The Bookacy Family Alphabet Journal

Last week was surprisingly good when it comes to simming progress, I really didn't expect much. During the week, I played a little bit of TS4, as that's generally better for relaxation for me than TS2 is. So that legacy is still alive and kicking, and actually I managed to complete my first aspiration too. Nice.

I was actually able to get some progress during the weekend too. There was some traveling to be had, and to distract myself from the sad purpose of it, I packed my chapters with me on the laptop. I did some catching up on documenting the TS4 legacy, I'm so behind there. On the way back I was exhausted and didn't do anything, but that was to be expected.

Yet yesterday evening I did sim a bit, playing the second-to-last Alphabetia household forward. I'm starting to realize that I'm really really close to the end of the rotation, and once I get there, I can start going by the new rotation system and developing it to my liking, and that's pretty exciting. Of course, playing one of the households that I'm going to leave behind in the new system is slightly sad, but on the other hand, the idea feels liberating too.

I also did some writing for the next Lakewood update yesterday, and that's about fifty pictures in now or so. I'd say it's roughly halfway there, so not bad.

This week shouldn't be hugely busy, so maybe I'll actually get some stuff done. We'll see how that goes.

Still here, although not much simming progress. I did update my chapter links on Boolprop just today, plus do a little bit of catching up on reading. Otherwise, I've been occupied by real life.

On Saturday, I finalized the deal of getting the old apartment rented and handed over the keys, so that's now taken care of. A lot of last week was still spent working on the details of that, getting the documents ready and such.

Real life has also taken one of its inevitable sad turns. There's been a death in the family, not unexpected but these things still somehow always tend to come as surprises. I'm alright; sad of course but altogether alright, and the rest of us are hanging on.

Not sure how things will go on from here. If real life doesn't taskmaster me around, I may be going into games and stories as distractions. Don't know if I have the concentration for actually simming, but we'll see.

Well, in the end, it seems that I missed last week's weekly simming update, seeing that the life rebuild made me quite busy, even unexpectedly so. So, here's a weekly simming to cover both the end of last week and this week.

The end of last week wasn't really productive after all. I was just so preoccupied with the life rebuild, unpacking and stuff, that I didn't really have time for sims as I'd hoped. And towards the very end, the thing with LJ happened and I decided to make the move. So in the very end, I was actually waiting for the importer to finish and didn't want to mess things up.

As for this week, real life went on. I started in my new job (so far I'm really liking it) and continued unpacking. Just today, I think I can say I'm officially all unpacked, so that's all good. And I also dropped my change of address cards in the mailbox, so that's taken care of too. Now there's one more thing to arrange before I'm all set, and that's finding a tenant for my old apartment. Considering that it's a small apartment with a good location, that shouldn't hopefully be too hard, but fingers crossed!

Simming-wise, I've been mostly setting up this journal this week. It was slightly complicated, because as it happened, the username katrisims was already taken in Dreamwidth: taken by me, for my Bookacy chapter index, and that made me do a bit of headscratching. In the end, I decided that the easiest course of action would be to rename that journal, then quickly re-register this username (before someone else did) and then import the old LJ here. The other option would have been to set up a new, empty journal, then manually transfer each and every entry from the chapter archive to that journal and delete them from this username, then import the LJ, but that would have been way more work. Even this way, I had to do some manual work the fix the various links.

So in case anyone is confused: this journal is my main simming journal, the one that used to be on LJ. bookacy_legacy is the Bookacy legacy's chapter archive (also contains the download archive of sims and Villains or Heroes chapter archive, used to have this url) and lakewood_bacc  is the chapter archive for Lakewood, just as before. I've manually fixed the links on the various indexes on these blogs, plus old update posts here, but the older entries here may still point back to LJ.

Now that I'm pretty much settled in (both in the journal and in the apartment), my next step is to  catch up on story updates that were published while I was  busy, and then I'll have a look at where I was with my own stuff. Tomorrow's yet a day off, and maybe next week in general is already a bit less busy. We'll see how things go!

I need to sit down and rest my back for a bit, so here goes my weekly update.

No simming progress, and I suppose that's no surprise to anyone. Lots of other progress though. I've kept going through my stuff, getting rid of unnecessary things. I've also washed some blankets and stuff, and in the weekend, Mom helped me get rid of a couple of old pieces of furniture plus wash a couple of mats that don't fit in my machine. I also managed to get rid of my old mini-fridge that was in the attic gathering dust. I found someone to give it to, so it found a new home.

Just today, the moving boxes were delivered to me, so tonight I've been putting stuff in boxes and putting destination tags on them. I usually always say that I love my books but while moving, I don't really like them that much. You know, I can only pack a box about half full with books if I still want to be able to lift and pile it, which always leads to there not being enough boxes in the world for the damn books. This time, though, I've got a moving company and I rent the boxes. So I don't have to run through all the local shops for cardboard boxes, and won't be constantly running out of them. So maybe even the books will be okay.

