Spring 2010 - Huffington

Heather Huffington (33), Lance Huffington (6)

After the failure of her beauty salon business, Heather decided to try something new, flower arranging.  Maybe if she got really good at it she could start a little flower shoppe.  Surely that would be easier than trying to run a salon single-handedly.

Unfortunately, flower arranging took awhile to learn, and with a young son to support, Heather needed to start earning money immediately.  She decided that maybe she wouldn't mind being a waitress or a barista, so she sent her resume to a few places.  The only place she heard back from was a country club and they didn't need a waitress, they needed a golf caddy.  It wasn't exactly what Heather had in mind, but she decided to take the job.  She hoped that something else would come up soon and that the tips were good in the meantime.

Neil was still hanging around.  When he didn't stop by to check on Heather and Lance, he would call to chat with Lance about school or the latest episode of their favorite sci-fi show.

Heather decided to talk with Lance about the friendship over dinner one evening.  "You talked with Neil on the phone for awhile tonight, didn't you?"

"Yeah, he's my best friend."

"Don't you think it's weird having a best friend that's so much older than you are?"

"No, you're my best friend too, Mommy, and you're older."

Heather cleared her throat.  She wasn't that old.  "Yeah, but I'm your mom."

"Neil is kind of like a dad.  Kendra has a dad that pushes her on the swings and teaches her to play catch.  Neil's a friend like that, since I don't have a dad like that."

"Do you wish your real dad was here to play with you too?"

"Sometimes."

"What if we called him and invited him over sometime.  Would you like that?"

"I guess that would be okay."

Heather went to the phone and dialed Gareth's number while Lance waited anxiously.  The last time she tried to call, he barely gave her the time of day.  This time he listened while she told him about how Lance needed his father in his life and chastized him for missing their son's birthday.  Feeling guilty about not being in Lance's life more, Gareth agreed to come over.

He couldn't deny that he still found Heather attractive

But he couldn't forget that she had cheated on him before they found out that she was pregnant with Lance.

It was quickly apparent that Heather had invited him over so that she could spend time with him and get back into his life, not so that he could spend time with Lance.  He decided it was time to set things straight.

"It's over between us.  I don't want anything to do with you and if we didn't have a son together I wouldn't be here now.  Don't call me again, unless it's really about our son."

Since Gareth had made his feelings perfectly clear, she decided it was time to move on with her life and meet someone new.

The first guy she met as a set up was good looking enough

But not so great to talk to.

She tried meeting someone on her own in the neighborhood, but he tried to get too handsy too soon and she was just not interested.

Then she happened to meet Jimmy one morning as she walked Lance to the bus stop.

There was an instant spark between them.

Jimmy was really easy to talk to

And had a great sense of humor.

They parted feeling like they had known each other for ages.

The next day Jimmy was waiting at the bus stop, hoping to run into Heather when she came to pick up her son at the bus stop.

And Heather was glad to see him.

From there one thing led to another

Heather was mortified when Lance walked in on them in an intimate moment.  It was an eye opener to realize just how carried away she was getting with Jimmy.  She was already entertaining thoughts of making babies with him when becoming a single mom to another child by another man who might not stick around was the last thing she needed.

 On the way to school she had a chat with Lance about what had happened.

"Sometimes even Mommies need to meet new people and make new friends.  You don't mind that Jimmy has been spending a lot of time at our house lately, do you?"

"No, I guess it's okay.  Can I just go to school now?"

"The bus isn't here yet.  I'm trying to talk with you."

"I hope the bus gets here soon."

Meanwhile going to school was allowing Lance to make his own friends, friends his own age.  The girls were kind of boring.  They only liked to talk about girly games and new babies.

Bryce was kind of cool though.  He liked bugs almost as much as he did.

He was even willing to give Jimmy a chance and tried to get to know him over a game of catch.

 He wasn't sure if Jimmy liked kids much though.  He kind of wished his mom and Neil got along better.  That would be the best.

