Julianna was inducted as president of our school’s 4-H club on Wednesday.  Or, she and Rhiannon were married, we’re not sure which.  Phone photos, quality will be poor.

Our first year, she was historian, last year she was vice president, and now she begins her reign of terror as President.  Bow before her!

After the meeting,  5 or 6 families went out to dinner together.  It was spontaneous, so we didn’t call ahead.  I’m sure the restaurant was thrilled to see us.  But we were all very well behaved, even though we had a kids’ table and a grown-up table.  It was really fun and very nice to see what a good bunch of kids we have.  There were about 15 kids at that table (aged 7 to 13) and while they certainly talked and laughed, it was never out of hand, they were no louder than the adults.   There are a pair of “strolling cowboys” who come by and sing songs, so it’s not like the place is quiet, anyway.  Not when you can get both Feliz Navidad and Ring of Fire.  We had the “how long have you lived here, where are you from?” conversations.  Steve and I were the old Frederick residents at 15 years (gah!), and it was always interesting to see how mobile Americans are.  Most of us had lived in another country, all of us had lived in more than two states.  We’re a restless people.

The Frederick News Post is reporting that Frederick County municipalities, including the City of Frederick, Middletown, Rosemont, Emittsburg, Woodsboro, Thurmont, and Brunswick, plan on challenging a county school ordinance in court.  The ordinance could limit development of newly annexed properties if there is a lack of school capacity.

[County commissioners] said the law applies to the county because municipal growth feeds into county schools. Towns and cities without meaningful growth requirements are flooding county schools and denying everyone a quality education, commissioners said.

“I think it’s very sad the leaders of the municipalities are going to go to court to overcrowd the schools in their communities,” Commissioners President Jan Gardner said.

“They want a right to overcrowd the schools, but no responsibility toward the solution.”

Municipalities are arguing the commissioners did not prove any significant adverse effects during a public hearing on the issue.

As promised, here is the finale of my birthday weekend extravaganza.

A surprise trip to Volt with MJD and my parents! MJD made the reservation almost six weeks ago – is that not the best birthday present, ever!! According to what I’ve read, the place is booked solid now.

I was so surprised when we arrived – MJD had spent the whole weekend and ride confusing me, so that I had no idea what state we were in by the time we arrived! I was so thrilled – Bryan is definitely my preferred Voltaggio brother (check out this interview), and I LOVE Top Chef.

Volt is located about an hour outside of DC in Frederick, MD – such a great little town. I really want to go back one day and walk around and look in the stores!

Frederick, MD

The restaurant itself is in a renovated old mansion- beautiful. There is a bar, where we sampled some pre-dinner cocktails, a main dining room, and an open kitchen dining room.

The restaurant will also feature an open kitchen dining room for 16 guests allowing patrons to watch the chefs at work. “I love to interact with my guests and am excited that I will finally have a kitchen that will really allow me to do so,” says Voltaggio. “It’s entertaining for patrons to see and interact with the kitchen. It results in a greater appreciation for our craft.”

Since it was my 30th birthday and my husband and parents apparently like me a lot, we got to sit in the open kitchen dining room (Yikes) and eat the tasting menu with the wine pairing!!! This is the sample menu that’s posted online. Talk about extragavant!

Cosmo at the bar

we were right next to the kitchen!

The six courses end up feeling like eight or nine with the extras that come out from the kitchen. We started with an amuse bouche of macarons, including the guacamole and beet ones Bryan talks about here. My favorite was a lettuce flavored macaron with ceasar dressing in it – no joke biting into it was like eating a delicious ceasar salad! Then we had a sunchoke soup — unbelievable.

For the second course, my mom and I got the duck liver, I liked it so much more than I thought I would. It was bizarre, had kind of a gelaton quality, but fabulous. (MJD and dad skipped that for some yummy ravioli!)

I forget the order, but the next two courses were pork belly and monk fish. Melt in your mouth!!! Just a reminder, we had different 2 ounce glasses of wine for every course!

The last entree was the steak…so well seasoned, salty, but not overpowering…mmmm

so pretty

Lastly, we had the dessert course (chocolate peanut butter fudge with cilantro ice cream), and a dessert with a candle for me (no idea what it was, but it tasted like a pile of delicious frosting), AND a final farewell of bitesize ice cream sandwiches.

I love Volt.

Thank you all for taking me there!! Thank you for an amazing birthday weekend!

