Thursday 13 October 2016

Kentucky cocktail

Round 36: January 2044 (Summer)
last update/next update

Rob Ashton is 43, Patience is 42, Felicity is 11, Patrick is 8 and Gemma is 3. 
(Lake is 87, Kendal is 68, Iris is 10, Theo is 9 and Andrew is 8)

Narrated by Rob Ashton


Felicity turns 11 this year and is just starting her last year of primary school.



She’s never been very interested in academics but she likes going to school right now because that’s where all her friends are.

Next year, she’ll be leaving a lot of them behind when she goes off to high school and I’m worried she might not be as happy to go then.

She’s determined to enjoy this last year though, before she and Iris are separated for a year after that.

Felicity is the only kid in her grade at school, so her friends have always been a little older or a little younger than she is.

Hopefully, that means she’ll be okay starting high school on her own.

She already thinks she’s much more mature than she is, which is a little terrifying.

We’ve been trying to give her a bit more responsibility, because she seems to be craving it so much, so caring for Scotty is now mostly up to her.

She’s now entirely in charge of walking and feeding Scotty and she’s been doing well with it.

She hasn’t forgotten to feed him once and she’s taken him out on his walks every single day.

It hasn’t seemed to satisfy her though and she’s wanting to do more and more on her own.

Last time Patience and I went out on a date, Felicity wanted to babysit Patrick and Gemma. Maybe next year, for short periods of time during the day, but not now and not at night.

She was very unimpressed when we had her grandparents babysit instead.

Kendal said she sulked for half the night, before finally being lured into a game of Don’t Wake The Llama.

Apparently, Lake lost the game, which Felicity and Patrick got a kick out of.

By the time Felicity is old enough to babysit, she’ll probably be begging us to call her grandparents!

She loves Gemma and she and Patrick really bond over their shared love of games. But once her social world starts to open up a little bit, I’m sure she’s going to get more tempting offers.

Patrick and Andrew are still best friends and Patrick has fortunately resisted getting into too much trouble with him.

Patience is best friends with Andrew’s mother, so Andrew will always be around one way or another. Patrick might as well learn to handle him well.

So far, Patrick seems to keep Andrew out of trouble more often than Andrew gets Patrick into trouble.

Patrick is a pretty confident kid and won’t normally go along with doing something stupid just because someone else thinks he should.

Both he and Andrew have become good buddies with Theo Nihill this year and I think that’s helping as well.

Theo is a pretty sensible type, so now, whenever Andrew wants to get up to mischief, it’s two against one.

I feel guilty for not being around as much lately. Poor Patience is shouldering basically all of the parenting load at the moment. Even when I am home, I'm still working.

I’m missing out on a lot. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with Patience and the kids on a weeknight.

I’m looking to move into an area of law I haven’t had much to do with before - entertainment law. I guess seeing Patience working in entertainment for as long as I’ve known her, I’ve developed my own interests in certain aspects of it. It's a big move, so I have to prepare.

Patience has been amazing about the whole thing and hasn’t complained at all.

She keeps reminding me that her career has had times where she wasn’t able to be around all the time as well, so it’s only fair.

I still think she’s got the tougher job here. Much of the time when she’s been working a lot, it’s been weekends, when I was home anyway, or nights, when it’s only a couple of hours until they head off to bed.

Patience has had them home with her all summer, as well as dealing with other kids coming over for many play dates and sleepovers. Many times, she'll head off to work after they all head home for the evening.

Then again, Patience is the one who wanted 10 kids, so I think may just genuinely find that kind of thing pretty easy.

When I do get time with the kids these days, I appreciate it more than ever now. I actually got to watch a movie with them the other night and it was great.

I can’t wait until things settle down a bit more and I can be more of a present husband and father again.

Notes:

  • Title is from Kentucky Cocktail by Pavement.
  • Rob did finally get his promotion, as did Patience. Hers was easy though, as she skilled up a long time ago. Being a former townie, Rob is not as highly skilled and he had so many skill points to get to this level. The poor guy really was locked away in the study every night! Fortunately, he's Level 9 now, with only one skill point to Level 10. I'm going to let him take it easy for a while. ;) 
  • On the plus size, these two rake in so much dough! This was an unusually long session for me (9 days) but they started with about $70,000 and ended with over $100,000. And Patience only works three days a week. They want for nothing. 
  • I'm really happy about Theo and Patrick's friendship, because it appears to have happened completely without my intervention. I have no pictures of them together before this update, yet somehow, they're BFFs? I love that kind of thing when it makes sense - Theo is only a year older, so it's conceivable that he'd be friends with Patrick and Andrew.

16 comments:

  1. This was a lovely update, and I am more and more looking forward now to start playing my next round in New Maximiliania! I've last played TS2 months ago, and can't wait to finish the re-organisation and prep work I've been doing for the 'hood since last weekend!
    Your stories are always so well written, they are a true inspiration, although I know my stories are far less realistic and interesting.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it! Reading other people's updates always gets me excited to play my sims too. :) It's just been a matter of finding the time recently. Hope you get done with all your prep work soon.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  2. I love Felicity, and I can't wait to see her as a teen. I'm sure that when next year, when she will be asked to babysit, she wouldn't want to :)
    I'm so looking forward to playing kids and teens again, I don't have any of them in Linfort at the moment, and just can't wait to have them again!
    I'm glad both Patience and Rob got the promotion they wanted. And I do hope Rob get that extra time with his family now.

