoomed off to France. Hope already had the Prepared Traveler lifetime reward, which meant they could stay three days longer than usual. Despite that, the first trip went by so quickly, and I was so focused, that I didn’t even take any pictures. Woops!

Here’s one from their second trip to France:

Wishful Living Challenge

Since time was of the essence in trying to complete Travis’s LTW, I concentrated on fulfilling promises so he could eventually purchase the Midlife Crisis reward for Travis. This meant I could change his traits – I got rid of Unflirty and Can’t Stand Art and added Adventurous and Brave. Travis was now a true explorer!
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Hope and Desperation, Part II

Last we left my Wishful Living Challenge family, Hope Shanley was living on her own in a house called Skunk Haven and searching for a decent spouse. Her mother Zuzu had just passed away, and Hope had traveled to China in order to regroup and revitalize, which is exactly what she did.

Wishful Living Challenge

The spouse-search was put on hold while she had a good time, got over her mourning period, and made some moolah. She even found a Mysterious Mr. Gnome while fishing one evening. I named him Russ.
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