This beer* has me perplexed and I’m not sure how to rate it.  I liked it,  but I found the taste so distinctive and big that it really clashed with the food I was eating.  It had a very complex set of flavors: bread and yeast,  with fig and banana sweetness and a lot of floral notes. I think that with its big distinctive flavors it is really  more of a beverage meant to be sipped on its own.  I can’t imagine what food this would go well with.  It’s also very noticably alcoholic (10%!).  I think I’m going to have try this again.  You can age this in the cellar (it is aged for three months before bottling) so I think I’m going to buy a few and try it.  Overall rating:  perplexed.

* Even though this is called a barley wine it is technically a  barley wine style ale since it is made from grains not fruits.  Read all about it here.

Other reviews in the Flying Dog series are:  Old Scratch Amber Lager; Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale, Road Dog Porter , In Heat Wheat and Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA.

In spite of the mall’s small size, there are two Hallmark stores there.

There are black squirrels here.

You can see the mountains from everywhere.

You can see Tim’s workplace from everywhere. (It’s the biggest building in town, I think.)

Francis Scott Key is buried here.

I will be taking questions about our move, the kids, our new town, whatever’s on your mind…
Ask away!

The true story of the bombing of Dresden finally steps out from behind the politics and revisionism. Meticulously researched utilizing records from German as well as Allied sources, Taylor puts lie to the Nazi-created and pacifist/Socialist promoted myths about Dresden: that Dresden was uninvolved in war materials production for the Nazi’s; that it had no strategic function in the Nazi war effort, either as a center for the movement of material and personnel, or as a center for communications; that it was undefended. He also puts lie to the myths that the effect of the bombing was significantly more extensive and uncontrolled than other bombings during the war, and the claim that the bombing was designed as a terror attack and that the attack was aimed at civilians.

One of the most surprising elements of this well written and well documented defense of the Dresden bombing is that Frederick Taylor is a pacifist who makes his pacifistic views clearly apparent in the book. Dredsen, he admits, was simply a bombing mission that went “horribly right” in the midst of an essential war.

For those who have followed me waxing poetic about the joys of Prosecco over the years here is an opportunity to try a great producer for free.  I saw that Frederick Wine House is pouring Riondo Prosecco Saturday, December 12th from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. as part of their complimentary tasting.  This is one of the Proseccos we consistently go to as it is delicious and represents a great value.

Frederick Maryland Online (longtime resident on the links list to the right)has scooped me on some news but I thought I would pass it on.

First there is a new restaurant called Magoo’s Pub and Eatery locating at the place where the defunct Jackson’s restaurant used to be.  (West 2nd Street)  The website looks to be a work in progress.  One of the commenters on FMO claims this is Jennifer Dougherty’s new project.  Let’s hope the food is better than her last restaurant.

More exciting to me is the report that there is supposed to be a new wine store opening up across the street from Volt.  Allegedly they will be opening right after the first of the year.  Unfortunate timing if you ask me since I know that, like most retailers, the holiday season accounts for such a large chunk of revenue for liquor stores.  I shall definitely check this place out and report back.

Names of characters are;

Walter, Priscilla, Shirley, Frederick, Ursula, Delilah, Henry, Elliot.

Because I can’t play or update as much as usual in the week for the next fortnight, I’ve got a bumper update for you today.  Feel free to read it in bitesize chunks until there’s a new one.

We’ll kick off with the story you all want the gossip on… only there isn’t much gossip.  Abe is still engaged to Sherry.  Papergirl, ironically, is the only member of the family who knows Sherry Bunch’s traits now, and she isn’t showing up as engaged, but there are no other sims we know of called Sherry.  No wedding as of yet.  Hmmm.  And even with his second lease of life, Abe must be ancient now.  Sindy and Papergirl both passed 80 during this update, so he must be over 100.

Eddie Kidd rolled green thumb as a teen so he’s helping Thomas in the garden a lot… the garden which now has all kinds of exciting fruit growing in it from our adventures overseas.

A few readers commented that when they’d had ghost teens, they had to make them enrol in school.  When the boys aged up, they got the normal ’school starts in…’ dialogue but the next day that had gone and they did indeed have to enrol.  I enrolled Harry because I want to ambrosia him up and I also want him to get artistic on his YA birthday.  Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t need to develop anything specific, so if he ages up badly it’s no biggie.  He isn’t enrolled at school and instead is free to take photos and garden during the day.

Koi aged up to child, but this picture is really here because it’s the only one I took of Papergirl in the past couple of sessions.  I discovered the reason she couldn’t review was because she was a weather woman.  Now she’s the next stage up in her career she can review again.  Makes sense, I guess.  Honestly, you’d think I was a noob the way I handled this, but I’ve already done this LTW once (albeit back in the distant days of Gen 2 Kyotis).