Hood Calendar 2010

Year 2010 corresponds to simday 110 and should begin on simSunday and end sometime early simWednesday.

Household Rotations are as follows:

Spring 2001
-Huffington
-Havers-Rossi
-First
-Elementary School

Summer 2001
-Crabtree
-D'Sim
-Ebadi

Fall 2001
-Cormier
-McMillian
-Harris
-Fall Festival
-Fall Semester - University

Winter 2001
-Thayer
-Straight
 - Jr/Sr High, Subject: Home Economics
-2010-2011 Hood Meeting

ROS Events:
- Take a vacation
- Have a secret admirer
- Propose (if not in love with anyone, chose sim with highest relationship or chemistry) [this may be delayed to 2011, since this household this sim lives in is actually ahead of schedule]
- Become addicted to . . . exercise

Thrown out ROS:
Elsa Straight has a secret admirer (Lance Huffington) - it didn't make sense with Elsa being a toddler. I shouldn't have put toddlers in just yet, but it would have been cute, right?

2001 Hood Meeting

Hello, everyone.  Welcome to our second annual neighborhood meeting.  We made it through our first official rotation.  Overall it looks like we had a great year and we're hoping for an even better year this next rotation.  We had our first experiences with home businesses and hopefully we'll see more business at residences and community lots in the future.  We hope to see more expansion in the future with offices and workplaces closer to home.  So far we've experimented with this in the education system and it has worked very well.

Speaking of the education system, we're planning some changes for this year.  First is the addition of the new elementary school.  This year the elementary school will have four students enrolled and we will expect to see more in coming years.  James McMillian has been busy designing and constructing the new building and while it isn't finished yet, it should be ready for students by the first day of school.  Construction on other parts of the building is expected to continue during the school year.  Jessica Ebadi will be teaching the elementary aged students while Rich Cormier and Hope Miguel will stay on at the Jr. / Sr. High with the older students.

Starting this year, school updates will be once a year for each of the three education levels, elementary, secondary, and higher education.  Although we'll be seeing fewer semesters, we're extending the length of each semester to allow each subject to be studied in greater depth.  For the time being, updates are scheduled as follows, elementary in the spring, Jr. and Sr. High in the winter, and university in the fall.  We may offer a summer camp session if there is sufficient demand.  Rich Cormier has agreed to post an education notice to discuss plans for all three educational levels in more detail later this spring.

One major change that all sims will notice this year are changes to the aging and calendar system.  Instead of aging 3 years per rotation, sims will only age 1 year per rotation.  Each household will experience a full three day season during each sim year, but sims will no longer age one year per each simday.  While we found that have a system of three days per rotation worked better than only a single day, as we did in Eden, aging seemed to happen too quickly and unevenly when comparing households at different ends of the rotation.  For older sims it probably doesn't make much difference, but for younger, school-aged sims this should be a better system for making sure children are in the correct grades with their peers and no one skips ahead or is left behind just because their household happens to be at the beginning of the year or the end of the year.  For other sims in the neighborhood the slower aging system has the added advantage of giving sims more time to pursue careers, hobbies, and families.  Also sims will be able to have children that are closer in age to one another, if they so choose, since pregnancy time will be equivalent to one year rather than three.

We've considered changing our calendar so that all households are set to the same season, to promote neighborhood unity, but for the time being we are keeping the varying seasons per simyear.  We have decided to limit the number of festivals per year.  Instead of a summer and winter festival every year, we will have one seasonal festival every year.  That should be enough to keep neighbors in touch without overwhelming our event planners and neighborhood budget.  Our tentative plan is to have a community event every three seasons, with the next one scheduled for next fall.

