Re: My No Buy, I'm Baaaackk! May 21 First note has link to chapters

[Indira]

Great update! Love how you give the townies a bit of history. It's amazing how you can live fairly well without buying from the store!

[Joria]

As a builder I'm just itching to get into Buy mode and really make their place gorgeous.  Doing things "on the cheap" is really tough on a builder but it is showing me things I didn't know.  For instance, I went into family inventory and that's when I discovered the pod thing.  Did you know it works like a fish tank?  The only problem is it only takes one fish!  So this big, bubbling thing with one tiny fishy in it is a riot.  I also didn't realize you get very nice goodies from Gold Medal events.  Mostly because I've always avoided them except for dates.  So I think I'm going to try them all just to see what you get.  I also didn't realize you could build a wall of light for the garden.  I don't think it's particularly attractive but it does the job very well.  Now my little crew has to get a LOT of money so I can landscape to my heart's content.  Oh, and they both need to max out their careers.  I want a stove!  (Ok, griddle but better than a fire pit!)

[Indira]

I feel the same way. lol, I'm not read to do this challenge but I'm having fun reading your experiences with it.

[MissTrips]

Ohh, that ray gun is working so well!  I've promised myself to leave science until the very end because I want to mine the possibilities before zapping away.  Everything looks like it's coming along nicely for Ima and Laurent!

[Joria]

Ohh, that ray gun is working so well!  I've promised myself to leave science until the very end because I want to mine the possibilities before zapping away.  Everything looks like it's coming along nicely for Ima and Laurent!

The only problem with the ray gun is having the items available to change!  Since I sold off the unwanted Connections items, (like the jail cell walls and doctor stuff), I'm stuck with having to constantly dig for more My Sims Trophies.  Not much of a problem since Laurent always needs crystals and metals for his career.  I sure wish you could snag that rocket ship he's working on for future astronaut things but you'd have to go into build mode to do it.  Not sure you could put that in your inventory and walk away with it anyway.
Meanwhile he has created two ray guns, two of the light thingies, two of the antennae things, (to keep aliens away) and two worm hole generators.  So he's been a busy guy while Ima is working hard on her culinary career.  So far our fishing expeditions, few and far between as they have been, have only netted us fish, replacement parts and fruit and veggies.  Oh, and our future cow plant.  I want to try fishing for a prolonged period of time either at the bluffs, (if you can fish there), or at the fishing spots on our home island.

[oshizu]

 What a delightful update!  You seem to be having so much fun with this, even if you can't build, lol.
Your "home island"? Which lot are you playing?
I guess if you really wanted your own rocket ship, you could invite Liberty Lee to live with you since she's started the Astronaut job already...If she joins the Space Ranger branch, she receives that Build-Your-Own Rocket kit as a promotion reward at career level 8.  You probably checked and saw that already.   

Looking foward to hearing more about the doings of Ima and her hunky hubby!

[Joria]

Thank you, Oshizu!  I AM having a lot of fun with them, although sometimes it's a bit of rinse and repeat boring.  I almost lost them yesterday!  I wound up with the no house on the lot bug, so anywhere I went except my home lot was empty, including all venues.  I did a factory reset, and pretty much everything under the sun one could try to fix it, but this is a pretty persistent bug.  I hoped and prayed it did not ruin my RD!  Fortunately, I had saved right after the last updates, so while I lost the time I played after that, at least I had an uncorrupted save file to go to with nothing lost except my time.  Scary!

I had decided from the start that I wouldn't allow anyone else except for a spouse and possible future children to add to the house so no Liberty Lee.  I want my couple to experience every job possible, with the exclusion of the criminal career since I really hate being mean to people, so eventually a rocket ship would be possible.  Meanwhile, Laurent is progressing nicely in his Scientist career so a trip to Sixam is totally possible.  Ima is not progressing as rapidly in her career, culinary, as I would like but no worries.  It's going to be a loooooonnnngggg game.  My Sims have the life setting to long so they can do it all and I will allow Laurent to make a life increasing potion, or buy one.  I'm wating to see which happens first, I get bored with it or it all falls apart.  lol

[oshizu]

Awwww, that's awful to hear that your game is still experiencing glitches. I'm glad you were able to recover your game.
If I ever finish the IDC, I have really mixed feelings about doing another long game.  My IDC is constantly suffering a variety of bugs.
Today, however, the game is playing nice for a change.  Anyway, for me (because I'm a hoarder), the longer the game, the more bugs I face.

And before I forget, the house looks fantastic!  Who would guess that it's a No Buy Mode home!?
And to avoid cluttering up the Building Contest thread, I adore your little starter house entry.