Koi couldn’t get childish as a child, so she has party animal.  She sure looks like one.

She isn’t glum all the time, honest (though she does like black) but I don’t want her to do too much socialising until she rolls ’super-popular’, so instead of sending her out to tag the town, she only does social at school, on the computer or on the phone.  I want to test how long it takes to do s-p with tag and compare it to with guitar and it’s not a fair comparison if she makes loads of friends before rolling it.  In the meantime she’s working on handiness in case she doesn’t roll super-popular – science is our back-up plan.

Piranha is mostly on free will these days, other than working at the supermarket (still called Abe’n'Ama’s even though we sold it until EAxis fixes it so you make money from businesses again).  By the way, those part-time careers seem to take forever and a day to progress up.  Here, she and Koi are playing a mean trick… I mean experimenting with sleep.  They had a conversation in the boys’ room.  As you can see, Eddie Kidd slept right through, and Harry Houdini was rudely awakened.  I have now given Thomas the trance sleepy LTR so more sleep experimenting is due (I may give it to Harry too and see if that stops light sleeping but only when he’s had the painting and writing ones).  Anyway, so far whilst I can see merit in heavy sleeper, light sleeper seems incredibly pointless as a trait.  More experiments will follow next time I play.

Evel is at level 9 of cookery skill, though is only at level 3 in her career.  Here she’s cooking grilled salmon for Paergirl (at last!).  The younger Dayes all like key lime pie or mac and cheese, and this meal means for the first time, everyone in the family has now eaten their favourite meal.  I’m not looking forward to future generations wanting complicated things.

Someone asked yesterday if they could eat frogs’ legs in France.  I didn’t see any on the menu and you can’t buy the recipe, but I was getting opportunities to take frogs to people so they could make them.  Anyway, Evel was watching Cookin’ Cable and learned the recipe, so here she is making it.

Um.  It looks.  Well.

Sindy works in cookery still and she spends the rest of the time painting.  I decided not to bother with her doing guitar challenges, my future rock star can tackle those.  I was very excited when she painted the picture above: it’s the spoon and plate thingy the DeCasims were always painting.  In both the Kyoti and Lazarus families I’ve had a whole heap of painters and never once has that painting come up.  So well done, Sindy.  Only – perfectionist?  It looks rubbish.

Thomas was rather befuddled to find that, on his elder birthday, he’d been transported to Egypt.  Fishing, fruit and fotos (sorry) here we come!

Mopeds are so much better than slowly floating around.  Though there was plenty of that as well.

Although I don’t like micromanaging several sims on travels, Thomas is fairly easy.  I got him to buy some pomegranates and then I sent him fishing.  There are only crocodiles and mummy fish new in Egypt (though you can catch various types of Koi there too) and only two fishing holes he needed to visit, so I set him up and left him to it whilst I followed Eddie around.

Eddie’s LTW says he has to have a current collection of photos worth £25,000 and have taken 10 photos in each location.  I was sure he’d taken enough in China, France and Sunset Valley to count, and I put his photos on the wall in the basement the other day and they were worth well over £30,000, so I figured he might complete the LTW this trip.

Now, these trips are supposed to be about fishing, photography, bugs etc and definitely NOT exploring much, right?

Wrong.  Eddie Kidd is going to be attempting the photography skill challenges, and the hardest one of these involves having five full collections of pictures.  One category for these collections is travel, and some of the objects listed are the special stones and items in tombs.  So I sent him down there under duress.

Speaking of duress, has anyone noticed their sims who are doing normal base game LTWs keep getting opportunities to go to other countries to help their school/promotion chances?  Wow, that is a LOT of effort for little reward.  I get annoyed when the game sends me them for the Lazaruses, like, doesn’t the game KNOW it’s an apocalypse and they can’t even leave Riverview, never mind the country?  Sorry, back on topic…

Eddie went for a swim, which made me laugh.

He also explored a bit more, and I like the pretty colours.  It’d work even better if Harry was in this shot, given his favourite colour is yellow.

The game wouldn’t let him walk through this fire trap – or even walls.  He’s a ghost!  I thought they were meant to walk through walls!!

I wanted to know what’d happen if he walked through fire, what with him being a water ghost and all.  Then we wer ecaught by surprise by a hidden fire trap.

Turns out water ghosts can catch fire!  When I get a fire ghost, TOTALLY going to try and set them on fire.  Hmm, maybe I should try and drown one of the boys at some point?

