Wednesday 18 July 2012

Unknown legend

Round 34: February 2039 (Summer)
Narrated by Jack Benton

Receiving so much money with my trust fund a couple of years ago was overwhelming but I think I’ve spent it wisely. After buying the house and moving in, we still have a nice little nest egg of almost $25,000.

Of course, I couldn’t think of anyone other than Audrey I’d want to buy a house with, so it was a given that when I did, she’d be along for the ride.

We love it here. It’s relatively close to both of our families and we finally have everything just as we want it.

When we moved in, we had a lot of issues with things not being delivered on time and tradespeople not showing up or taking longer than expected to finish off their work. It felt like we were on the phone hassling someone about something every single day.

It was so infuriating but thank God it’s all over. Our house is done and it feels like home now.

I never imagined any home of mine would have a ballet barre installed in the bedroom but that’s exactly what we have in ours. Audrey insisted on it.

She likes to practise at odd times sometimes and this means she doesn’t have to worry about whether the studio is open. She can just dance right here at home.

Audrey and I have learnt a few things since we moved in together, one being that neither of us know how to cook. I just assumed that Audrey knew a few things but she takes after her grandmother and has no interest in it at all. Me though, I’ve been trying to learn.

Cereal for breakfast is fine on weekdays but it’d be nice to make something a little more fun and elaborate on the weekends.

I told Dad about it and he laughed a little. When we were kids, he was always trying to get us involved in the kitchen and none of us were ever into it.

He’s going to share some of his recipes with me though, so I can try out some new things. He’s excited to have one of us showing a little interest in food, at long last.

I think I still prefer going out to restaurants and letting someone else take care of the cooking though. Most of Audrey’s performances are at night, so when she has a night off, we like to make the most of it and go out somewhere.

People say there’s not much to do around Sullivan but I don’t think that’s true. There are no night clubs or fancy restaurants but there are plenty of good places to eat.

Audrey and I aren’t fancy people anyway, so we like the more laid-back vibe restaurants in the suburbs tend to have. The staff at our favourite place are so awesome and friendly.

It tends to be a lot quieter than some of the restaurants in Exeter too, which is welcome after spending your day in a busy office.

Not long after we moved in, Audrey got it in her head that our very large living room would be perfect for throwing parties.

I guess it is but that didn’t make the idea any more appealing to me.

She talked me into it though and I agreed to throw a little “just for fun” party for our friends.

We’ve had big family gatherings here before but this was the first time we’ve had a huge group of our friends over all at once.

Someone meeting Audrey for the first time would never expect a shy person like her to love socialising as much as she does but she’s in her element at parties.

She’s not so fond of situations where there are a lot of new people but if she knows everybody, she relishes it.

I usually end up hiding in the kitchen talking to one or two people and avoiding the crowd. I’m pretty confident in large groups but it’s just not what I prefer. I like talking with people one on one.

I did get a good chance to do that at the party though, which was good. Camilla and Charlie left the kids with Mum and Dad, so they were able to come.

They’re in the middle of house hunting right now, which I know can be overwhelming. They’ve looked at a few places so far though and it looks promising.

They’ve got a good amount of cash on top of Charlie’s trust fund and they’re not looking for anything enormous, so I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble finding something that suits.

It had been a while since I’d caught up with Malcolm too.

He’s pretty busy at the moment with wedding planning. He and Hope still haven’t set an exact date, which is driving her up the wall.

Her mother is apparently being a bit of a nightmare about it all, so they keep running into setbacks when Anna starts complaining about something.

I really don’t envy him having Anna as his soon-to-be mother-in-law. It made me realise how easy I got off with Audrey’s mother.

That’s a very good thing, seeing Tatiana is going to be my mother-in-law officially soon enough. I’ve asked Audrey to marry me and she said yes!

Audrey had been waiting for a proposal for the past couple of years and I know she was getting a little frustrated that I hadn’t yet brought up the topic.

Two years ago or even one year ago, I wasn’t really ready. I always knew we’d get married eventually - it was just a question of when.

Audrey was thrilled. More excited than I’ve ever seen her about anything. And naturally, I was really happy too. It feels like it’s happening at exactly the right time for us.

I would have been happy to just enjoy our engagement for a couple of months but Audrey is very keen to get started, so we’re trying to come up with a wedding date.

We’re thinking about April next year, which should give us plenty of time to plan this thing at a leisurely pace, especially seeing we won’t have to worry about finding a venue.

We'd like to hold the wedding and reception right here at home. It means it’ll definitely be available whenever we want it but it also means we’re in for a lot of work getting it ready!

