Sandpaperback

Round 36: February 2042 (Summer)

last update/next update

Novak 3 household profile

James Novak is 68 and Madelyn is 63.
(Eliot is 57, Maia is 41, Calvin and Aaron are 40, Ethan is 37, Connor and Lila are 30 and Wren is 3)

Narrated by James Novak

I’ll really miss Novak Motors when I finally let go of it but I do finally have some concrete retirement plans.

I just enjoy selling cars. And even not selling cars, occasionally, if the car isn't right for the customer. 

I recently talked my brother out of buying this ridiculous sports car. It’s a nice vehicle I knew it wasn’t something he needed. 

Soon enough, this will all be Calvin’s to deal with. I feel good about handing the business over to him.

Much as I wish they were, none of my sons are interested in running a business. It’s not even close to being Aaron or Ethan’s thing and Connor is very committed to his own career.

But Calvin is looking at retiring completely from the sports world and he thinks Novak Motors would be perfect for him. 

Part of the reason I’ve been so hesitant to retire was that I wasn’t sure of who would take over. But I’m confident Calvin will keep the place going to my standards.

I still want to stay a little longer, which Madelyn doesn’t get at all.

She wants me to retire right now, which I’m not quite ready for.

I suppose I’m just not quite sure what I’d do with all my time without working.

Even on my days off, I often find myself spending a few hours on the computer, looking over Novak Motors’ finances.

I may just wait another two years until it’s time for Madelyn to retire and stop then. It’d be much nicer if she was at home with me.

She’d love to retire right now but she’s going to stick it out until official retirement age anyway. 

After that, we might think about taking a trip somewhere.

Maybe we’ll go to Takemizu. Connor is planning a honeymoon there for Lila and himself and he thinks it looks fantastic.

I wouldn’t mind visiting there, though I think Madelyn might be keen on a beachy holiday. 

We’ve been there and done that but she still might take some convincing.

Connor and Lila are so excited about their trip though. It’s the perfect destination for both of them. 

And of course, there’s plenty of excitement surrounding the wedding as well, especially for Lila and Madelyn.

Had we ever had a daughter, Madelyn would have loved the wedding planning process, so she’s really enjoying all of Lila’s updates. Lila is too much of a control freak to actually let her have any input but Madelyn doesn’t seem bothered.

Even Connor isn’t getting much of a say there but he’s content to sit back and let Lila have her way anyway. He’s not very fussed.

Input or not, this wedding  is letting Madelyn and Lila bond a little bit. They’ve never really had much in common. Not that they ever fought or disliked each other. They’re just very different people.

Madelyn has always been close with Ethan’s wife Maia though. They clicked pretty much from the start.

Whenever we have the family over, Madelyn always spends a good portion of the time chatting with Maia.

The grandkids all love visiting even more since we had the jungle gym installed in the backyard.

Wren is too young to use it at the moment but she’s a pretty active little girl, so I’m sure she’ll be up there as soon as she’s big enough.

She’s very fond of her Uncle Aaron, so he keeps her entertained for the time being. 

We love having all the grandkids over. We’re lucky in that they all get along and are normally very well-behaved too.

Connor can be a bit standoffish with the kids but I think he'd be different if he had his own. I wouldn't mind another grandchild or two and Aaron and Ethan are both done; we can only hope Lila and Connor indulge us a couple of times.

Notes:

• Title is from Sandpaperback by Ben Lee.
• So I have a new computer! Long story but I had a bit of a crisis a couple of weeks ago that prompted me to start looking around for a new one. The crisis was a false alarm but my old PC was 3.5 years old, both hard drives were packed to the brim and I thought it might be time anyway. I picked this one up on Saturday and was able to get my old drive installed in this computer, making the transfer of just about everything a breeze. Of course, the first thing I installed was TS2. 
• The game runs beautifully. My usual process is load game, load hood, load CAS, randomise sim a few times (to prevent Firstborn Syndrome), exit CAS, load lot. That takes me about five minutes on this PC. On the old one, it was about...35 minutes, maybe? Still nothing compared to my old, old PC, where it took over two hours. But still, can't complain about this massive improvement!
• Madelyn will reach retirement age next round, so James will retire then too and pass the business onto Calvin. :) And then these two can have their holiday. 
• Connor's face looking at Wren just cracked me up! Like "what is this creature?!" I'm quite interested to see Connor as a dad. 
• Also, gosh, will you look at how much Wren looks like Aaron! Ethan is his clone, so that's not too surprising but still. She got Maia's nose but everything else is from Ethan's side of the family. Even the red hair comes from Madelyn. :)
• Next post will be another download from Goodies and then we're visiting the college kids, starting with Brendan, who has been joined by Simon and Matthew Lane.