I was very tempted here for a moment to let him burn, just to see what would happen – would he just become a fire ghost instead?  But with his LTW to complete, I decided against it.  Don’t think I’ve ruled it out for when I’ve wrung him dry for points, though.

He was minding his own business looking through chests when a bad thing happened.

I did NOT want to encounter mummies yet.  I mean, in time, yes, I want to see sims be cursed by mummies and die, and see sims become mummies, and see mummy ghosts and all the rest of it.  Just not yet.

Then I thought, ‘oooh, Eddie, great photo op’ (except he couldn’t take a photo of it, or else I wasn’t quick enough).

We meant the mummy no harm but it decided to fight Eddie anyway.

Then things went very odd.

Eddie got cursed, and at the same time, Thomas got a new bad moodlet, ‘hurt hand’, from being bitten by a snake.  I thought he was fishing?

The mummy curse apparently lasts 14 days and the sim dies if it isn’t removed.  I wondered if Eddie could fulfil his LTW in 14 days, because if so, I’d be very tempted to let him die and see what happens.  But he might not complete it and then I’d be REALLY frustrated.  So I decided to look for ways to sort it out.

I read somewhere that if you go to the Sphinx and do the missions there you can get it taken off.  Only we sucked at figuring out how to get through the Sphinx (and I don’t want to learn too much about missions until I have an explorer sim).

He did weirdly keep turning into his alive self for a few seconds, though.

He then got an opportunity to take a relic to someone in return for having the curse lifted, which we were about to do… when I thought about using the moodlet manager.  A couple of cures on that and all was well.  Ha, mummy, beat that!  Make sure you take one with you on your travels.  (BTW apparently if you have a mummy snack in your inventory they take that instead… but our mummy snack was in Thomas’s inventory at the time.  Oops).

Having sorted Eddie out, I went back to see Thomas autonomously doing this.  We bought a snake charming kit to play with and it seemed he’d taken it upon himself to investigate.

Thomas, if you’re going to keep doing this, then no wonder you’re getting bitten.

He seemed to suck as I never saw a snake.

Eddie completed his mission anyway, even though he wasn’t cursed, as I figured it couldn’t hurt.  He then topped out the photography skill by taking a photo of the person he’d delivered the relic to and her husband asleep, which was rather creepy.  It’d have been even more creepy if that shot had been the one to complete his LTW.

He didn’t complete his LTW, which means one of two things.  Either I didn’t take enough photos in the other destinations, or ‘current collection’ means photos still loaded onto a camera, which would invalidate all £30,000 plus in our basement.  Either way, I’m not impressed, but I suppose the skill challenges will still take me time so it’s not as much of a hardship to keep going as it might otherwise be.

Photography is kind of fun, but I think it (and I suspect the same will be true of exploring) is best if you are only managing one sim.  Eight-person households thrive on things like athletic, jobs and fishing where you can just leave them to it.  Photographers need constant looking after.

The second they returned home, Thomas elderfied.

I need a better shot because facially he actually still looks like himself rather than generic Sim elder (I got Eddie to take a photo of some generic sim elders in THOSE dungarees btw, but no photos are going on our wall until his LTW is completed for the reasons listed above).  He is now at level 10 gardening and suddenly has slipped down the list for spare removal.

Harry Houdini is making good progress on his writing.  His art is hindered by Papergirl keeping doing sneaky paintings when I’m not looking.  When he left school tonight, he didn’t come home, but started chatting to this girl.  I realised I really ought to start spouse hunting for Gen 3.  This girl doesn’t have a job, though, so cute as she is, she’s no spouse.  With a whole bunch of service sims, ghost types and interational sims to work into the family, townies are not getting a look in.

When I sent Eddie to the beach to take photos and he was very keen on chatting to this lady who is a lot older than him, I realised the boys’ hormones were directing what I should do with them next.

So I got Eddie to hire a babysitter.  Of course we have no little ones, but a teen service sim is too good to ignore.  Hilda here was getting on great guns with our boy and fnding him very alluring until he confessed his attraction for her.  I sense another Sindy/Magician scenario on our hands.

The maid was at the house, so I got Harry to talk to her.  OK, she’s probably going to be an elder by the time he ages up but it’s worth a shot.  This maid is called Chanel as well, which is rather exciting.

Evel was at work while all this was going on, but rest assured, she’ll be sent out spouse hunting as soon as possible.  Not that all three of them will be married off but I may as well set the wheels in motion because as soon as the heir poll is decided, I want to get Gen 4 underway.

