Friday 4 September 2015

By my own hand

Round 36: February 2043 (Summer)
last update/next update

Daniel Halmi is 36, Susannah Carmody is 33 and Zac Whitney is 9. 
(Kimberly is 72, Sarah is 38, Declan is 22, Sylvia is 17, Levi and Will are 11 and Theo is 8)
Narrated by Susannah Carmody

Daniel and I are happy in our current building but we’d like to move eventually. If we have another kid or two, it’s going to be a tight squeeze in here.


Plus, it makes us feel a little old living here. Our neighbours are all nice guys but they are literally all recent college grads, so we don’t have a whole lot in common.

And I don’t think either of us ever thought we’d be the people banging on the walls to complain about loud music at 11.30 on a Saturday night, but here we are.

They always pipe down afterwards but we’re just a bit over having to deal with it at all now.

Zac will miss them if we do move though. He totally idolises Declan, one of the guys who lives in Number 3. He indulges Zac in all of his science talk, which was the same thing Zac ended up bonding over with Daniel.

Zac still spends his weekends with Sam but I really do love watching him with Daniel.

They’re such good buddies. I feel really lucky that they get along so well.

Before Daniel, Zac had me all to himself, so he could easily have become resentful but that hasn’t happened at all.

Zac just started Grade 4 and he’s really enjoying it. He’s the only boy in his class but he’s the sort of kid who makes friends with everybody, so that doesn’t bother him much.

He’s really good friends with the Draper twins, Levi and Will, who are two years ahead of him and he likes Theo a lot too, who is one year behind.

It’s been fantastic to not need a regular nanny at all this year for Zac. I come home at 3 on Monday and Friday and my days off are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so there’s always someone here when Zac gets home from school.

We still do get Sylvia to sit for us occasionally, so Daniel and I can go out.

She’ll be off to college next year, so I’ll probably need to rely on Mum a bit more then, not that she’ll mind.

On our last date, we went out to celebrate an amazing endorsement deal I just scored, which netted us a nice $20,000!

I don’t consider myself a celebrity by any means, so I was quite surprised to be asked to endorse a line of cutlery that I already use and love.

But it was a no brainer, really. There was no way I was going to turn down that kind of money, especially considering how little work the deal is for me.

Celebrating that would have been enough for me but Daniel was hoping we would have one more thing to celebrate!

It wasn’t a total surprise. We’ve talked about marriage and agreed that it was what we both wanted. We just hadn’t got around to getting engaged yet.

But now that we are finally engaged, I couldn’t be happier. The past six years together have just flown by!

Zac was asleep when we got home but we shared the news with him the next morning over breakfast.

We knew he’d be excited and he didn’t disappoint. He was so thrilled about Sam and Julia getting married and he loves Daniel, so there was no reason he wouldn’t be.

We had to make him promise not to say anything to his cousins at school, so we could tell Mum in person and not have Ryan or Catherine tell her before we could!

Mum has been bugging us about getting married for at least the past two years, so as far as she was concerned, it’s about time she finally had a wedding to look forward to.

We’re actually thinking of holding the wedding at Mum’s place. Sarah was the one who suggested it and she made it sound so appealing.

It’s a huge house (it has to be, with seven people living there), with a big backyard.

It would cut down on costs so much if we didn't have to worry about venue hire, which is a big draw. We can save that money for a house instead.

And anything that saves money appeals to Daniel, seeing he can be kind of cheap at times!

And aside from that, I really like the idea of having a wedding here, where my family lives. It feels very low pressure and relaxing, which I’ll probably appreciate on the big day!

We’re still thinking about it but it’s our number one contender at the moment. We should probably decide on a date first though and work from there!

Notes:

  • Title is from By My Own Hand by You Am I.
  • The noise is coming from Number 2, which is where Tim, Eddie and Mitchell live. Declan wouldn’t allow that business in his place, I’d imagine. ;) It’s funny the variety of sounds coming from next door that I heard in just one play session - music, voices, furniture being moved. I’d never noticed that before! They're very noisy neighbours, those boys!
  • I took Daniel and Susannah off birth control this session and was wondering why they weren't trying. Yeah...had Unmarried TFB turned off! D'oh! Anyway, so I assume they'll try once they get married, which is fine with me.
  • I'm looking at doing the wedding in January or February 2044. Exact date TBA!
  • The $20000 bonus is from this chance card that Susannah passed. Apparently, there's a chance of succeeding with either option but a food processor/fax machine seems so absurd that I don't think I've ever chosen it! These days, a fax machine on its own is even kind of absurd, actually!


16 comments:

  1. Congratulations to Susannah and Daniel! And it's great that Zac gets along so well with Daniel--and that he could keep a secret so Susannah could tell her mom herself, lol!

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    1. Zac is a pretty serious little guy, really, so I think he'd understand why this might be something Daniel and Susannah might want to share themselves, rather than having him blabbing it!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  2. Wow, $20,000 for endorsing sporks! Blend n send is pretty funny, too, though!

