Pauline's Paintings - Summer challenge 2024, update 4

[katrisims]

Hello, and welcome back to Pauline's Paintings, my Great Boolprop Olympic Challenge and Summer Challenge for 2024. Pauline here is my competing sim, whose goal is to finish 25 paintings, while raising a family and all around having a life. We're now 15 paintings in, and Pauline's adopted daughter Penny just recently became a teenager. As Penny consistently rolled Wants for a puppy, we got one last time, and Pauline is just getting to know the new puppy, Fluffy. That's got us all caught up, so let's dive in!

On her first day as a teen, Penny brings home a new sim, Spencer Scott.

They spend the afternoon watching tv together and getting to know each other. Unfortunately for Penny's locked first kiss Want, they have negative chemistry, but as her secondary Aspiration is Popularity, Penny does quite enjoy getting to know new sims in general.

Oh, right. Poor Fluffy can't sleep because silly me placed his basket in the living room where the tv is on. It's been so long since one of my families had a pet that I'd forgotten that it bothers pets too. Sorry Fluffy!

We tried the kitchen first, but it was too cramped, so in the end Fluffy ended up sharing a room with Penny.

Another working day done for Pauline. She's Business Tycoon already, and steadily working towards her LTW of earning 100,000 simoleons.

Spencer stayed over for some sandwiches, and they spent some time together with Penny afterwards, until it was time to say goodbye so Penny could get to her homework.

The evening was pretty predictable indeed: getting started on the 16^th painting for Pauline, and homework for Penny.

Breakfast is again enjoyed as a family, it's pretty much tradition by now.

Pauline's work shift starts later than Penny's school, so she has time for some painting in the morning.

Another day, another school bus friend for Penny. Her name is Emmy Jayapalan, and they got along nicely.

Penny also spent some time with Fluffy. He's been well-behaved in general, and is learning some good behaviors already, like in this case eating pet food.

And of course, all our guests love Fluffy and line up to play with him.

As Pauline came from work that day, she hit the 75,000 simoleon mark, and was pretty happy about it. She also brought home someone, her long time friend Trent.

So the afternoon was spent socializing.

After Penny finished her homework that night, she joined her mother in the living room. Pauline painted, and Penny studied for her scholarships.

As Penny was gettig ready for bed, Pauline finished the 16^th painting and it was hung up in the gallery. There's one more slot on the surrounding walls, the rest are on the extra wall inside. Everything is going to plan.

Penny spent a little time playing with Fluffy before bed. The two of them are getting quite close.

We had a couple of broken items at home, and neither Pauline nor Penny are super skilled at mechanical, so as morning came, Penny called for the repair service.

Before school and work, Penny and Pauline spend a bit of time discussing their hobbies.

When Penny has left for school, Pauline again has a bit of time for her painting.

The repair service shows up as expected, and takes care of broken things. Especially the computer, as we don't want Pauline or Penny to get electrocuted.

While everyone else is out, it's time for Fluffy to grow up into an adult dog!

There he is, all grown up! Something about his face makes him look like an old dog, even though he's barely an adult. Anyway, still cute and still a good dog!

He went straight for the chew toy, and I realized that he probably wasn't able to use the toys as a puppy, as I never saw him playing with them before. Well, now he can.

It seems that when I refreshed the adoption pool, I also generated some strays for the neighborhood. (Makes sense, as what I did was I took out the hack that prevents respawning strays for a bit.) Well, I think Fluffy is happy to have some company now and then.

As nobody was around to scold him for it, he was also happy to roll in the dirt.

In the early afternoon, Penny came home with another school bus friend, Kiera Wood.

Chess was her activity of choice, so Penny joined her.

No, bad dog! Apparently "the dog ate my homework" can actually be true in the sims. In any case, Fluffy was scolded and Penny's homework saved. I suppose she wouldn't have minded as she's not a Knowledge sim, but she can't escape homework that easily, on my watch anyway.

Pauline came home with Trent again, and he was, like everyone else, drawn to Fluffy, who of course loves the attention.

There's two guests around that day to join the family's late lunch / early dinner.

After they left, Pauline got some phone time to catch up with her other friends.

After Penny was done with homework, she sat down for some studying. She has the Want for learning Lifelong Happiness, so I figured why not.

Late at night, Pauline finished her next painting. It's number 17 and it took the last spot available on the surrounding walls of the gallery. Only the eight in the middle remain.

Pauline then praised Fluffy for chewing on his toys rather than furniture, and it seems he's learned another positive behavior trait.