Oh, and before that, just one weird little bit of news for you.  We got this pop up telling us Frederick Parsons was about to die.  Frederick Parsons, aka Magician, who already died, and was sent back to the Netherworld.  Whose gravestone sits with Ama’s outside the library.  Who, weirdly, is still showing as Sindy’s boyfriend.  Is this what’s going to happen with ghosts in my legacy?  Am I going to be plagued by pop-ups from now on?  Because if so, those graves are getting deleted!

Anyway, onto the heir poll.  Post who you want in the comments or on the Boolprop thread.  Voting closes on Friday.

Evel Knievel Daye

Traits: Vegetarian, Natural Cook, Excitable, Easily Impressed, Workaholic

LTW: Five Star Chef

Faves: Orange, Fruit Parfait

Child naming trait: Vegetarian

Harry Houdini Daye

Traits: Light Sleeper, Hates the Outdoors, Great Kisser, Bookworm

LTW: Illustrious Author

Faves: Yellow, Key Lime Pie

Child naming trait: Bookworm

Note: Harry will be eating ambrosia as soon as we can fix it up for him.

Eddie Kidd Daye

Traits: Photographer’s eye, Heavy sleeper, Green Thumb, Genius

LTW: Photo Collection

Faves: Aqua, Mac and Cheese

Child naming trait: Photographer’s Eye

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  My favorite holiday since its about food, drink, family and gratitude.  Dinner for 12 at stately Fred Manor:

 Appetizers:   Cheese Plate & assorted munchies

To drink:  assorted bubblies: La Marca Prosecco, Soligo Prosecco and Conde De Subirats Brut NV Cava

 Soup:  Sweet Potato Bourbon Soup

To drink:  assorted bubblies: La Marca Prosecco, Soligo Prosecco and Conde De Subirats Brut NV Cava

 Mains:  Roasted Maple Lawn (Fresh, local & natural from the Common Market) turkey

            Butternut squash and cheddar bread pudding

 Sides:  Garlic mashed potatoes

            Traditional stuffing

            Corn pudding

            Cider-glazed Brussels sprouts

            Green Beans with citrus-walnut vinagrette

 Bread:  Homemade cornbread with cranberries

            Dinner rolls (a nod to  the traditionalists)

 Relishes & Sauces:   Canned cranberry sauce (a nod to  the traditionalists)

            Turkey gravy

            Mushroom gravy

            Homemade cranberry relish

 To drink:  2003 Virna Barolo Riserva

            2006 Jean Louis Chave Offerus St. Joseph

            2007 Chehalem Dry Riesling Reserve

            2006 Neyers Zinfandel Pato Ranch

 Desserts:  Brown sugar-pecan cupcakes with caramel frosting

            Other desserts to be brought by guests

 To drink:  coffee, tea or port.

On a recent cold, rainy day, I had the opportunity to get to Frederick, MD, to visit The Common Market, one of a very few co-op markets operating in the area.  The Common Market, which has been in existence for more than 30 years, sits as an anchor in a rather commonplace strip mall (Evergreen Square, 5728 Buckeystown Pike).  But once you walk through the doors you realize that the inside is much more warm and welcoming than its plain exterior might lead you to believe.  As you enter into the produce section, you are bombarded by color and energy emanating from the fruits and vegetables, most of which come from farms within a 150 mile radius (and most under 100 miles).

As you pass by the produce, you’ll find a bulk foods section with everything from flours to nuts to beans to granolas to sugars (and I found hominy!).

The dairy, cheese, seafood, meat, bread, and grocery sections are all stocked with natural, organic and local items, many of which cannot be found in other natural food stores or even larger chains such as Whole Foods.  (And more types of yogurt than I’ve ever seen assembled in one place!)

The Common Market also creates and offers prepared foods to eat in its small cafe area or for take out.

To find out more about The Common Market, including information about becoming an owner, check out http://www.commonmarket.coop/, and if you’re ever in the area, definitely check it out!

Just received word that the magazine Edible Chesapeake is ceasing publication.  That’s sad as I always looked for it at the Common Market and enjoyed reading it.  From the release: 

I will no longer be publishing Edible Chesapeake magazine. The decision is the result of much reflection on how best to balance the needs of my family and myself as a small business owner, with the needs of the local food community of which Edible Chesapeake has been an important part since 2005. The recently published Fall 2009 issue, with the incredibly scrumptious apple cider donuts on the cover, is the last of my tenure as publisher and editor. It is uncertain at this time whether Edible Chesapeake will return under a new publisher.

Frederick Wine House is having a number of interesting looking wine classes over the next month.  The Champagne and sparkling wine course looks great!

The state of Maryland commissioned a plaque commemorating the infamous Dread Scott decision.

