The Weird Stories of William Solomon: A Great Boolprop Olympic Challenge Part Four

 

Hello there; it's been a while.  I apologize for slacking off on this, although it's a longer update than usual, which took some extra time to complete.  At any rate, hope you enjoy it; let's see what happened.

 Although she wasn't very happy at the moment, Beatrice celebrated growing out of diapers, with a few of her parents' old friends in attendance.

Oh, dear.  Last chapter, when Beatrice rolled two good traits when she was born, I was hoping that it would be the start of a trend.  Absent-Minded is one of the most annoying ones I've seen in my preliminary forays into this game; it's like having a built-in asylum sim.  I guess you can't win them all.

Oops, I wasn't keeping track of things very well.  Um, happy birthday to you as well, Tamara!  (Kind of odd that first William and now Tamara had a birthday at the exact same time as Beatrice.)

Now that Beatrice was old enough for school, William took on the responsibility of helping with her homework every weekday.  (I really like father-daughter moments like this.)

Beatrice and William both worked on their handiness skill; I think it took William three days to finally upgrade the graphics on the new computer.  Although Beatrice had tried playing with blocks as a toddler, they didn't seem to do anything for her; however, but she finally got some use out of them.  (You can tell I haven't played this nearly as much as Sims 2.)

 

 To my relief, some of the seeds I'd found turned out to be life fruit.  As long as they don't eat them all, they'll be able to keep a crop going, along with themselves.  (I am glad that this isn't an apocalypse challenge or something where you're meant to finish in as few days as possible.)

The two of them had timed their second pregnancy to culminate around the time Beatrice no longer needed the crib, and that moment finally arrived.

According to the Boolprop naming scheme, this baby needed an "O" name, so I picked the only decent one I could think of.  (I could have looked one up, but I didn't really think to.)

Here are the traits Owen rolled.  Funny, he’s artistic like Beatrice.  I think I’m going to need to buy another easel.

It was a bit of a surprise to see just how many different kinds of plants had reached "Perfect" state.  It was probably a sign that these plants didn't need to be cultivated any longer, which would mean less labor for Tamara.

William got to level nine in his career; so close!  I’ll have to think about what to do when he eventually gets that last promotion.  At this particular moment, I think I put such thoughts aside in favor of meeting Bob Pancakes back there.  (Yeah, I played his house in Sims 4 for the short time I tried it, and liked him enough to add a Pancakes house to this neighborhood.)

 

Beatrice decided to try writing a short book of her own; she already had a head start on writing thanks to the books William had read to her.  I can't believe that children are capable of writing entire novels.  (I did read a book back in elementary school that Gordon Korman had initially written at the age of twelve, but it's not something you hear of often.)

At last, all of Tamara's sweaty labor in the yard paid off with a mastered gardening skill.  She had so many pieces of produce that she could stick to just her life fruit and money tree plants, along with a flame fruit and whatever egg and cheeseplants she needed for the next challenge.  (The other plants could stay until they were exhausted.)

While Beatrice was busy painting, this lifetime wish popped up.  Because she was already a good way along building a few skills before even becoming a teen, I decided to go ahead and promise it.

Tamara had received an opportunity to deliver several hundred dollars' worth of painting to the restaurant, so she'd been busy on some paintings of her own.  Upon delivering them, she found herself suddenly famous.  She got a few phone numbers of potential new friends that she might follow up with later.

I’m supposed to be writing books, aren’t I?  Well, William finally cleared an opportunity that he’d had for a while; his coworker Jack Bunch had enlisted him to write a biography; considering that Jack has four kids, it made sense to write something like Cheaper By the Dozen meets The Brady Bunch.

Although she'd scaled her garden back some after mastering her gardening skill, Tamara got another star in her journal for all her hard work.

Owen’s birthday came up, so a few friends came over to celebrate—along with about three party crashers.

William got back into his wheelhouse with another science fiction novel.  (Okay, I came up with the title thanks in part to a parody of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” called “California Mutant Gerbil String Bikini Slaughter” and a fake B-movie title I seem to remember from a magazine, “The Smog Monster That Inhaled Los Angeles.”)

Beatrice had been busy painting during Owen's party, and in doing so, she captured this impressionistic moment of her dad and a few guests.

Tamara followed up on a lead she'd first picked up at the shopping center, which happened to take her to the exact same place.  Her hunch paid off, and Detective Gumshoe became a new best friend that afternoon.

At at long last, albeit with little fanfare, William made it to the top of his career, one of the main goals of the challenge.  Now that he'd done so, it was time to think about possibly retiring to write full-time; he had six days off per week at this point, so he had a chance to think about it for a while.
"Even if it slowed things down, it paid for some nicer things at home, and it was a reason to fix the house up and get into great shape so I look good in this uniform.  It was definitely not all bad."