[Joria]

Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up or tear out my hair!  It is so difficult to keep my club amused lately that they have taken to reading and re-reading the skill books we got with our pc.  They even were ignoring my beautiful garden salad, the only thing I'm able to "cook" while at home.



I decided to leave them to their own devices and go transform some more junk.  Who knows what I'll get next!



A fire!  THAT's what I'll get next!



I could just imagine all those things I'd gotten going up in smoke.  Everyone else rushed to get off the property, as if they were all going to catch fire.  Everyone that is, except Liz.  She found it fascinating watching me put out the fire.  I think with her neat trait she was just waiting to clean up the ashes!



The only ashes left were all on me!  I looked like a chimney sweep.



You see that adorable little light cauldron in my picture?  Well, beware!  I had mine over by our tent and it caught on fire.  I'm not sure if it did it by itself or if it had help from Candy Behr but once I had put everything out I got rid of it fast!  Here you can see it before it caught on fire.  We all put on our moves to get rid of the excitement of the fire.



No time to party though, I had work to go!  I left Laurent behind, busting some smooth moves.  That man sure loves to dance!



After work that night, Laurent took the gang to the library.  I guess they got bored with the same old books at our house and I no way wanted to spend our hard earned cash buying them more at least not until I can find a way to keep them tidied up.



Some people are just naturals at throwing awesim parties.  There's one chic, Playsalot I think her name is, who has party after party after party, and all on the same day and all of them gold medal winners.  Me?  Not so much.  Here's the aftermath of several of my attempts at Black and White party failures:







Well, at least I didn't go home empty handed!  Laurent either.  Here he is hard at work at the work bench making us some more chairs, after still another party failure.



Ok, in our defense I have to say it's really hard to throw a great party when you have so many things missing!  Eliza and Bob didn't have a bar, we didn't have a stove, somewhere else didn't have a radio and Partihaus didn't have a chess board!  We didn't give up though and at our last attempt at Partihaus we ran out their doors down to the park where there were chess boards!!  Success at last!  Here's the reward for that party.  Who knew?



Now Laurent will be able to brush up on his piano playing and my buddies have another toy. 

Speaking of "my buddies",  I really love having them around most of the time but you know, if it wasn't for being able to rally the troops to keep everyone's needs filled, I'd probably see a lot less of them. I was starting to feel like I always lived in a crowd and there was never any privacy.  Then it dawned on me, *smacks head*



Well, DUH!  Buy ONE, and only one, moodlet solver and then clone a bunch more!!!  All needs met with one little drink and at a very cheap price.  How could I have been so dense.  Of course, it didn't always work.



Ah well, no great loss except for my time.  I managed to get both Laurent and myself all geared up.  We had a bit of time left before I had to run off to work so we decided to work on our garden.  ALONE!



While I was at work, Laurent decided to open up another cave door.  This one was somewhere behind the Landgraab residence.



He was starting to need some more moodlet potion so he didn't hang around and fish.  He just promised himself he'd check it out with me at a later date.  Maybe even make it a date!  We are getting closer and closer to completing our fishing collection.



Later that night we both were really happy with our day.  Is there a better way to celebrate that two lovers could have?



Oh, and by the way, that's the last time you'll see me in Chef's white.  I am now an Executive Chef.  I can see that grill on the horizon for sure!  I'll leave you all with this snapshot of me doing what I seem to do the most......



'night all!

[Indira]

What did you get when you cloned the moodlet solver? Is that a tiny grey box? I found that part funny. lol. I'm weird.

By the way, in the last image, are the club members panicking over something? I usually see that way of running on the Daddy-to-be's when they arrive at the hospital, which I also find hilarious! I'm bitten by the funny bug.

[Joria]

Hi, Indira.  The tiny grey box is when the clone machine messes up.  It's basically worth $1 when sold but otherwise I haven't found anything else to do with it.  You can't transform it so that's it.  Usually you can get 3-5 clones of the actual item you have on the machine, then it will do the grey box thing for a bit.  After awhile it requires repairing.  So far Laurent hasn't upgraded his, which can only be done on the big machine at work.

The cool thing about it is you never would have to worry about ANY of your needs again if you have a good supply of moodlet potions.  The problem is it is time consuming and boring to stand there and repeatedly clone.  Still, if you wanted to do a marathon fishing at the Grotto or something it comes in real handy.  I've found it takes 2-3 potions a day for 24 hour protection from all needs.  Now, consider adding whatever mood you need for a job, clone a bunch of those potions and you will always be in the right mood for work.

In the last image the club members are running away from/toward the fire Ima is putting out with her ray gun.  They were way in the back so by the time they were in the picture frame she already had the fire out.  Transforming can be hazardous to your health!

[Joria]

I did it!!!  Yayyyy, me!  I made it all the way in my culinary career!  Oh, my kitchen looks so nice now!