Nearly 150 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a seemingly knockout blow against those that wanted freedom for all peoples within the our nation, crushing the hopes of Dred Scott and all enslaved Black people that wished to be free.

Now that decision has been immortalized in bronze for all of eternity to learn from in the town of Frederick, Maryland, resting upon a granite pedestal outside of Frederick City Hall. Ironically, the plaque rests only eight feet away from the bust of Justice Roger Brooke Taney, the man that wrote the decision for the Dred Scott case.

With 15% of Frederick’s population being Black, the move serves as a social compromise of sorts between the majority and minority populations of the town located about 50 miles from Washington and Baltimore.

Several citizens have called for the removal of Chief Justice Taney’s bust, due to his well-documented history of racial intolerance and bigotry, while others have defended the statuette as nothing more than a representation of a man who’s “racial view reflected the tenor of his times.”

Taney’s decision was based on the assertion and common belief of that day that stated Black people, or “negroes,” were “beings of inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race.”

When I had my last leagacy, I left all the tombs on the lot, though I walled them in after the first member of Gen 3 died.  This stopped anyone else haunting me, though those that died pre-boxing in still came out.  However, I heard that having ghosts on a lot slows the game down and I really don’t want the level of lag I had with that family here.  So I bured Amaryllis at the park across the road.

And yet she still felt she had carte blanche to haunt us.  I think not.  She’s now buried outside the library in honour of her ASAL learnings.

But let’s face it, there’s another ghost we’re all interested in, and here’s Thomas taking THE call.  No, not the omni call, the resurrection call.  Hell to the yeah, ghost babies here we come!

Magician was “72″ when he came back and he had a book called something like ‘Stirring the Soup’ in his inventory which I’m assuming is an EAxis funny about the primordial soup?

This all means that our very own Lazarus, Abraham, got to retire to Shady Acres and live his life out in peace so there is room for multiple Gen 3 babies.  Bye, Abe!  You were great.

I was amused that Frederick/Magician had the option to propose to Sindy when he’d refused her so many times when he was alive.  She refused him, which was even funnier.

Anywway, these two FINALLY got their passion going, and soon afterwards I clicked Magician’s grave’s ‘return to netherworld’ option (which you will have when you resurrect a ghost) and he went back to the afterlife.

We don’t need him any more, do we?!  Sindy had fertility, watched kid’s TV, listened to kids’ music and ate apples in the hope of triplet boys.

While Sindy was busy with continuing the legacy, the rest of the family were getting on with the usual.  Evel’s still cooking though I don’t have a picture of her.  She’s already at level 6, which makes me happy.  Piranha has been out collecting, and I never saw this cute little animation before but it made me laugh.  We have all the butterflies, and we have all the beetles except Catherine’s nemesis, the dreaded Trilobite.  Where is that thing?  We’ve run around the Valley three times already.

Papergirl’s at level 7 in journalism now and she made me smile when I saw her riding a bike at night.  Nice to know sims are more safety conscious than some of the idiots in my city.

I was bored of Louis Walsh doing a handstand so I got her to kick him again.

Um.  Doesn’t look comfortable.

And this is Len Goodman, our third gnome, basking in the garden (Thomas is now finally showing as having gardening skills, phew!)  (Len Goodman is a judge on Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing With the Stars, BTW).

And to celebrate Thomas completing all the fishing challenges, here’s the perfect aquarium…

I also got one of each fish mounted.  The mounted fish are wigging me out somewhat so they may end up in the cellar.  Thomas will carry on fishing for fertilizer and to see if we can stock the pond with every type of fish, as DB requested.  I’d heard a rumour you couldn’t put salt and fresh fish together but that appears to be false.  We currently haver 14 types of fish from both waters swimming merrily together.

Thomas got fired from the police for never really going to work, so now he’s working at the Day Spa which will fit in much better with his gardening and fishing.

Speaking of the day spa, for this pregnancy experiment I sent Sindy there once for the medium priced massage, and she was having the cheap facial when she went into labour.  She was in a good mood throughout and she didn’t read any pregnancy books, though she did watch kids’ TV and listen to kids’ music.  I chose the baby traits this time around.

Thankfully we have a basket.  Sadly we do not have triplets, so I might let Thomas and Papergirl have another kid.  I’m not going through that ghost romancing palaver again until it’s with a different coloured ghost.

But say hello to Eddie Kidd Daye, who is a genius and a heavy sleeper (Papergirl is a light sleeper and it doesn’t seem to do anything so the twins have been given light sleeper and heavy sleeper for comparison).  He likes yellow.  Or aqua.  And key lime pie.  Or something else I can’t remember.  His brother likes whichever of those Eddie doesn’t and I can’t remember his second trait… but anyway, say hello to…

Harry Houdini Daye!