Hopefully we’ve given ourselves enough time so that the planning process can be fun and exciting rather than stressful.

Notes:
  • Title is from Unknown Legend by Neil Young.
  • An update on my crashing problem: I turned off Data Execution Prevention, on Tanja's suggestion, and it seems to have worked. I didn't crash at all this session. When Tanja suggested it initially, I told her I'd done it but I decided to check again and oops, it turns out I hadn't! D'oh! But it's done now. Audrey and Jack went to a community lot and came home with no issues and they had all those people on their lot with nary a peep from my computer. I don't know if I was imagining it but it seemed like the game was running better in general. It's felt like it's been a bit slow to respond for the last couple of weeks but in this session, it was beautiful and smooth like it was when I first installed on this computer. So keep your fingers crossed that this continues for me!
  • Jack was rolling all sorts of wants to skill up in Cooking and to learn how to make different foods. Tate is very proud. :)
  • Audrey is right - the house is really good for parties! It solves the problem of what to do with this big empty space I have in the living room. I'll just leave it, because it makes for an easy flow of traffic when lots of people are around.
  • And yay, Jack and Audrey are getting married! Audrey has had the marriage want locked for about as long as they've been together (which I recently realised is six years now!) Jack had it locked too but it somehow rolled away, much to my annoyance. I decided to wait it out though and see if he'd roll it again and this round, he did! When I sent him out with Audrey on their date, he fulfilled one want and up popped the marriage want again!
  • Unless I change my mind, the wedding will be in April 2040, at Audrey and Jack's house. And in case anyone was wondering, this is not the quickie wedding ROS. This was just the right time for Audrey and Jack to take this step.

22 comments:

  1. Yay! I am so happy to see these 2 getting married. There are so many weddings coming up and I always love to see them. The house is looking great. Hopefully we'll see more of it soon?
    Haha lets hope Jack learns to cook soon, surely they can't spend every evening in a restaurant. Tate must be very pleased to have at least one child is interested!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, I have three engaged couples right now! It's been a while since I've had that many weddings to plan but I'm pretty excited. :D And Jack and Audrey are two of my faves, so it's extra lovely.

      Is that a subtle request for a lot tour? ;) The house isn't quite finished yet but once I do the last two rooms, I'll try to remember to put up a tour.

      Ha, Jack and Audrey could probably afford to eat out every night but it's exhausting and not great for the old waist line either. ;) Jack is getting there - he's got about 2.5 cooking skill points, which is 1.5 more than Audrey has!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. Awww, I'm so glad they are finally getting married. It seems like the perfect pace for them, though I'm sure Audrey would have preferred it sooner. ;)

    I'm glad the house works for parties! It's always nice not having guests getting stuck. I run into that problem sometimes in a few of my own houses. I didn't build them, they came with the hood, and they tend to be narrow like real life houses.

    Is it sad that these two aren't even married yet and I already want to know what their babies will look like? lol!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Audrey probably would have married Jack any time he asked and she's pretty happy she didn't have to wait any longer! I'm so keen to do their wedding!

      Ugh, yes. I've found some really badly built houses in both EA and custom worlds. I find it really hard to find good houses I like for TS3. I should copy over some of my TS2 house plans and build them in TS3. :)

      If that's sad, I don't think you're alone! I'd love to see how Audrey and Jack's genes mix. The Lachances make really attractive babies but I'm keen for Jack to have a mini-me. He was adopted, so there's no one else in the hood who looks like him. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  3. Yay they're getting married! I giggled at Jack on the phone with tradespeople I can imagine him being quite upset with you, opps I mean them ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha, yes! The delays in getting this house done weren't all my fault (I replaced my PC in the middle of decorating) but yeah...some of them kind of were, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  4. Yay for Jack and Audrey!! It definitely seems like their engagement has been a long time coming (though it also seemed like it took them a while to get together, too, lol). How nice that their house is going to be used for their wedding. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think Jack and Audrey took about as long to get engaged as they did to get together in the first place! And I like doing home weddings, when I can. The venue isn't quite as fun as using a community lot but when they're at home, I don't have to make them all selectable to prevent them from leaving the lot. Guests tend to do that with community lot parties. :\

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  5. What A GREAT story Carla! I LOVE these two and it's great that they're getting married. Audrey is so much like me hahaha. Disliking cooking and a bit shy. ;)
    I miss the interaction of proposing over dinner in TS3.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad I'm finally going to be able to do a wedding for these two. I wasn't sure if Jack would ever get back on board. ;)

      I was looking for that interaction in TS3 the other day and was bummed that we're so many expansions in and they still haven't added it. The "down on one knee" is not a favourite of mine.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  6. I'm so glad Audrey and Jack got engaged! And I'm even happier that the wedding is so soon! I hope they decide on having children just as fast, because I have been wanting these 2 to have kids from before they got together and I can't wait to see them!