The next change I'm going to announce may cause some initial confusion, but I hope that it will simplify things in the future.  We have decided to change the numbering system for the simyear.  This last year was 2001, since it marked our first regular rotation in New Eden, but we were also still using the old numbering system from Eden, which meant that New Eden Year 2001 was equivilant to simdays 107-109.  Shawn D'Sim has come up with a suggestion to combine the two into one numbering system.  This upcoming year will be 2010 to represent that this is the 110th simday since Eden was founded.  If we considering the founding of Eden as 1900, this numbering system will allow us to easily convert historical events into current dates while keeping a system of years more consistent with the current trends in other neighborhoods around simNation.  It should be pretty simple and if not, we will send out a pamplet to explain this, hopefully more clearly than I have.  But for example, say if a sim was born on simday 83 in Eden, under the new numbering system their birthyear would be 1983.  This next rotation will be 2010, as I already said, and the rotation after that will be 2011.  Each simday will no longer be numbered individually, just the simyear, which will match with the new aging system.

The next item on our agenda is the neighborhood database.  We are in the process of compling a database on all residents' vital information.  We hope this will enable us to get to know each other and maybe even ourselves a little better.  We will be sending out forms to each household to collecting information about each family member.  The type of information collected will include, age, careers, personalities, traits, likes and dislikes, that kind of information.  This is information we've had for quite awhile, but are trying to integrate into our lives more.  We hope that sims will use this data when making decisions or when making decorating or clothing choices.

We're also asking each household to have a family picture taken to be included in the database.  Fawn Thayer has kindly offered her services and will take photographs either in her studio or in individual homes with no sitting fees charged.  If you would like to order prints for your home, they will be available at a discounted price.  Contact Fawn Thayer for details.

Now for the part I'm sure no one is looking forward to, hood finances.  So far we have not collected any taxes or even have a tax system in place, but we will be looking towards developing one in future years.  Several households took out building loans upon moving to New Eden.  This year we will be doing a household funds assessment and each household that has taken out a loan will be expected to begin paying it back in 2011.  Each household will have 10 simyears to pay back their loans without penalties.  We hope that this revenue will allow us to delay having any further taxes for the next few years to come. At the end of 2010 each household will recieve a statement detailing how mnuch money they are expected to repay from their loans and how much is due each simyear.

I believe that was all that needed to be discussed tonight.  Let's wish everyone a wonderful and prosperous 2010!

Winter Festival 2001

Winter Fest 2001

To celebrate the end of one year in the hood and the begining of the next, the neighborhood residents planned refreshments and free skating at the local ice rink.

Violet and Sierra played a few heated rounds of rock-paper-scissors.  Maia didn't know such a simple little game could become so competitive.

Meanwhile, their classmates, Geneva and Charlotte, were still talking about their art lessons from the previous semester at school.  Apparently Fawn's visit was a huge success with the teens.  They couldn't stop talking about it. 

The ice skating rink was a big success as well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy taking a turn on the rink.

Alexis was a natural on the ice.

When skating made sims work up an appetite (as the London twins, seemed to have that same thought at the same time), hot drinks and snacks were offered at the picnic area next to the ice rink.

While enjoying the refreshments, the residents of New Eden also took the opportunity to socialize.  As always, there was a lot to talk about.

Heather found the mistletoe and scanned the area, wondering if there were any eligible bachelors in the hood that she would like to be kissed by.

While, Genesis didn't bother looking for the mistletoe.  She found her man and went for it.

Oh, James . . . beautiful, young Genesis plants a big old kiss on him and he can't stop fawning over Fawn Thayer.  If he's not more careful, he might miss out on a good thing.

Jane and Shawn take advantage of a day out without the babies and share a romantic moment.

While for a couple of younger sims, new relationships were just starting.

And others decided that maybe it was time to talk frankly about their relationships and find out where they stand.

Sierra wishes for peace in the new year and hopes that she won't keep getting in fights with Bryan Carson at school or at least if she does, she hopes she won't lose again.

Seth and Richie don't see eye to eye.

There's lots of things to talk about.  Money...

the latest television programs . . .

how much the hood is growing.

And plenty of time to play and have fun with the younger sims.

Even though they're in high school and should be more mature, the girls are still kids at Christmas time and looking forward to getting toys for Christmas.