T w e n t y S i d e d

The first order of business this week is scraping off wallpaper. Lorretta has help in the form of her oldest daughter, and the two of them spend a weekend taking the wallpaper down and out of the living room. They start working on the entryway before her daughter has to return to university, leaving Lorretta fully alone. Lorretta is in her fifties, and realizing very quickly that she hasn’t been entirely alone for more than a few days, ever. She’d moved right from her parents house into her married life of husband and children, and now she has a big open house to herself.

Some moments it’s nice, some it’s not, she’s conflicted on the subject.

She finishes taking the wallpaper down and out of the entryway, and debates back and forth hiring a professional.  On one hand, the work is hard and she’s doing it alone. A contractor would have the same job done in half the time and twice as good. On the other hand, though, Jimbo told Lorretta about the water damage upstairs, and she’s trying to save her budget for fixing that.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Getting to Work”

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them

The year is 2000, Lorretta Whitman is 55 years old, and she has just inherited 1605 Cottonview Lane, the house built by her grandparents in the early ’20s. She is going twice a week to Jimbo’s apartment to cook, clean, and help keep his medications organized for him.

He thinks it’s pity, but she’s worried it’s selfish. She doesn’t want to be at home. Home is quiet, and a little unsettling. She and her husband have two daughters who have now gone off to university. With the girls gone, it’s been hard for her to ignore the growing sense of distance and resentment she shares with the man she married. Instead, she has thrown herself into as many little jobs as she can.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Good Bones”

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them

The last time we checked in on the Smith family, Jimbo had taken over the family home despite it not belonging to him. He smoked, and had ill-kept cats, and allowed the place to be covered in tar, dust, mildew, and cat pee. Eventually, he began just leaving the back door open a crack so his animals could come and go as they pleased. This led to him getting more and more pets, as the smell of cat food drew in more felines; along with the occasional raccoon. The population boomed with the family home as the epicenter. To him, a lonely old man this meant he usually had someone to watch the news with in his old recliner. To the neighborhood, it meant bird populations plummeted and cat fights were constant. The local trap-neuter-return program couldn’t keep up and the area became known for its strays.

In 1990, where we left off, Jimbo was 70. We’re going to jump forward in decades now, rather than twenty years at a time, since things are going to pick up a bit for a while. Bringing us, finally, to the year 2000. Jimbo didn’t care much about Y2K, but he did pull his money out of the bank just in case. He’s 80 now, living in a house that isn’t his and mostly trying to slip under the radar with his family.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Not with a Bang”

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them