    Their house looks really nice, a little bit feminine with the pink but not too much. Their livingroom really looks perfect for parties :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Which reminds me, I need to add this wedding to the play schedule! As for kids, Audrey already has a baby want but Jack's not on that bandwagon yet. Let's hope he rolls it sometime between now and the wedding, so we can see a baby from these two. :D

      Glad you like the house! It's a really amazing canvas to work with - I downloaded the house from SimsUrbania ages ago and only just got around to using it.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  7. Oh, how nice with a wedding for these two. They seem to be perfect together. I'm also glad the living room was useful. :) I'm not a fan of decorating large rooms, they never end up looking realistic or lived-in for me. This house looks great though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Audrey and Jack have always seemed like they're "meant to be" to me, from before they got together, so I'm glad they're making it official now.

      Large rooms are not my favourite either; not enough corners for me to stick all those little bits and pieces I use to try to make things look realistic! It's my own fault with this place though, because I was having trouble working with the existing walls and knocked them all down in frustration!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  8. I really love the look of their house from the outside. And I love what I can see of the interior. It looks cozy. Aww, Audrey looked so cute in the pic of her excited over her ballet barre. Like an excited little kid.

    Now I'm an excited little kid! They're finally engaged!! First a baby from Sarah and Nick and now a Jack and Audrey wedding! This is turning out to be a great round so far and it just started! :D Audrey will make a gorgeous bride and Jack a very handsome groom. Glad they were quick to set a date. It'll be here before we know it! And then... babies!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, I can take approximately zero credit for the outside of this place! I changed very little about it. Just the windows, doors and the fence. All the lovely landscaping was as is. You can find a link to this house in my Pinterest.

      LOL, Audrey makes that excited face all the time when she's talking! It's something you get with the ultra-nice Sims and she's maxed out in niceness. It's very cute!

      Yeah, Audrey and Jack are tying the knot! Finally! They're not that old but it took them forever to get together, so it feels like they are, lol. I haven't picked out anything, except Audrey's hair. Maisie linked me to a hairstyle for Audrey ages ago (in March, so says my Twitter DMs!) and I've kept it in mind all this time. But I'm looking forward to picking out everything else too, as always.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  9. About time!! Excited for these two to finally get married! And eventually have babies! Poor jack, the perfect house for parties has got to be the exact opposite for his desire in a house! At least he copes with it by lurking in the kitchen, lol. That makes me giggle. Nice seeing Malcolm, looking forward to that wedding and yes! Jack is right, he's lucked out in the mother law department!

    Their new house is amazing. I really like the way you've utilized the space and just the overall architcture of the house.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm pretty thrilled to finally get these two married as well! We'll have to see about a baby afterwards. ;) I'd love a mini-Jack wandering around Sullivan.

      Ha, Jack will put up with the parties for Audrey, assuming they're not too frequent. He'll just continue his kitchen-based socialising. ;) Both think it's an awesome house, so it's only a small price to pay. And there'll be more on Hope and Malcolm soon enough. I'm looking forward to visiting them this round. :)

      Thanks for the compliments on the house! It certainly took me long enough to finish decorating it. Whoever the creator was (can't remember!) did a great job on it. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  10. It's about time these two got married! I'd almost forgotten they hadn't already. They feel like a married couple already.
    I didn't realize Audrey was a Popularity sim. That was a real shocker. That's good they have such a big house then, and it's beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't realised they'd been together so long until after I finished this session! Jack's been with Audrey for as long as he was ever with Sophie now, so they're definitely long-term. Time to make it legal!

      I like to mix it up a bit with my aspirations sometimes - shy Popularity sims, outgoing Knowledge sims. Audrey was such a little social butterfly as a kid that I just had to make her Popularity when she aged to teen. She's grateful for the big house. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
    2. I can't believe I didn't comment on this the first time I read it. Of course, I'm thrilled Jack and Audrey are officially engaged, and I'm glad Josh and Elspeth got their act together too.

      Delete
    3. Wow, I'm impressed you've reached this point as quickly as you have! But anyway, it was about time, wasn't it? ;)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete