Sweet metallic

Round 31: October 2033 (Spring)

last update/next update

Augustin and Hanna Novak are both 78, Naomi is 58 and Owen is 56.
(Kimberly is 62, Matilda is 27, Adrienne is 26, Malcolm is 23 and Hope is 22)

Narrated by Naomi Novak

I'll be turning 60 in a little over a year and I'm surprised by how disturbed I am by it. Every time I pass a mirror, I have to pause and see if any new wrinkles have appeared in the last ten minutes.


It wasn't really something I worried much about before now. 60 just feels like quite a milestone, I suppose.

Owen thinks I'm being crazy and that I will be just as beautiful post-60 as I am now.

He's my husband though and he has to say things like that. I'm going to try to stay positive about it though.

After all, Kimberly is four years older than me and she insists it's really not all that bad.

She loves being a grandma and she talks about Thomas and Ryan and the one arriving in February all the time. On top of that, she's still running my old salon and still enjoying it.

I'm so glad Kimberly bought the salon. I still have a soft spot for it and I want to see it in good hands.

Vestiti is my true passion now though and I work very hard to keep my boutique successful.

I have staff but no one who comes in every day. I prefer to do the majority of the work myself.

I'll hand over the reins to Adrienne one day but for now, I hope I can continue on in an active role for a long time yet.

Mum used to come in and work with me at the store when she first retired but she and Dad are totally immersed in caring for their plants now.

I wonder if I'll suddenly be into gardening when I get old. My parents never were when I was younger but it's all they talk about now.

For the last two years, they've been preparing the backyard so they can join the garden club, whatever that is.

Last weekend, they had inspectors roaming all around the garden, to see if it was up to scratch.

It was, and they were accepted.

I finally asked Dad what was supposed to be so exciting about it and he told me they now get a discount on seeds. Two years of work hardly seems worth it to save a few dollars.

Mum and Dad are proud of themselves though, so I guess it doesn't matter much. The backyard looks a lot better than it used to, so that's beneficial for all of us.

I've done a little renovating indoors myself recently, mainly out of necessity. I really prefer to do my sewing at night and I sometimes stay up very late if I'm trying to finish a project.

The whirring of the sewing machine never fails to wake Owen up though and he begged me to find another place for it.

So I converted Malcolm's bedroom to a sewing room for myself. It really is nice to have a space at home that's just for me.

Malcolm wasn't nearly as impressed with what I did to his old room as I was though. He's just being silly. I was hardly going to keep his room in tact as some sort of shrine to him! He's a grown man and he's certainly not going to be moving back in with us any time soon.

Malcolm is back together with Hope, which I'm so happy about. I think they're good for each other and I was so surprised when they broke up. I'm hoping they can stay together this time around.

He and Adrienne are sharing a house right now, which must be interesting based on how much they bicker when they're visiting here. I'm just glad I don't have to adjudicate their arguments any more.

Even so, he seems happy with his lot in life at the moment. He's independent, he's got Hope and he's doing well in med school.

Adrienne, on the other hand, is a little dissatisfied with work lately. She was offered a job as a buyer, for much more money than she was making as a team supervisor but she's really missing actually designing.

I keep telling her, she's a great designer and she could easily get back into if she wanted to.

She's really reluctant to take a pay cut in order to do that though, so she's staying put and keeping her eyes peeled for something better.

At the moment, Adrienne is scratching her itch by designing the dresses for her best friend Matilda's wedding. Because I now have a whole sewing room, a lot of the work on the gowns is going on over here.

I've been helping them quite a lot, which has been fun for me. Bridal wear is not something I've done much of so it's a learning experience for all of us.

I'm not sure if Adrienne will ever get married, so in case this is the only wedding I ever get to help design for, I'm taking full advantage of it! It's a great way for me and Adrienne to bond anyway.

Notes:

• Title is from Sweet Metallic by Gillian Grassie.
• This feels really short, though I'm not sure that it's that much shorter than normal. Some of my screenshots didn't turn out and didn't realise it until after I quit the game. :\ That tends to happen sometimes when my computer gets hot, which it likely did because it was cold while I was playing and I had the heater on!
• I think I am sadder about Naomi's upcoming elderhood than she is. ;) I just realised how old she was! I'm going to go "shopping" for some more trendy/fashionable elder clothes, because I can't see her going for granny cardigans and orthopaedic shoes.
• I really need to get more Owen into the next Novak 2 update. Poor guy gets overlooked quite a lot!