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    1. Well, I'll have to keep playing, so I can get to January birthdays in a more timely fashion and then we can actually see Felicity as a teen. :) I'm pretty excited to see how she turns out too. I have her pegged as a Popularity sim, I think. Having a bunch of kids is always fun - I'm sure you'll have a few running around sooner than you think, seeing your hood is still quite small.

      This next promotion shouldn't be as difficult for Rob but I'm letting him take a bit of a break for some family time anyway. He deserves it.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. Felicity sitting on the couch sulking was a great pose, really showed her disdain for not being trusted to babysit. It will be really interesting to see how her world opens up as a teen. Good for Rob getting all those skill points and moving up in his career! It is hard for townies to catch up. And their home is such a great place for that big group of kids to hang out, with the pool, but mostly with such a great mom to be there supervising.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I played around with the sulking shot for far too long and in the end, I just had to call it good enough! It's still not quite the way I wanted it though. But yes, Felicity has a lot of things ahead of her that she probably hasn't even imagined yet.

      I think that's part of the reason I don't really like marrying in townies when I can help it! The skill points are just one of the things they're behind on - they're also behind on just general back story and personality. :\ I admire the bloggers who can work townies in as well as their born-in-game sims! I've always struggled with that.

      I don't think you could get out of being the play date venue with a house like Rob and Patience's! And it's so cheap too, for some reason - their bills are only $350.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  4. Felicity is at such an exciting age. I love that moment right before they become teenagers. It's so full of possibilities and hopes and dreams, but without any of the disappointment or risk. Ha, I love the picture of her all grumpy because she got a babysitter!

    I see Patience never got 10 of her own kids, so she'll just borrow other people's kids, lol! That's a good strategy! :D

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Yeah, 11 is a fun age, though I'm always anxious to age them up to teen to see what they look like! Story wise though, it's a nice age to play with. :) I think Felicity might end up being a favourite of mine.

      LOL, exactly! And I bet the other parents of the hood are just fine with letting Patience borrow them too. Especially at this point in the year, which is right around the end of the school holidays. ;)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. Wow, they have some major cash flow. That's nice. I couldn't help but laugh and then cry at the thought of a tween :| I don't want to even think about my kids being moody tweens since right now they're moody toddlers and it's torture!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Yeah, it's been a while since I've played a family with that much cash coming in. I really want to do something with it! Patience wants a vacation home, so maybe that? An excuse to decorate another house, lol!

      I have friends with moody toddlers, so I know exactly what you mean! My mother often says that the toddler years were a breeze compared to the tween years. Apparently, my sister and I were both at our most unpleasant at 10/11! Having taught that age many times, I could believe it.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  6. I never suspected that this family wanted for anything, but wow that is an impressive cash-intake in 9 days! How cute that Theo and Patric became friends, I love when that happens in my game too. That's why I try to let my kids play at the school for recess without intervention.

    I still adore that photo of Felicity sulking on the sofa, and I'm glad that she ended up enjoying herself with her grandparents. It'll be fun to see her as a teenager, and how she adjusts to life in highschool as well.

    Rob really worked hard, it's difficult for townies to get ahead, and most of mine tend to be about average when it comes to skills and job levels. Most don't have the tenacity to get to level 10 on skills. Very impressive! I like how you wrote that in too, and lol on Patience and 10 kids, I had forgotten about that! She was probably in bliss for the summer!

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    1. Yeah, I was pretty blown away myself! But you know, Patience makes well over $10,000 from two days work, so they were always going to be raking it in, even without Rob working. I really have to start letting them live a more luxurious life, lol!

      I'm pretty curious to see what Felicity gets up to as a teen. She's already such a little social butterfly and she's so uninterested in academics. It should be interesting.

      Poor Rob! I don't think I've ever had a townie move in overloaded on skills. Which is good in a way...gives them something to do. But the imbalance is very clear in a couple like this one too.

      LOL, Patience was totally in her element with those play dates! I don't think she minded at all.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. Nine days, that's quite a long time to play. Sounds like you got into a groove with this household! :)

    Felicity is adorable! Love the red hair and freckles! It's great that Patience is happy looking after the kids so much and all their friends too. lol Especially since Rob is studing a lot. Their kids sound like pretty smart cluey kids. Patrick not giving into getting into trouble and keeping his friend out of it. So cute!

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    1. It was partly getting into a groove and partly the fact that their weird hours meant that the sims I needed home often weren't home at the same time in order to get the pics I wanted! But it was a fun session. :)

      Rob already has more kids than he ever wanted with these 3 (he wanted 2) and Patience has always wanted more. She'll fill that void any way she can, I guess!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  8. Lol. I've had sims locked away all update skilling too. But if Rob agreed, they would probably have had another kid or two.

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    1. Hardcore skilling is actually not something I normally do, as I'm one to let the sim decide what they want to do based on wants. But being a Fortune sim and a Fortune sim with a fair amount of skill points needed before his next promotion, Rob was pretty motivated during this session!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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