#put Smiler's latest arrangement out

[victorluvsalice]

-->And, as Victor replanted his oversized crops (which I’m not actually intending to make oversized this time! Smaller ones make a bit more sense to sell in the store), Smiler scheduled a weenie roast for the next day! They hadn’t thrown a party in a while, and I figured that would be appropriate for it being summer, especially with SimCity Founding coming up. They invited their friends Heath, Aleah (the Hermit from Granite Falls), Cecilia, Nalani, and Grace, and had the whole thing start at 3 PM, as that felt like a decent start time for me for a cookout. And I just crossed my fingers and hoped that it wouldn’t be as chaotic and glitchy as some of my OTHER weenie roasts had been. . .

-->And with that, all that remained was for Victor to finish up his planting and for Smiler and Alice to have a little bonding time (including synchronized showering in the rain -- Erratic Sims *sigh*) before it was back off to the store! Smiler of course made another flower arrangement while Alice started making more cakes and pies for the bakery and Victor began doing bulk bread processing -- and then I discovered two things:

A) The new update, which added slots to the tops of a bunch of the toilets and sinks? It has a dark side, and that dark side is that Sims WILL put random shit on those slots. As seen with Victor putting his bread on top of the toilet in the bathroom stall. *facepalm* I moved it out of the bathroom with haste and quickly put -- I don’t recall what it’s called, I think it’s related to the menstrual cycle stuff in Wonderful Whims, which I don’t use, but it’s like a little spray bottle that you MIGHT find in a bathroom like this, and it took up one of the slots on top of each toilet, making them less of a good place to drop baked goods.

B) Smiler actually didn’t have that much to do, as the flower arrangement shelves were full, and there was no more room for any of the baked goods from the cupcake machine in the bakery section. Whoops. ^^; Fortunately, there was another protest going on nearby in the little square, and when Smiler batted over to say hello, who should they encounter but Jameson, the guy they met over in Henford-On-Bagley on fair day! :D Smiler promptly renewed the acquaintance, and they had a nice chat together. Them being the most social of all my Sims DOES make keeping them occupied easier. XD

-->And while THAT was going on, I decided it was about time I had Victor test out his Copypasto skills! Now, as I reported back in the Finchwick Fair update, there was no way for me to have him Copypasto any of the cans and boxes from the Simsonian Canning Factory mod (you know, like the canned peas and such). . .but he COULD Copypasto the various sauces and preserves, since those are the same as the ones you get from Cottage Living itself! And so Victor set about copying as many jars of jam and sauce as he could. . .

[victorluvsalice]

And then they all settled into the break room to watch the latest Season Premiere! Yes, because it just so happened to be that particular pop-up holiday, and I was like, "Well, they have a nice big TV right here." XD They thoroughly enjoyed the shows on offer, though about midway through Smiler and Alice both got distracted by flirting with Victor. XD But they watched enough of them all to complete the tradition, and that's what matters!

And better yet, by the time they'd all completed their required watching, the blizzard had cleared up, and the snow outside was starting to melt as it was in fact now kind of warm! "All right," I thought cheerfully, "let's just get a picture of the trio in front of their new store, and then we can open!"

...yeah, uh, that ended up TAKING SOME DOING. The first issue I ran into was when I tried to set up the tripod myself at the edge of the lot and have Alice set the timer for a picture -- apparently it was too close to the front of the store, meaning that instead of standing OUTSIDE the store as I'd intended, the group went INSIDE and stood behind the flower-arranging bench in front of the windows. Which, might have been okay if I believe Alice hadn't been entirely blocked by the shelves of flowers. XD So I had to put the tripod and camera back in Alice's inventory and have her place them in the world in the middle of the road, hoping the tripod would face the right way when she did. Fortunately, she did put it down facing the store, yay. First hurdle passed!

Second hurdle -- uh-oh, Smiler is feeling the thirst. Well, fortunately, that is easily taken care of -- they always carry a bunch of plasma packs and plasma fruit. They sipped on that while Victor and Alice had a little make-out session, and ended up refreshed enough that I didn't have to worry about shitty needs while taking the picture. Second hurdle passed!