Penny stayed up even later than Pauline that night, but she did manage to learn Lifelong Happiness.

The next day Pauline took a paid day off work, and to start it off, she gave Fluffy a bath. He's quite good at staying in the bath, fortunately.

She then opened the home business, to hopefully earn some more simoleons.

Not long afterwards, she earns her silver sales badge.

The business earned a rank too, which was nice. I haven't taken any of the money perks by the way, as I don't know if they'd count as earnings, and if they do, that'd feel a little too easy somehow.

The business was going rather well, and Pauline earned a silver badge for the cash register too.

There was a bit of an incident though. A lightning hit one of the outdoor lamps and set it on fires, which in turn caused the customers to panic. Pauline rushed in with the fire extinguisher, although I knew the rain would put out the fire soon enough.

Pauline had to close the business and go take a shower. Meanwhile, I bought some lightning rods to hopefully prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

The afternoon and evening were reserved for something fun for Penny, and more painting for Pauline. At least that's fun too, right?

After Penny had enough of watching tv, she and Fluffy worked on learning the command Come Here. Pauline wanted Fluffy to learn it, and I figured Penny and Fluffy would enjoy it.

Later that night, Pauline finished her painting. Number 18 was hung in the gallery.

Penny had some phone time in her room before bed, as she too now has a few friends to keep up with.

Friday morning, a nice breakfast before Pauline has a day off and Penny heads to school.

It's not that much of a day off for Pauline, though. First, the tub's broken yet again, so she fixed it.

Then, it's time to open the store again to hopefully gain some simoleans. And even more hopefully, not get any more fires.

This session was pretty good. Pauline got a gold badge in sales, and the business reached level 3. The sales weren't huge, but they were something.

While Pauline was busy outside, Penny took care of things inside, such as doing her homework and bathing Fluffy.

After Pauline closed the business, she did some digging to replenish her stock. That too, went well, as she dug up her first treasure chest!

Since she became a teenager, Penny has been into cooking, as she finally can. So she got to make dinner like she wanted to.

After dinner, Pauline did some painting and Penny and Fluffy worked on Fluffy learning to sit up on command.

Late that night, Pauline finished the 19^th painting and it was put on the wall in the gallery.

Saturday. In the morning, Pauline took her regular dose of elixir to make sure she stays young for the duration of the challenge.

She also ordered some groceries so that Penny has something to cook with.

We then opened the store again for a bit. As Penny noticed that there were a couple teen boys among the customers, she volunteered to help with the sales. Unfortunately, every boy of her age she's met so far, including the present customers, has had negative chemistry with her.

Nevertheless, the sales were good, and we even sold the treasure chest. It gave a nice boost to Pauline's earnings, although not as nice as I would have expected.

As I checked both Pauline and Penny's earnings with our hacked painting, I realized why. Penny doesn't have a job or any other source of income, and yet she's apparently earned over 3,000 simoleans. So this must mean that while Pauline is technically the owner of the business, the game divides the earnings between her and Penny, as they're both members of the household.

So the business is not that effective at earning money for Pauline specifically. Well, what can you do. We're between 80,000 and 90,000 now anyway, so just with Pauline's salary we'll be getting there reasonably soon anyway. And big sales like the treasure chest can cut off a day or so off the waiting time, so it can still be useful, and something to do in the meanwhile.

The afternoon saw more painting, and more studying.

Besides cooking, Penny has been into the skills from Apartment Life lately. This time, she learned Couples Counseling.

Fluffy loves attention, and is often found outside trying to socialize with strangers. Tammy was happy to rub his belly on her walk by the house.

Pauline spent some of her evening playing with Fluffy. Penny is his master, which is fitting since she wanted a puppy in the first place, but it's good if Pauline too is close to him.

Sunday morning. Another day ahead of business and painting I suspect.

Penny wants to learn some sales, so she helps her mother around at the business.

That frees Pauline to do some digging to replenish the stock. The reporter would apparently want to interact with her though.

Penny did learn something about sales like she wanted to, worth a bronze badge.

The reporter gave us a second good review and Best of the Best award. We apparently sell the best rocks and bones in town.

And before we closed the business for the day, it reached level 4.

Pauline only had a little bit left of the 20^th painting, so she got to it.

And that day, she also finished it. That makes 20 paintings in total, only five to go before the challenge is over! And this is also a good place to wrap up the update. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. See you next time, for the last time in this challenge, and until then, happy simming!