Friday, May 29, 2015

Chapter 1.4 Stay Away from the Shrooms...

Hi folks! I'm starting off this chapter with a new house! With the birth of the wee baby Charlotte, I figured it wouldn't be very nice for big brother to have to share a room with his baby sister, who would most likely keep him awake at all hours, so I decided some more bedrooms were in order. Since I'm lazy, I opted for dropping in a new house straight from the gallery rather than remodel the existing one (kudos to LauraKeiter for this great 3bed/1bath starter home!)

Here is the Taylor family's new home:




There is even a basement, though I won't be touching it in this chapter. Gotta wait for some more money to roll in.




I had Morgan go around the neighborhood and collect some fresh mushrooms, onions, and strawberries from wild plants. These ingredients will make certain dishes cheaper to prepare, and when you're a legacy founder, every penny counts.

Do those mushrooms seem a little... sparkly?

Morgan: Sparkly 'shrooms FTW, man!

o_O



Poor baby Charlotte is going to have to stay in an empty nursery for now. Plopping in that new house ate most of my funds.



Case in point: freshly picked mushrooms and onions were used in the making of this spaghetti.

Morgan: This is going to be my "special" batch...

o_O



Unfortunately, all the bedrooms are smaller now to accommodate more of them. I'm sure my sims won't mind it too much, but it will make taking screenies a bit trickier.



Morgan: Geez, I can barely turn around in here. Feel like a sardine in a can.

Are you sure that's not the mushrooms talking?

Morgan: Are you sure you don't need your head examined?

Touchy.



Oh Rowan, did you go to bed with low needs again? He woke up I think around 3am stinky, hungry, and having to pee really bad.



Rowan: Uuugghh, I don't think that spaghetti is agreeing with me...

He had to take a very smelly, uncomfortable pee pee walk to their teeny tiny bathroom. :/



Martin: Alright! Cold spaghetti - the breakfast of champions!

Rowan: That's my boy!

.... I don't know you people.



I had Morgan use the strawberries to start building her Gourmet Cooking skill by preparing Fruit Parfait for breakfast. Guessing by the look on her face, I'd say it's pretty delicious.



Ok, the reason Rowan looks unhappy is because apparently he has picked up an illness! His negative moodlet said "Pressurized" and was adding +2 to feeling Tense. The sudden blasts of steam shooting out of his ears was what clued me in to his condition (lol), but I wasn't quick enough to get a screen of it. I seriously don't know what to do with this. In the past I've just had my sims take a nap or drink some juice or something, but I can't control him. :/ We'll have to see if he can get better on his own.



At this same time, I got a game notification that said, "Charlotte is very hungry! Without a feeding soon, this baby will be taken away!"

..... WTF???

It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't heard baby Charlotte cry at all since I redid the house, and it had been 12 sim hours since then! When I replaced the house, the game put Charlotte's bassinet in the family inventory, so I'll bet it got bugged to where she won't alert me when her needs are low.

Morgan gave her a very long feeding session and changed her diaper without a moment to lose. Crisis averted for now! I'm just going to have to stay very on top of it until Charlotte grows up.



I spent forever rearranging the furniture in this house to try and make it work. This'll have to do for now until I can afford more decorations, which you may see pop up randomly as we go through this chapter.

Martin: Ugh, they're kissing each other! My parents are so gross!

Hey, you should be thankful they're so in love. That's kind of how you came into existence!

Martin: Hang on... they're making another baby right now??

*facepalm*



Morgan just published another bestseller! This time though, she submitted it to the Literary Digest, which grants a much higher royalty amount than just selling to a publisher. I can only do this once a week, however, so I made sure to send a bestseller to get the most out of it.

So far she's got two bestsellers under her belt, and both of them are play scripts. Maybe Morgan's the next William Shakespeare?

Morgan: Pfft, I could run literary circles around that guy....

You could probably run literal circles if you wanted -- around his grave, that is. The guy's been dead for ages.

Morgan: I ain't afraid o' no ghost! I can take him!

No, I mean... just... nevermind.

Damn, those mushrooms...



Since she spends an ungodly amount of time writing at the computer, I decided to throw caution to the wind and bring back the stereo, just to help keep her Fun meter full.



Martin: BOOGIE TIMEZ!!!

Well that didn't take long.

I will take away that stereo if you don't go do something productive right NAO!



Rowan: Hey, I'm already being productive. See how I choose the chess table over dancing?

Glad to see you taking the high road. We'll see how long that lasts.



What the deuce? Rowan, are you sick again?

Rowan: Ooohhhh, my head...



Believe it or not, Rowan actually went and took a nap as soon as I snapped that screenie. I'd like to think that he did it in a effort to regain his health, though it's more likely to do with the fact that he woke up at stupid o'clock the night before.



I had Morgan buy some medicine and leave it on the table in the hopes that Rowan might autonomously drink it.

Do sims autonomously drink strange bottles of liquid?

Well, they did eat those mushrooms, so....maybe? I have no friggin' clue.



Well, the nap seemed to help; he woke up with the "Combating a Cold" positive moodlet, and was feeling well enough to reciprocate some flirtatious interactions.


Unfortunately, the mushroom pox claimed another victim:


Are those spots??

I caught Martin scratching himself, and discovered he had the Itchy moodlet due to illness. Geez EA, leave my poor simmies alone!



The autonomy gods seem to be smiling upon me, however, as Martin grabbed himself a glass of orange juice soon after the itchy spots appeared. Maybe that'll help?



No dice; poor Martin remained itchy and spotty as ever. An hour before he had to leave for school, I received a notification saying that Martin was feeling pretty under the weather, and that he should stay home at this point. I wasn't sure if I needed to have him call out sick, or if I could get away with him still going to school on his own.

