First obvious questions are "do you have mods installed" and "did you clear your cache files"? Always the first suspects.
The problem sort of sounds like your F10 key is on (turns off all the game clutter for taking screenshots) except for the work clothes thing and Sim contortions. Still, hit that a few times and see if the game bar and screen clutter returns - If this is a preference, it might not turn back off again on reboot automatically and is staying on until you tell it otherwise.
I haven't had this specific thing happen to me, but it sounds like a problem of the same calibre I faced once and found a lesser known solution to. I can't recall the error name I had but it was the one where the launcher doesn't recognize anything in the download folder, installed content, etc. and when you get in to the neighborhood selection area, it says you don't have a registered game installed (even though the disk is in the drive and it worked fine last time you booted up). Anyway, the point is that the game was not referring properly to valid game files and booting info that *was* there. I fixed it by deleting all the preference files - A corrupted pref file apparently was the problem and everything was just fine then. I'm on a Mac, so there were several and they are kept in a hidden folder, so if you are on a Mac and need instructions, let me know and I can give you detail on how to find them. On Windows, I have no idea. They recreate upon booting, and the worst that should happen is that maybe you will have to reset some preferences, although I didn't. It was alarming how much effect a randomly corrupted preference file had on my game! Your problem may be completely different, but it's a quick, not-scary-or-time-consuming thing to try.