Anyway, enough babbling, back to work! A week and a day to go, including four work days!

Well, as you can probably guess by the previous post, there hasn't really been any simming progress. I wasn't expecting any, either.

Otherwise, there has been nice progress, however. As of yesterday, I have an apartment based on oral agreement. As of today, I've officially got it: I've signed the lease, gotten an insurance for the new apartment (and terminated my old insurance) and paid the deposit. I've also sent a request for offers to moving companies via a handy web service. (The new place is 200 kilometres away, so there's no way I'm doing it with a rented van and a couple of friends.)

So, truly not bad for a couple of days' progress. At the moment my outlook on the move is quite positive. Let's see if the desperation sets in when I have to actually pack... Well, that's a worry for another day!

This week, I've been taking a break. I haven't really felt like simming, so I haven't as much as opened my simming computer. Early in the week my new Harry Potter arrived in the mail, so I obviously had to read it (it was quite enjoyable). Afterwards, I didn't really feel like simming, so I sort of half-consiously decided I would take a break this week. Besides, I've been pretty busy too. Now in the weekend, my sister and my brother-in-law were visiting, and I went to watch them take part in a sports competition. That was fun, and made me think I should maybe try jogging again. We'll see how that goes.

So I do think I maybe overdid it a bit during the vacation. But that's okay, as is taking a break. I'm not sure how I will feel next week, but I'll be sure to return to simming sooner or later. I always do, so I'm positive.

Ok, so confession time: zero simming this week. I sort of forgot last weekend when writing the last weekly simming that this week was already vappu week. Vappu, as in May Day, a celebration on par with New Year's and Midsummer's here in Finland. It was this weekend, and I got to meet some friends and enjoy the great weather, so all in all a great time.

( Another excuse, with possible overdose of nostalgy )

So yeah, excuses, but good ones at least in my opinion. ;) Maybe I'll have more time for simming next week.

Excuses, excuses... Guess what happened in the beginning of the week, just as I thought I'd get back into the swing of things? Well, I promptly got sick. Not the kind of sick that gives you fever and puts you into bedrest, just the kind of sick that makes you tired and annoyed and trying to do the normal things anyway. If I didn't go to work, I'd feel guilty because I'm not "sick enough", and when I do, I feel guilty because that may make someone else sick. *sigh* Anyway, that has left me pretty useless in the evenings this week, not having the energy to do anything simming-related. Or much anything, really.

Now in the weekend I've been better, even managing to go to the yearly book fair today, as I planned. (Yay!) Yesterday I managed to write a little bit for the next Lakewood update. I don't like how the gap between updates is growing here, too, but on the other hand, I've been feeling a bit uninspired and lazy, too.

Well, really only one thing to do: try again. I think I'll see if I can write a little bit more yet tonight. And then there's always next week.

So, as I said last time, this week was kind of busy when it comes to real life. I was on a business trip from Monday to Tuesday, and kind of recovering from that the rest of the week. When it comes to free time, I had my first French class on Thursday and I thoroughly enjoyed it. (I studied French in high school, but have since then just about forgotten everything, and want to brush up my skills.)

I've also been a bit distracted by other games (especially since I've been tired in the evenings), but I did manage some progress today. I allllmost finished the rotation for the Davidsons, and wrote a little bit too. I'll have some catching up to do with writing afterwards, but thankfully just a rotation worth. Once I get to it, it goes pretty quickly, at least has so far.

But goodness, I didn't even remember how hard the toddler training is without smart milk! I'm not sure if I regret choosing the no aspiration rewards handicap or not. On the one hand, it feels like so much work, on the other, it feels like an actual challenge, too. I think out of all the aspiration rewards, I really miss two the most: elixir and smart milk. Not that surprising I suppose. Anyway, by my usual playstyle, the Davidsons' oldest child should be a kid now, but there's still the nursery rhyme to go! Well, we'll see how that goes.

I'm not sure about next week, but hopefully it isn't as busy as this week. I've been a little distracted lately, but again, playing was fun when I did actually play. So maybe more progress next week? Maybe.

As I suspected, not really much to report this week either. I didn't actually sim, but I did manage to write and publish the rest of the Lakewood update. So that's progress, and I'm content with that. :) Oh, and I did also start writing Dirk's first college update, maybe six or seven slides, too lazy/tired to turn on the other machine and check.

I did mean to sim today, but since it's the day after my sister's bachelorette party... Maybe I was a bit optimistic about my energy levels. :D Anyway, next week should be a little quieter, so hopefully that means some progress.