Owen frequently needed attention, but with a bit of help, he could take care of at least one thing on his own.

In between working and helping with the kids, William squeezed in his eighteenth book, a humor piece presumably inspired by Shakespeare.

After so much had happened, Beatrice found herself in front of another birthday cake, feeling happier this time.  She'd been an honor student in school for over three days, and was ready to make a wish.

Apparently, Beatrice, an aspiring novelist in her own right, decided to follow in her father's footsteps too closely.  Darn it, I'd built a second floor for the kids, but she's not going to get much enjoyment out of the TV up there.

Aspirational mishaps aside, Beatrice is a very pretty young lady.   I hadn't had her make any friends yet; maybe it's time to change that.

Preparing for his own birthday, little brother Owen worked on his second toddler skill.

Although he didn't need it for promotions anymore, William was close to mastering handiness.  I bought a trash compactor, and upon upgrading it, William met that goal.

William branched out from science fiction to write a fantasy novel as his nineteenth book.
"Whew, now I'm thirsty.  I could use a soda right now."

As it turned out, that book pushed the weekly royalties to over $4000, and in doing so, completed William's lifetime wish.  Along with making it to the top of his career, that makes two out of four major goals accomplished.  (The other two are raising at least one child to young adulthood and, of course, the main writing challenge.)

Owen and big sister worked on their skills while in their sleeping clothes.  I don't remember how tired Beatrice was, but Owen finally finished his session in spite of fatigue.

Beatrice really wanted to play catch with her dad, but there wasn't enough room, so they found themselves in an empty lot.  After that misadventure, they decided on a change of scenery for working on their next books.  It just so happened to be the day that William hit the landmark of earning so much money from his books that he got a nice boost.

Tamara had been faithfully attending her eggplants and cheeseplants, and finally the restaurant called her with an opportunity.  With that out of the way, she bought some meat at the supermarket, preparing to take the next step toward discovering all of the possible plants.  (If burgers can truly be called “plants”; are they some kind of plant protein?)

Soon enough, it was time for another birthday party; Owen was finally ready to grow out of diapers.  You'll probably notice that Tamara looks different; she was expecting again.  I'd decided that three kids would be a good number.

Here's Owen's third trait.  It synergizes pretty well with his other two; he seems to be shaping up to be a renowned artist or writer at this point.  Of course, that might change later on once he's a teen.

This isn’t a good picture, but I was a little startled when this notification popped up.  Tamara had a lifetime wish to have a net worth more than $100,000, and Beatrice’s painting must have tipped them over the line.  It’s a welcome surprise.

Although I meant for them to have three children, the baby turned out to be double trouble.  I really hope this isn’t a bad sign.

Because babies can’t even build skills, and two infants required even more maintenance than usual just to hush up their wailing, I decided to celebrate their birthday early.  During the party, Tamara made friends with enough people that she wouldn't have to worry so much about keeping up with them all.  (Although she'd already obtained the Long Distance Friend lifetime reward a long time ago; I don't know just how effective it is.)

With seven people in the house, I got preoccupied and didn’t take many pictures for a while. However, here’s proof that the twins did learn how to walk…

…use the potty…

…and talk.

During this interval, Tamara reconnected with her old roommate Stiles out by the library.  While chatting with him, she finally maxed her charisma skill, taking one more task off her list.

“It was nice talking to you, but don’t you think you should have put your daughter down before you came all this way?”

Beatrice’s hard work paid off as well, leading to her making the honor roll in high school as she’d done in elementary school.  She decided to celebrate after a long day of classes with a trip to the diner.

“Make way, future valedictorian coming through!"

It had been difficult to squeeze time in between helping with homework and potty training, but William finished the last writing skill challenge concurrently with his twentieth book.  This twentieth book was another science fiction work, the second piece commissioned by Jack Bunch.

Tamara marked a milestone of her own, rewarding all the effort she’d put into decorating the house.  This was good news, for now she could finish paintings faster and spend less time occupying the downstairs easel.

 

Whew, that was quite a long haul; I really stalled on progressing William's writing.  Well, this marks forty percent completion, and I hope I'll be able to pick back up faster now that the kids are all born.  Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and I'll see you next time! 

 

Points added in this chapter:

75 (15 x 5) for five birthday parties:  Beatrice (child), Owen (toddler), Beatrice (teen), Owen (child), Olivia and Laura (toddlers)
10 for mastering a third skill for William (handiness)

30 for William reaching the top of the Military career 

 

Total points:  75 + 10 + 30 = 115

Previous points: 35
New total: 150