And then we came to the third hurdle -- ACTUALLY GETTING THESE IDIOTS TO TAKE THE PICTURE. Dear lord, this was SUCH a thing. Because either Alice would go to set the timer, and then just IDLE there for long enough that I would think something had gone wrong and cancel the interaction, or while "waiting for the photographer" Smiler would randomly wander off down the road, and if I tried to teleport them back into position by changing poses when Victor and Alice got in front of the camera, they would end up merged INTO Alice, which, not good. FINALLY getting the shots I wanted took so long that not only did I have to have them change clothes halfway through as they were too hot in their winter wear, it was SUNSET by the time I went "FINE I'M TURNING AUTONOMY OFF SO YOU CAN'T MOVE." *facepalm* Granted, I actually think the sunset photos look pretty cool, and I was happy with the photos once I got to take them, but cripes. Make me suffer for my cute threesome shots, why don't you, game?

[victorluvsalice]

It’s Spring Thursday in the Chill Valicer Save, and I have another longer update for you! Mostly because this one took a couple of play sessions to get through, what with me hopping into Build/Buy Mode a couple of times to make improvements to the Valicer Farm and the Van Liddelton Groceries store. Let’s start with what was going on with the home lot first --

I. While I still haven’t figure out precisely what I want to do with the extra space in Victor’s greenhouse yet, I did at least find some cute decor to add to the “crafting wall” thanks to the old Cottage Garden Fan Stuff pack! :) Victor now has a pretty little potting bench, with pots and seeds, a book for research, and a plant being prepped for repotting. It’s just a little thing to make the greenhouse look more greenhousey. :)

II. I moved the wind farm from behind the barn to the side of the lot by the path! There was plenty of open space there to work with, and arranging all our various ground-based wind turbines freed up the space behind the barn for other stuff. Plus it actually allowed me to add one more wind turbine to the lot, which should hopefully help more with power production. The water collectors got moved too, to the other side of the path up against the house -- it felt like a logical place for them. Plus it’ll make it easier to maintain all this stuff -- yes, the gang all have various teleports, but it’s nicer when you don’t have to go all the way to the back of the lot, right?

III. I actually moved the entire barn up a couple of tiles and created a new cow paddock! Yes, now that they have a grocery store, I figured they should try again to get some large livestock, and I figured a cow would be the smartest option so they could offer eggs AND milk. And the best place to put the little shed, and thus the paddock, seemed to be the back of the barn, so -- yeah! I threw in a few fun decorations just to liven the place up (like a Patchy, and a Cottage Garden Fan Pack water fountain that looked a bit like a watering trough), and moved the chicken coop’s enclosure over to intersect with it (so the chickens can visit the cow if they so desire). Took a little fiddling to get just right, but I’m pretty happy with the results! Now they just need the actual cow. . .

IV. And in general yard clean-up, I moved the tree that was previously sitting in the middle of the back boarder of the lot over by the new back porch to help fill in some of that empty space, did a little terrain painting and rearranged the rocks on the path a bit, and put some nice flower bushes along the sides of the path to the front porch. Just a few things to give the yard more interest and cover up some weird blank spots!

V. Oh, and this doesn’t have anything to do with me fiddling in Build/Buy, but you’ll notice that the insect terrariums look a lot different -- that’s because I downloaded some of @brazenlotus‘s mods, and the Core Mod actually changes their look. Had to make sure that it didn’t conflict with All Bugged Out by Lot51, but I do kinda like the jar style!

Whew! Lot to do, but I’m pretty happy with the results. :) Shame they really only have one strip of open backyard left, but eh -- sacrifices must be made! And as for actual GAMEPLAY. . .

-->Alice got up early and, after an adorable interaction with Shadow (seriously, look at that, how cute), transformed into her werewolf form to go out on a hunt! Always a good way to get both a meal and some nice werewolf XP, I’ve found. :) And I made sure to take a quick dip into CAS first and make sure she had her tail on ALL of her werewolf “outfits” so it didn’t randomly disappear on me. XD

-->Smiler, meanwhile, took advantage of a burst of power to play a little Sims Forever (as chaotic as the original), before getting a notice that one of the hatchable eggs in the coop was ready! (Well, okay, SHADOW got the notice, but as the DOG can’t help hatch any eggs. . .) So they flew down and hatched the latest chick -- another rooster! Which, uh, means that we won’t be keeping this one, as we don’t really need a third one. I PROBABLY won’t trade it for meat? Maybe? We’ll see. :p