Morgan: Hey, you do know I can write Excuse Notes for people, right?

Oh yeah! I'd forgotten about that!



I ended up not needing the note. Martin stayed home when 8:00 rolled around. A quick look in his school panel told me he was officially taking a sick day, something I probably could've looked at before I had Morgan drop everything to write an unneeded excuse note. Oh well, live and learn



Seriously, what is this, Full House? No wonder y'all keep getting each other sick with all this hugging going around!

Rowan: Totally worth it for offspring hugz. :)

D'aawwwww! My cockles! ^_^

Also, what's with the matchy-matchy shirt and pants? LOL - never noticed that before.

Martin: We match because we're buddies!

STAHP! Mah heart cannot take all this luuuurv!



What's this? Cassandra Goth making an appearance? Maybe now that she's not a Teenager anymore she'll be better company, lol.



Morgan: Sooooo... wanna come inside?

Cassandra: Ehhh, sure why not.



No joke, first thing she did the minute she walked in was very rudely introduce herself to Martin.

Cassandra: You have stupid spots all over your face! What's wrong with you?

Martin: How rude!

YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY POOR SICK BEHBEH, DAMMIT!



Morgan: Uhhhh, I don't feel so good...

Oh for the love of -- are you sick too??



... are those curly cues?!?

DAMMIT EA!!



And of course, this is when Paige think it's a good time to call before coming over for a visit. We need to keep this family under quarantine!

Paige decided to drop and give herself 20 at the door. Silly Active sims.



Morgan: This suuuuuuucks.... shoulda stayed away from those shrooms. You should probably go home, Paige, before you catch what I have.

Paige: Nonsense! I love your family. You're better than TV!



Cassandra occupied herself with the chess table for the rest of her visit, which was fine by me.



Cassandra: Goodbye forever, losers!

And good riddance.



Martin: Now I'm covered in STRIPES?? What is wrong with me???

Paige: I find drinking a nice herbal tea always helps when I'm feeling under the weather.

Martin: What do you care? You said we were better than television! We're just entertainment to you!

Paige: Well, I never! Morgan, don't you have anything to say?

Morgan: You know, he's got a point....

 Today was not a good day for the Taylors. >_<


Which is why I was so happy to get the message that it was finally Charlotte's birthday!



*squees* I love her to pieces already! Just look at those gorgeous eyes! <3

Charlotte rolled the Loner trait (just like her mother :) ) and the Rambunctious Scamp aspiration. Me likey!



One of her requirements for her first milestone is to reach level 2 Motor skills, so I got her a set of monkey bars to play on.



 Awww, Mother-Daughter Hugz! <3



Since her other requirement was to play on the jungle gym while Playful for 2 hours, I took advantage of her Playful boost from watching TV and sent her to the park.



Woohoo! First milestone achieved!



But not before getting the stuffing scared out of her by her mother, lol. These two. :P

Later that day, I experienced another proud moment as Rowan came home with a new promotion to Technician! This puts him at tier 3 in the Astronaut career track. Getting promotions is slow going when you're a NTH.

One of his career rewards was this new Astro Model Rocket display, and guess what? It has a Focusing +1 bonus! W00t! Now maybe I can finally get these kids to do their homework!

It also occurs to me while taking this screenie, that the hanging light fixture in the picture was also a career reward. And it also has a +1 to Focus. It's been in Martin's room this whole time, and I never realized it to turn on the Focusing affect.

*head*

*desk*



I know, live and learn.



Charlotte: Ugh, this spaghetti is disgusting....

Welcome to the family, sweetheart.



I'm not really interested in adding any more nooboos to this family (Martin and Charlotte are already perfect, plus I don't think I can handle much more chaos, lol), so I finally let Morgan get a job in the Writer career, though that'll be peanuts compared to what she's already earning in royalties (at least $3,000 a day at this point 0_0 )



Good to see you're already earning your keep here.

Charlotte: Eh, I do what I can.



WE HAVE A HOMEWORK SIGHTING!!1!!1!!!

Charlotte was cleaning up some books in the living room, where I had put another model rocket ship, and actually did her homework autonomously as a result of the Focused mood bonus! I am so relieved! Getting the grade is finally within my grasp!



Aww, did you have a bad day at school again?

Martin: *sniff* Yeah... I keep dropping my lunch tray in front of everyone...

You know, for a kid with the Self-Assured trait, he sure gets embarrassed a lot. o_O



Martin: Whatcha doin'?

Morgan: Writing.

Martin: About what?

Morgan: Stuff.

Martin: What kinda stuff?

Morgan: ... stuff stuff.



 Charlotte the Loner decided to eat in the kitchen like a civilized sim rather than bug her mother.



Charlotte: Pff, boys. Annoying, amirite?

Morgan: You are not wrong.



Another homework sighting!

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY ASTRO MODEL ROCKET, AND BASK IN THE GLORY THAT IS HIS MAGNIFICENCE!

Model Rocket: Thank you. I'm here all week.



Morgan rolled a whim to cure her illness (damn those mushrooms!) with herbal tea, so I got her the Tea Magic Personal Brewer. It did seem to help her feel better, but what I didn't realize was how many times Rowan would autonomously go to brew a batch of tea, only to walk away to do something else while the tea brewed, therefore wasting an entire pot that cost 15 simoleons to make. *sigh*



I seriously love having the model rocket on the dinner table. The kids wake up hungry every morning, so after breakfast they end up doing their homework. It's brilliant. :)



And all this homework-doing has finally granted Martin a "B" grade in school! Congrats kiddo!

Martin: Thanks! I know, I'm awesome!

Charlotte: Boys.

Happy Simming!

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