Ooops!  Not very tidy with all those books laying around on the floor.  Definitely have to do something about that!  Might as well show you the dining area too.  Laurent is going to make a second table and more chairs but meanwhile here it is.



Here's an over view of the whole area, including the "inspired" room.  That one still needs a bit of work.  I'm planning on at least one more easel, a desk with a computer for writing on, and maybe some musical instruments.



The inspired room.  My club members love to leave me little gifts on the easels, gifts that mean more simoleons for us because collectors just love their work.  I've kept some of my favorite pieces for my walls as well.



Hmmmm.  Well, I guess since I seem to be doing a "show and tell", I'll just continue and show you some more of the house.  Here's the "focused room".  Laurent has all his science-y stuff here.  He really wants more, like a telescope and a microscope but that isn't something we can build or find so far.  He'll just have to make do at work I guess.



You got a brief glimpse of the lounge in that last shot.  Here's a better view.  So far we've not earned a sofa nor have we been able to transform into one.  They have some very nice modern looking sofas in Magnolia but just didn't feel right buying one.



Some folks might say my furniture doesn't match but I prefer to call it "eclectic" or even "avant garde".  Free, is a very good price after all!  Besides, as we continue to transform we are now getting more matching pieces or duplicates so it works for me.

Upstairs there are two en-suite bedrooms.  We got the big, red bed at the kiosk in Granite Falls.  Not top of the line but comfy enough for us.  Notice the plants and chotchkies throughout the house?  Gotta love those ray guns!



After I told Laurent about my promotion, we sat down for a nice game of chess and some planning for our future.  You might have noticed the toy in the bedroom with the twin beds in it?  Not saying yet, but we ARE thinking about things.



We're not totally sure which way we want to go.  Right now Laurent still would like to max out his career.  I can take vacation time so our Watcher can follow him to work or I can just continue working for a bit.  After all, the money might come in handy one day and there is really no rush for us.  We've been talking about whether or not we should focus a bit on finishing up collections, (the fun stuff), or changing jobs and slowly working on more collecting.  For now, Laurent has those microscope prints to complete, not to mention his collection of aliens, and we can't figure out how else we'd be able to finish those except through his work.  Meanwhile, we have so many skills completed!  We decided that for right now, some fun time was in order and time ALONE without our club.  So off we went to find an adventure!

Yep, looks like this might be the spot!



I'd heard talking to this tree and watering it might bring us to some place special, so after a few cans of water and a little complimenting on my part..........



Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so in I went.



Breathtaking!  I could hardly believe my eyes.



It moved me to tears.  I couldn't help it, I just had to do something to honor the fairy folk who must live here.  I picked up my violin and....



Laurent was not only as awe struck as I was, but he was also anxious to get a fishing pole into the water!  He just knew some special fish lived here.



Special all right, but definitely NOT  a fish!  We had a good laugh at this one.



See that little red tail shark leaping out of the water?  It was a fish we needed for our collection and, as luck and the fairies would have it, we caught one!  Unfortunately the anglerfish still eludes us.  We decided to try our hand underground so off we went to the Forgotten Grotto.  I caught my usual.....



While Laurent did a better job......



One more trophy done!  That bat fish will look nice on our trophy room wall.

By this time we were getting a bit tired of moodlet manager potions so we headed home for a bit of romantic R and R time.  Just the two of us.  We decided to take a swim in our new pool.  It's unfinished at the moment but I think it's going to be a winner, not only for us but for the club as well.



Meanwhile, it was just the two of us.  What could be better?



Tomorrow is another day.  Let's see what it will bring.  See ya tomorrow!

[oshizu]

A Joria Show and Tell is always welcome!

Loved seeing all your rooms!  What is a chotchkie? (already forgot the spelling)

Oooh, the pool is fantastic!

[Joria]

A chotchkie is basically a knick knack, decorative item, dust catcher!  Something cute or pretty to look at, but really, when it comes right down to it, a waste of money and space that could be better used by something useful.  I have several.  Some are little statues, some are fancy candles.  My favorite is a little statuette of the Disney characters Chip and Dale bought for me by my great-granddaughter this last Christmas.  Why did she spend $40 on this?  Because my husband's nickname is Chip and my real name is Dale and we still cuddle and love one another just like these little chipmunks do.  So, in reality, it was a very thoughtful gift gathering dust on my mantle.

[MissTrips]

*thumbs up*  Congratulations on maxxing out the Culinary career!  Having a stove is so *nice*!  It's great to see the different creative ways to come up with making a home without buy mode, I keep looking longingly at the Science career and the Raygun, but then I remind myself to stick with the plan!  Science will be my 'reward' career after I'm done with Mansion Baron.