{"id":55216,"date":"2023-02-24T13:21:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T18:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=55216"},"modified":"2023-10-05T12:33:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T16:33:07","slug":"sims-4-overthinking-getting-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=55216","title":{"rendered":"Sims 4 Overthinking: Getting to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Some moments it’s nice, some it’s not, she’s conflicted on the subject.<\/p>\n

She finishes taking the wallpaper down and out of the entryway, and debates back and forth hiring a professional.\u00a0 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.
\n<\/p>\n

So far the only money she’s had to spend was for the moving truck, turning on the utilities, and some scrapers for the wallpaper. In her head that means she should be down about $300, but according to the bank she’s down $500. Wait, what? She panics and checks what she’s spent, before laughing at herself. Her daughter had been staying with her, she’d bought them take-out almost every night she’d been there, given her cash for the ride back to campus, and paid for a dozen little necessities along the way. Not fraud, just a parental fugue-state.<\/p>\n

A relief, but the hiccup reminds her that she does need to budget, and maybe get a job…Without her husband’s income, her money was going to run out, no matter how well she spends it. The thought makes her heart sink, not because she doesn’t want to work, but because, in divorcing her husband, she’s basically given up on any sort of proper retirement. Fine. She gets a job at the local grocery store, and begins juggling renovating the house and going to work.<\/p>\n

The walls are easy enough, once the wallpaper is down and out of the downstairs, she just has to buy the paint and get to work. Luckily for her, the wallpaper only covered the living room and entryway, and the only issue with the dining room is the horrible beige color, which she can paint over. She figures if she leaves the carpets for last, she doesn’t even need to put down a drop cloth, since she doesn’t care about ruining them. They’re awful.<\/p>\n

At the hardware store, she realizes suddenly that she, for better or worse, can pick anything she wants for the colors. She considers painting an entire room black just to fully appreciate that freedom, but ultimately decides against it.\u00a0 She does, however, buy a half gallon of black to do the trim in, as well as some much more reasonable wall colors.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

She only realizes after she’s done that she doesn’t love the sage green in the dining room, but she figures it’s fine for now. If she has budget later, she might fix it, but really, pulling out the carpet might change her mind.<\/p>\n

Pulling out the carpet is a horrible, nasty job that makes her frequently consider asking her ex-husband for help. Even gloves and a mask can’t fully protect her from flying particulates and bits of the insulating layer just getting everywhere. She starts in the dining room, pleasantly surprised to see still-intact and beautiful hardwood underneath. It’ll need sanded and refinished from years sitting under abused carpet, but she can see the potential.<\/p>\n

Her work is stalled, however, by a call from her youngest daughter, Kelly. Kelly is calling to casually let her know that she’s coming home from university and moving back in with her dad. ‘Coming home’ quickly and clearly means ‘dropping out’, and Lorretta is blindsided. The conversation escalates and Lorretta feels she isn’t getting the whole truth, until it’s revealed that no, she wasn’t. Kelly is pregnant.<\/p>\n

Lorretta goes quickly through dozens of emotions, and tries to suggest that Kelly stay with her instead. But Kelly aptly points out that Lorretta’s house reeks of paint fumes and smoke.<\/p>\n

Of course, Lorretta knows that’s very sensible, but also that Kelly had always preferred her father, and was likely glad for the excuse.<\/p>\n

“The thing is…” Kelly adds softly, leading up to something. “Dad won’t let Michael stay with us.”<\/p>\n

Lorretta sighs, shaking her head even though she’s on the phone. She doesn’t know who ‘Michael’ is, but she can guess from context pretty easily. “Kelly, you know damned well I can’t change his mind.”<\/p>\n

“No, no, I wasn’t asking you to.” Kelly replies. “I was…hoping he could stay with you.”<\/p>\n

Oh.<\/p>\n

Kelly goes off into all the reasons she thinks it’s a good idea. He could help with the house, he’s a hard worker, he doesn’t have family in the area, but Lorretta isn’t truly listening.\u00a0 All she knows is she’s about to have her daughter’s baby-daddy staying with her, a boy she’s never met, but can only assume for the moment, is an idiot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[639],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thesimsoverthinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55227,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55216\/revisions\/55227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}