Packing blankets

Round 22: Winter 2016

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Charlton and Aphrodite Nihill are both 71, James Novak is 41, Madelyn is 36, Aaron is 13, Ethan is 10 and Connor is 3.
(Maia is 14 and Jacob is 15)

Narrated by Aaron Novak

Dad running Lost Generation didn't last long - he's already sold it. I'm pretty excited about that because it means I can actually hang out there now. Who wants to hang out at a club their dad owns?


Selling the business left Dad with a lot of cash and he's still deciding where to invest it. He's looking at other businesses to buy but I'm hoping he buys a vacation home instead.

I wish I had some of my own money. I really want to get a job but around here, no one will hire you until you're 14. So I have to wait until next year and try to sell paintings to make money in the meantime.

We were kind of surprised when Mum and Dad said they were adopting another kid but Connor has been with us for just over a year now has turned out to be pretty cool.


He can entertain himself most of the time and he gets Ethan off my back when I'm sick of him bugging me. I just tell him to go away and he goes to bug Connor for a while.

Connor loves dancing to the stereo in my room.

It's a bit embarrassing because I think he might actually be better than me.

My friend Maia has seen my dancing and she's trying to improve my skills.

I wasn't surprised when she used dancing as an excuse to get close to me again. It's been going on for about a year now and it makes me really uncomfortable.

So I finally had to sit down with her and tell her I was gay. We've been friends for so long, since we were kids, and I think Maia's just been assuming that we'd grow up, date all through high school and get married some day.

I think Maia was pretty cool about it. She took it better than I expected anyway. I think she was sort of relieved that I wasn't rejecting her because I didn't like her any more or thought she was ugly or anything. I told her not to tell anybody else and she promised she wouldn't. I mean, I kissed Calvin but it was only once and I'm not quite ready to be "out". Or to date anyone, really.

Mum is already starting to ask about girls though - whether I like anyone at school and stuff. I really hope she drops it. I think that'd be an awkward conversation even if I was straight. Who wants to talk about that with their mother?

Things with Maia are a lot better now. She hasn't started flirting with me again and things have been nice. We've been hanging out mostly with my friend Jacob but even when we're alone, she's not all grabby any more.

She even came over to go bug hunting with Ethan and me the other day. My great-grandmother found one specimen of almost all the insects in our area. I think it'd be kind of cool if I could find all of them, including the one she missed. Maia is into that kind of thing too, so she's helping out.

I wonder if my great grandma ran into as many problems with bees as I seem to be. I usually interpret a bee swarm as a sign I should take a break.

Random pics:

Not so much random - more like documentation of Aphrodite's woohoo scavenger hunt as she was the one who rolled that ROS this round. Try as I might, I just couldn't think of a way Aaron could possibly be unfortunate enough to witness his grandparents doing the deed so many times so I'm popping it in here at the end instead.

Charlton had the want to buy a hot tub - it was like he knew!

That's their daughter's car, by the way. What is it with my couples woohooing in their daughters' cars (Elspeth Romilly was conceived in her older sister's car, if you don't know what I'm referring to)?

Aaron has reason to be disturbed by his grandparents because he was right behind them. My fault, because Sims actually won't do autonomously this with the new ACR unless they're alone in the house. Couch instead of closet, because I don't use those closets all that often.

And this post is quickly becoming more random than actual update but I can't not share this!

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Um, hells no!

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Damn straight!

This was very brief but it lasted long enough for me to think it was possible that she actually was going to progress! Some of the community lot woohoo objects can cause glitches like this - you'll notice things like townie females and non-resident females getting pregnant, which we know is not supposed to happen. I wonder if their pregnancies would progress? Probably not, I guess. But anyway, how crazy would that have been? Having a baby at 71 would have blown Henry and Araminta's record out of the water, that's for sure.

Notes:

• Title is from Packing Blankets by Eels.
• I am so determined for someone to find those damn 30 insects. I want to see what the "surprise" is supposed to be. I'm pretty positive it will be lame but I still want to know! It was so annoying when Raffaella died with one left to find! So I've got Aaron, Ethan and Maia all working on this and hopefully one of them will get it done!
• Maia appears to have chemistry with every boy in the neighbourhood. Except Aaron but I bet she would, if Aaron was straight. She could probably be pretty "popular" in a couple of years, if she wanted to be.
• I think I might finally have the kids' heights worked out. Ethan is at 1.12 right now, which looks pretty good and I tried him at 1.17 and that looks good too. I think that's enough variation among the older kids for me.