Crowded Upstairs

For those of you who knew likesthesilence and would like to leave a condolence message for her family, her online obituary is here and the 'book of memories' section is here. Please feel free to share this with anyone you know who knew her.

Thank you to everyone who has sent me personally a message of condolence in the last few days. This is still unfathomable to me.

Dinner with Papa Q had to be canceled because he needs to work late; he apologized profusely and promised to try to meet up with us next time he's in the area. So now we're waiting for Papa John's to deliver our BBQ chicken and bacon pizza with free cheesesticks.

Kevin is playing Roller Coaster Tycoon, the latest edition (whatever it is). With his ridiculously large computer montior, I can see it from here on the sofa. It has a movie making function much like Sims, and so we're watching a movie of a ride on his newest coaster design.

I LOVE this feature. See, one thing I had to give up because of getting sick, and most sincerely regret, is roller coasters. I was never a huge fan, mainly because of my back and everything; but Kevin loves them and I love Kevin, so I let him drag me along onto every coaster in our path. But when the dizzy spells and crap started happening, I retired from all coasters (except one -- the century-old Thunderhawk coaster at our local amusement park doesn't bother me for some reason, probably because it's kind of tiny and not at all fancy). So unless we're with other people who enjoy riding coasters, Kevin goes on them all by himself while I ride a nice stationary park bench. I wouldn't let him give them up.

Well, his love of the ride explains his love of the game, which he plays almost obsessively -- that and Zoo Tycoon are his two favorites. He plays one or the other almost every day. The movie feature on this latest edition has been a lot of fun for us both, because now he gets to design his dream coasters, and then I get to virtually ride them. As long as I stand far enough back from the screen, it doesn't make me dizzy, and I still get some of the excitement of riding a well-designed coaster.

We're sort of goofy.

Me: *stealthy sneaking into the dining room, on tiptoe*
Kevin: *eyeing me* What are you...
Me: I am a ninja! You can't see me! Ninja kisses! *divebomb*

Ah, pizza is here. BBQ chicken and bacon is GOOD.

So today I had a funny idea for Sims. I came home and started tweaking. Unfortunately, my screencaps are kind of on the small side; Pie's going to have to teach me how to take nice big ones like she does. But you can see what's going on, pretty decently.

Basically, I moved myself and Kevin into a big Federal-style mansion with six of the kids. You can only have up to eight people living in one house, so I had to pick. I went with clez, carnage533, siddyq, amarctis_q2, destinedtofly, and _revolutionary. Claire, Jerry, Kristie, Jonathan, and Lyn are all teenagers; Raven, since she's my youngest, is a child. I made these guys as much like the real people as I could; I think Kristie and Kevin's Sim versions are particularly similar to the real thing.

So. Screencaps.

First, the family portrait. Kevin and I are in the middle, of course. That's Jerry on one knee in front; Kristie is in the pink dress; Raven is the little one with glasses. Jonathan is the blond boy. Lyn is in a Ravenclaw uniform because I said so, and Claire is in the back.

I put a lot of work into making this a beautiful home filled with books and culture. Here's the living room. Other rooms include the dining room, the master bedroom, and the entry foyer.

Raven, being the youngest, has the room next to Mommy and Daddy. She's also the only member of the family with a room all her own.

The boys share this room. Mom is very nice about letting them hang that picture of a woman on the wall.

The entire third floor is the girls' bedroom. Kristie sleeps in the middle bed; Lyn's is on the far left. Claire is the eldest, so the armoire is positioned in such a way as to give her a little privacy.

This is our backyard. It includes workout equipment, a swing set, a barbecue grill, a telescope, and a hot tub. It also has a rather bitchin' pool.

Raven reads the newspaper. She might be job-hunting, I'm not sure.

Claire earns creativity points by learning to paint masterpieces.

Jon, on the other hand, prefers to earn them by mastering the piano.

Kevin and I don't really care what the kids do; we're happy to canoodle in the hot tub by ourselves.

I am incensed! I am outraged! I am furious!*

I cannot BELIEVE what I just heard on the phone!**

There I was, minding my own business, having a perfectly LOVELY conversation with Jaclyn. I don't know how the subject of age even came UP, but all of a sudden she says...

"How old are you again? Forty-something?"

I said, "EXCUSE ME? I'm THIRTY-ONE!"

I just was in shock. Forty-something? FORTY-something? All right, I know I'm a little rough-looking*** sometimes, but come on. I do NOT look forty.

The nerve of some people. I mean really.

Harrumph.




* Amount of actual rage may vary

** Suspension of disbelief may be required

*** Don't touch this with a ten-foot pole

In case you can't tell, she basically dared me to write this. It really happened, though, her asking me if I was forty-something. We had a lot of fun with my indignance.

She promised me a ficlet if I would. :p

The fact of the matter is that this post may or may not be inclined to present a partially accurate statement of what could or could not be construed as a reasonably believable concept. Moreover, it was not really in my power to declare or not declare that I may have had some indirect understanding of the content of the post that has yet to prove whether it is or is not truthful. But the fact remains that I am conceptually enlightened as to the nature of the post, which may or may not be legitimately constructed, and it is not without merit to say that I have some idea of what it does and does not say. However, at the same time, an individual should not fail to grasp the fact that I am not managing to not comprehend the words in my own journal post, and that therefore, when you come to the proper conclusion, you must admit that I do not seem to not understand what it is that I may or may not be saying.

Yes, still feeling like death on toast, even after a nap for almost three hours. XP Nooot happy.

Compounding this, of course, is the advent of the single biggest mass murder in U.S. history. I can't begin to express my sorrow and shock...nor my gratitude that no one I know attends Virginia Tech. (I spent a few anxious minutes mentally flipping through my knowledge of who goes to school where!) What is wrong with our species? I mean, seriously? So I wasn't going to be on, but after watching all that news footage, I just...really wanted to see my kids, or as many of them as I could. I won't be staying long.

One of my kids, siddyq, in her starring role as Belle in the local production of Beauty and the Beast. This was the cover of a magazine that did an article about the show. Isn't she beautiful?

Thus begins the story of the British Invasion, told in pictures. This is really not very dialup friendly at ALL. I was going to make thumbnails for all the photos, like clez did, but it's late and that's a lot of effort....hopefully this won't be too much of a strain for anyone. ( Read more... )

I had a rather peculiar dream the other night.

It seemed to be set in the future at some indeterminate point. I had come to the conclusion that I was simply never going to have children of my own, it was not in the cards. How old I was, I'm not sure. But I was having a conversation with My Boss. (Not the Pastor.)

I remember very little of what we discussed, except for one part. While I assured Him that I would never question His Divine Plan or anything like that, I did want to know one thing.

"Why did You decide not to give me children?"

"What are you talking about? I gave you twelve."

Food for thought if I ever had any.

Post your very first icon that you made (if you have it, if you don't, the OLDEST one that you have) along with your newest icon. This will allow you to show how you have improved in iconing skills and tag five friends to see how they have improved.

OLDEST
This was the original icon I made for this LJ:



NEWEST
Made this one last night, in a rush of affection for my kids:



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