Lisa's Adventures in Simming

Also. I needed to change their outfits ASAP- because having them both wearing the same thing was going to get confusing. With the Sims when a family has multiples I tend to color code them- it helps so much!

Yay! I figured out how to take pictures thanks to some tips from you folks. Just some random shots of Elaine and her new hubby Julien. I'm trying to get some decent shots of them together so I can hang them in frames on the walls in their house. If a game gives me a chance to display family pictures I will likely go overboard- my Sims 4 homes are littered with them.

Question for anybody playing- is photo mode weird for you? I wanted to take a cute picture in game of them getting engaged, but whenever I go into photo mode the para I'm trying to photograph drops the animation. To get this picture I had to Print Screen it and crop all the game stuff off the sides of the image. I wouldn't be surprised if there is something I'm supposed to do that I'm missing- probably something simple- so the lack of a good photo is my fault a la user error, but it feels glitchy to me. At the very least it feels like there needs to be more explanation on how it works. If you have a clue, glitch or lack of understanding on my part, please share it with me! I want to take more pictures!

Update from when I first wrote the above to now- Okay, after playing the game for way more hours over the last couple days than I am willing to admit, I can say that I am still not completely sold on the way characters interact with each other in this game or how the characters look, but I am seriously LOVING the Build mode features in Paralives. I legit squealed out loud and called one of my grown kids over to watch how the curtains stretched to properly fit the big window- they are not Simmers and as such were not especially impressed, but I appreciate how they faked a little excitement because they could see how absolutely thrilled I was. Picture one is the first day of gameplay. First character made in her new house- right out of the paramaker. Picture two is the same room many in game days later. Still not perfect, but I am loving the process.

My version of The Old Wood Nectary in Tartosa, originally owned by the Markovic Family, now owned by Joy Ledbetter (my single square challenge sim who is now a Global Superstar) and her husband Roderick Langley. The game gave the house to him, but it was her money (and way too many hours of gameplay) that fixed it up.

Rosalie's small Business *Art IS Fun!* is a pretty successful business- sims like it a lot and there are loads of return customers. For the life of me I can not figure out how to get a Happy Customer for her aspiration though. She hosts lectures, teaches classes, does both paid and unpaid mentoring. What am I missing?

Miles has proportionate shoulders. Why do these 2 tops distort them so much? Is it just my game? The tops (the jacket is from B&H I think, the sweater vest is from L&D) are attractive, but they look awful on every sim I have tried to wear them.

EA needs to clean up the S4 Neighborhood Stories notifications- there are just too many things it reports on now to post it click by click. I was telling my kid it needs to have categories now, like obituaries, birth/adoption announcements (separated between sims and pets), job changes, friendship gossip, dating and engagement/marriage news. I used to have a mod that gave you all the daily notification stuff in one pop up, but I don't have it now. I preferred the mod's one click way, but honestly it wasn't so bad without it until they added in all the degrees of friendship and romance notices. I was playing last night and my sim got a call that somebody she was friends with had died and I had to individually click through something like 25 announcements before I could find the one that told me he had died while rock climbing. Such a hassle!

Look at me playing with spellcasters and pirate ghosts in my game. I may have to actually play a vampire character soon just to continue this unusual (for me) occult trend. I don't want every save to have a paranormal element to them, but it's fun to play with these characters every now and then.

Work In Progress- the kitchen in the rebooted Goth House bothered me (a LOT) so I needed to mess with it. I'm not sure about the walls and am thinking about switching the window for something else, but I like it so much more than the room they gave us.

I've been happy enough with the Daily Log In items so far, but this hair frustrates me. The texture is really nice and I like the style, but the way the mesh clips at the temple is an issue. I tried it on a few of my sims with different face shapes and it happens with almost all of them. Does anybody have a Sim that looks good in this new hair?

The Nookstone starter lot in Oasis Springs has gotten a glow up. My up and coming young chef moved in with no money and no skills and now he has a really nice place so I thought I would share it.

I picked up the Crystal Creations stuff pack on leap day, the day it came out, and overall I'm pretty happy with it. The CAS options are on the lean side, but I like the pieces they gave us. I completely agree with everybody who have been saying that the clothing and hair feel very Realm of Magic like. I like most of the furniture that came with the pack though I wish there was more of it and I think the new wallpaper is gorgeous. Making the jewelry and cutting the gems is enjoyable, though I do wish there was a small popup screen we could easily see that would show us exactly what pieces we are wearing instead of them just being in our personal inventory- I'm imagining a little rectangle with slots for earrings, necklace, bracelets, rings so that you can easily see what you've got on and how long until their charge drains. I've got a lot of jewelry in my girl's inventory now and that little "You are wearing this" green hanger icon is easy to miss. The cut gems rock. I've been thrilled with the crystal that bumps all your needs up, the one that makes you constantly focused, and the one that helps you with creative skills. I'm waiting for somebody to complain about them being too overpowered and EA to nerf it- if that happens I will legit be mad. The crystal trees are gorgeous. They take entirely too long to sprout IMO and I'm still waiting to be able to evolve them, but they add a special something to the yard, especially at night when they glow so prettily. I haven't got any rare crystals from them yet- maybe when the tree have evolved they'll give those harder to get ones.

But anyway… I haven't played in Sulani much and I have never done this beach life aspiration before. He got his suntan- he was sunbathing in the buff on his little over the water porch things and then started walking around his lot digging for seashells naked. I was legit cackling- my kids were "What are you laughing so hard about????". He finally found the "Beachy Things You Might Want to Buy" vending machine and bought a coconut to eat. The only left in the first set of goals is the is the "Get a Gold at a Kava Party" and can I just say "Urrrrrggggggggg!!!!" What do we need to do to get a freaking Gold level party??? He's thrown 5 of them- the first was bronze, all the rest were silver. We'd be this close to gold and the timer would run out. I was so aggravated after the last one that I saved and closed the game and went to Google to see if the party is somehow bugged. Apparently not- it's just stupid hard. I kid you not, I dreamed of Kava Parties and woke up mad. LOL