    I'm sure their wedding will be so beautiful, and then we can also look forward to nooboos! And that's funny about the noise. That is very realistic, but it used to bother me when I played, for my sims to be woken up, so I always designed apartments not to have bedrooms sharing walls with other apartments or having closets in between-- but it is real life to have annoying neighbors! Maybe they'll be able to go house shopping before too long since they're saving on the wedding.

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    1. Heh, I am hoping for some nooboos after the wedding! Or at least one, lol. I'm going to look around for houses. They have about $12,000 in their household funds, along with the $20,000 in the bank (which is building interest). I use the apartment hack too, so they would have sunk a ton of funds into this apartment when they moved in and they'll get that back too when they move out. They'll probably have $45,000 at least.

      The apartment noise was very cool this round, probably because it was only in the living area! I could completely ignore it if I wanted to, as it wasn't disturbing their sleep at all. Any object against a wall (except wall hangings) absorbs the noise, so a 4-tile-across bedroom with a double bed against the shared wall and an end table on either side takes care of that pretty nicely!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. Yay, congrats on the engagement and I can't wait to see what kind of house they get. Do you have something in mind?

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    1. Nothing in mind yet! I'm just keeping an eye out for houses that might be suitable. I'm thinking 3 bedrooms might be okay if the rooms are big enough to share (assuming they have two more kids) but I'd want four bedrooms if they're smaller. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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    2. If you have any ideas, let me know. I would be happy to build a few options for you.

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    3. Thank you! I'll let you know if I come up with a more specific idea of what I'd like!

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  4. So I thought that these two were already engaged! They have been together quite a long time, that I just skipped ahead mentally I guess! I'm excited for the wedding, you have tons upcoming! And there should (hopefully) be a bit of a baby boom after it all to. Nice seeing Levi and Will and little Theo over to play. I do not know the twins apart, and feel comforted that you don't ether. I really try to recognize your sims, but those two boys always get me. They'll be teens soon, I'm looking forward to that, and for Zac too!

    I will have to listen to the walls the next apartment I play. Most of mine are one per floor, that it doesn't pop up often, and I don't usually have sound very high. I definitely will though keep my ears open though!

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    1. They talked about getting engaged last round, so you could almost say they were unofficially engaged. :) And I know, I have FOUR weddings this round. So far. Not sure if anyone else will get engaged and set a wedding date yet, lol.

      You know, I had Levi and Will down shortly after I played them last and now I've completely forgotten which one is which again! I don't remember it taking this long with Camilla and Lila but maybe it did, lol. By the time they're teens, it should be easier...I hope!

      I actually don't think I have any apartments that are one per floor! Though Tanja made one for the Goodies this year that I will probably plop in at some point.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. I thought the same as Maisie, that these two were already engaged! I'm hppay for them though, and another wedding to look forward to, can't wait :)

    I always have mixed feelings about that apartment-noise. I thinks it's a bit too much (like all those kind of things EAxis added), I mean I do hear my neighbors, but it's not like they are keeping me from my sleep or anything. In this case it did make sense though with the neighbors being college-graduates.

    I'm sure that §20.000 will come in handy, for the wedding or if they find a house.

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    1. Yeah, the apartment noise is quite frequent! It makes sense when the neighbours are Tim, Mitchell and Eddie but not so much if it was a quiet elderly couple or something. I have, though, had neighbours who have kept me from sleeping and it wasn't even in an apartment! My previous neighbours LOVED having parties. On weeknights. With loud music. And with vuvuzelas during the Asian Cup, which was lovely. They've moved, thank goodness!

      The $20,000 is staying in the bank for a house. :) They'll have to use whatever is in their household funds for the wedding, which is probably just going to be clothing, food and "marriage licence", seeing they're having it at Nick and Sarah's house.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  6. Yay for another wedding! I can't believe it's been six years already. I'm personally excited for the future babies.

    The sims in my apartments are pretty well behaved. I can play around for a while before hearing noise. It's easy for me to forget about it sometimes. I guess most of them are just really polite.

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    1. For me, it feels like a long time and yet not at the same time, weirdly enough! But whatever it feels like, after six happy years, I think it's time. And I'm looking forward to the babies too.

      I often ignore the apartment noise but I'm going to have to pay closer attention now. It'd be interesting if EA made it so that playful/outgoing neighbours were more likely to be noisy than serious/shy sims but I doubt they put that much thought into it!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. Ah, I miss the wall banging from TS2 apartments! I totally forgot that they took that out of TS3. TS3 apartments were so lame, so I totally hope TS4 apartments end up taking after TS2 more.

    I can see these guys being totally over the apartment life now and ready for their own place, especially with all those new college grads around. Yay for their engagement! :)

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    1. TS3 apartments suck! Why even bother doing apartments if only one is even functional and the rest are just expanses of black nothingness? Ugh, awful. I hope they've learnt their lesson if they ever add them to TS4.

      I'm about the same age as Daniel and Susannah and I cannot imagine having to live among a bunch of people in their early 20s these days! So yeah...time for a new place, I think. I'd like to do it soon, though it'll depend on what sort of house I can find for them and what kind of money they'll have.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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