Join us next week to find out more about ghost babies, see if Thomas and Papergirl do have another fishy sprog, and hopefully the family will be going on an adventure somewhere too!

Unexpected and unfair founder death can’t keep the Daye family down for long, and to counteract their grief, the family got very busy with the learnings and experiments, so settle down with a cuppa and enjoy today’s jam-packed bumper bag of goodness…

We’re starting with Abraham, who’s doing another signing session (at the theatre again, I really must remember to send him elsewhere) and he’s denying someone an autograph…

No surprises who…

The girls are eager to embrace the ethos of this family and so I got them to conduct a little fishing experiment for me.  I sent Piranha to the pool and Evel to the park to see how quickly they built skill.  Piranha fell over at the pool which was the first time I’d ever seen one of my sims do that.

I love how she’s giving me a look of disdain about pool fishing.  She knows full well she won’t catch anything, but I persuade her to roll with it.

Evel was much happier, but then she had a great place to fish.  Anyway, she reached level 1 about 20 Sim minutes faster than Piranha, which isn’t a bad showing for the pool.

Speaking of fishing, Thomas finally caught all varieties.  Guess which one he was missing?  Yup, Piranha.  I LOLed.  He’s now close to completing his fishing challenges so expect a perfect aquarium and some “tasteful” mounted fish soon.

Evel got in some hardcore preparation for her cooking career by using the toy oven.  She and I noticed a new thing…

After a certain amount of skill building with muffins, sim children can also bake pies!  I’m going to chain a future sim child to that thing and see if anything else can be baked if they cook hard enough.

Evel, Piranha, Papergirl and Sindy then engaged in a little experiment comparing tag and playing ball for fun and social.  Both activities maxed the kids’ fun very quickly – but Evel’s social actually went DOWN playing ball (whilst Piranha’s maxed out).  Neither got to being more than ‘acquaintance’ with their aunt, which was a little odd as Ama was always someone’s best friend the day after a tag game.  I don’t know if that was because she was childish and/or friendly as well, or whether she’d just played tag longer.

We had to cut the fun and games short, because I heard a familiar sound… So Piranha was abandoned as Sindy ran off to do her duty…

O hai, Mr Sexy Blue Ghost Magician!

Sindy was very excited to see him again and we spammed the romantic interactions like nobody’s business.

He wouldn’t go steady with her or try for baby, though I suspect being romanced by the site of your untimely death might be a passion killer.  PS – notice our new gnome, Simon Cowell, by the pool.

The next night he came back, and, weirdly, he floats everywhere, including through walls, but walks up the stairs. What’sallthatabout?

Sindy managed to get him into the bedroom but still no dice. This man’s flirty and charismatic, WHY won’t he give in?

The next day I sent Sindy off to be productive.  We now own the supermarket (and shares in something else), so she renamed it ‘Ama and Abe’s’ and promptly fired VJ Alvi.  Because she can.

Thomas has been on gardening duty since his mother’s untimely death, but something is weird.  He has tended, weeded, harvested and planted.  He has talked to plants.  Yet he still apparently has no garden skill.  Is this a glitch?

Papergirl continues to be both a productive and destructive member of the household.  Things regularly break on her unlucky days, but she’s now level 6 at painting so should be able to paint Sindy before they get elderfied.

She’s also at level six in journalism and is currently writing a negative article about Sherry Bunch, who is STILL her husband’s BFF.  She threw a pool party for work so I’m getting in those venue parties like I’m supposed to.

Having thrown a pool party I had no energy for a birthday party for the girls, so they just aged up in their room again, with only each other for company, not even the maid could be bothered this time.

Piranha is very pretty and I like the outfit, but the hair’s the same style as Papergirl’s so we’ll change that.  Papergirl has good genetics.

Evel aged up to look just like Sindy as a teen, only with very inappropriate attire.

One quick makeover later…

Piranha was assigned snob and Evel was given natural cook.   Piranha checked herself out, admired herself and gussied up and got a +25 boost to mood from that little combo.  Sweet.  As a future Gold Digger, I decided she was worthy of Peggy hair (though I actually quite like this particular one on her).

Evel brought a friend home from school, but she has important work to do watching Cookin’ Cable, so I sent the friend to Piranha for snob trait testing.  Snobs get to boast about lots of things, such as their home, their possessions and themselves.  Piranha boasted about everything she could, including  ‘boast about bicycle’ which is what she’s doing here. The friend thought she was boring and each time they got a negative friendship mark.

Whenever the friend reacted badly, Piranha rolled her eyes at me with this pained expression, which was just too funny.

Their relationship got so low that Piranha was able to slap her…

…and then fight her.  Evel, bless her heart, sat attentively watching Cookin’ Cable the whole time.

Immediately after kicking the girl’s butt (said girl is also Piranha’s nemesis now. I love this family having nemeses), Piranha rolled the want to be Super-Popular, which was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.  Kiddie sims rolling wishes to be doctors when someone dies, or rolling wishes to join their parent’s career when parent gets promoted are cute, but this was BEST EVARZ.

Seeing as Piranha’s main mission is to be a Gold Digger and that’s quite easy, I’ve assigned her to collect creepy crawlies.  I can’t face trying gems, metals or rocks so soon after Ama, but the bugs don’t seem to be as bad.  I love this action shot: I can’t wait to get her all Lara Crofty in the catacombs in WA.  On the other hand, I am dreading sending her unlucky mother anywhere near them.

After two days of collecting, Piranha has 80% of the butterflies and 70% of the beetles, which isn’t bad going.  We don’t have Catherine’s nemesis, the Triolbite beetle, yet, though.

Evel is cooking tofu dogs here to remind me to mention something about vegetarians.  She and I haven’t yet played with her trait, but I had always assumed veggie sims would cook veggie food.  This is not the case.  Dino Kyoti in the Kyoti Legacy was vegetarian and he was the family cook for a while.  He made sushi, ate it and got sick from eating meat.  Now, I had assumed that he would just be making vegetarian sushi.  I’m a veggie myself and I love the stuff – substituting the fish for pepper or egg wouldn’t have been hard, would it, EAxis?  So I’ll be watching Evel’s output carefully.

She’s also a slob, which means she’s the only one not getting sick at the moment since the new patch made food go off almost straight away.  Sigh.

Abe was at the science facility when he randomly changed into his trunks.  This was a bit weird, but I let him do it and clicked back on another sim.  Five minutes later, he was doing the death float.  He was 96 and it was sad, but I was expecting it, and I need some more room for Sindy to have babies, preferably triplets seeing as Evel’s now a teen and an heir poll before she becomes an elder would be nice (please, Sindy?).

Then I noticed he had a different death animation to any I’d seen before.  He started spinning in the air.  I also noticed no-one had any grief moodlets yet.

Grimmy appeared, took a death flower from him and let him live.  This is odd.  Abe inherited Ama’s inventory, and she had the death flower in that, but Grim hadn’t taken it from her.  I assumed previously that the death flower was only used on accidental death sims, but apparently not.  I wonder if it’s at random whether you will be spared or not then?  We’ll have to plant some more and find out.

Abe’s age has now been rewound to 72 days.  I very much doubt you’ll see him die other than in the floating shots above.  He’ll be on his way to a well-deserved rest at Shady Acres when I can get Sindy pregnant and trying for triplets.  Also: notice how stressed dying and being resurrected made him.  He was perfectly fine before all that!

Speaking of which, after two nights’ absence, Magician’s ghost returned and Sindy’s shown here leaping into his arms.  Much romantic spamming ensued and he is now her boyfriend.  He still won’t sleep with her, though.

And here’s SimonCowell, in the first of his gnome poses!  Louis is still doing a handstand so I might get Papergirl to give him another kicking soon.

Join us tomorrow to see if I get any further with the ghost romancing, find out some more about the girls’ traits and hopefully see some fishing glory!

My photo, Backlit Glass, will be on the cover of the Dutch edition of Frederick Reiken's new novel, Day for Night (Dag Voor Nacht).

I’m am thrilled to announce that one of my photos, Backlit Glass, will adorn the cover of a new book.

A little over a week ago, I was contacted by a gentleman named Rob Westendorp, a graphic designer based in Amsterdam who was working on the cover of the Dutch translation of the new novel by author Frederick Reiken entitled (in English) Day for Night. Mr. Westendorp came across my photo on one of the sites where I post and felt it would be perfect for the project. “The reason why [the] image suits the book so well,” Rob wrote, “is because the story consists of several people shatterded all over the world who get connected one way or the other. Both the multi-layered aspect as well as the reflection of the title (Day for Night) [are] found in your image.”

After we discussed the specifics, he sent me a mock up and presented the concept to the publisher. Happily, the publisher liked the image as well, so the project is moving forward. It will be a limited run–and only available in the Netherlands–but I’m tickled pink about this fantastic opportunity.