Worth the Wait



April 2027

Juliana Cooke is 22; Jason Larson is 21; Helen Cooke is 61; Julian Cooke is 57; Charlie Cooke is 17.

Previous updates here and here.

I should be married now.




Juliana sighed as she looked in the mirror. If all had gone according to plan, then yesterday would have been her wedding day. But as it happened, absolutely nothing had gone according to plan. The shop she'd wanted to get her dress from closed down. The venue was repainting and would be covered in scaffolding, inside and out. Jason couldn't get leave from work for a honeymoon... In the end, they'd decided to just give up for now, and postpone it until autumn.

An autumn wedding would be nice, she told herself. Something different, nice colored leaves on the trees for the photos... would be great, except for the fact that it was supposed to have been yesterday. Still, she reminded herself, there were far worse reasons to cancel a wedding. At least she and Jason were still together, and they had their whole lives ahead of them.



They'd settled well into their little apartment and were enjoying it a lot more after the landlord let them paint over the ugly red walls. He also didn't mind that they had a puppy, so long as it was clean and didn't wreck anything.



As if anything as small as Shadow could wreck things!



The building was old, but the neighborhood wasn't bad. The subway was right next to their apartment...



 ... and there was a little park across the street where food trucks set up business on weekend evenings.


Jason's career in the police force had started well. He was only working a desk job at the moment, but his boss and his colleagues were pleased with his work, so the future looked promising.

Juliana's career in architecture hadn't started quite so smoothly. She'd wanted to design buildings, but her boss was giving her interior decorating jobs instead.



"It's good practice," he said, when she protested. "You can't design buildings until you know how people utilize them. Also it's a valuable still to be able to work within the constraints of an existing space...


... and," he added, "it gives you a chance to see just how particular clients can be."

She'd headed out to her first couple of jobs feeling quite hopeful... and ended up completely disheartened.


"I swear it wasn't that bad, but she said I'd made a complete mess and she'd never be able to let her friends see it," she reported to her boss. "It was a laundry room. Who entertains their friends in their laundry room?!"


"I told you people could be picky. What about the other one, the reading nook?"

"Well, she said she'd work with me again, but she also said it was too cluttered and she couldn't get to her new stuff. The place was tiny, it was cluttered way before I ever went near it."

At the end of her first week on the job, she and Jason went out to a nearby resturant to... celebrate? Commiserate? Juliana wasn't sure, but she was looking forward to a night out, either way.

It started out well enough.



The dim lights and the solo piano player made for a nice, romantic atmosphere...



... or, it would have, if Jason had been a better dancer.



On top of that, his work phoned, twice. By the end of the second call, Juliana had decided she'd really rather just have a quiet evening at home.



They decided it might be better to spend the next weekend with Juliana's family in Bluewater Village. She always looked forward to seeing them. Her parents were fun, if sometimes embarrassing...



...and her brother Charlie got along with Jason almost as well as he did with her.



It was also a family visit for Shadow, as his mother was Juliana's parents' dog Pepper. They'd kept one of the puppies themselves, too.



There was plenty of room out here for the dogs to play.





Charlie had broken up with his girlfriend during the winter. Juliana knew that her parents were relieved - as far as they were concerned, all Joanne had done was encourage Charlie to sneak out at night and neglect his school work.

They may have had a point - he was certainly studying a lot more now that she was out of the picture.


Which was just as well, as he'd be finishing high school in a few weeks and - all going well - starting college later in the year.

Now that the weather was getting warmer, there was plenty to do at the beach. It was only just warm enough for swimming in the sea.



Jason had taken swimming a step further and started snorkeling. He was hoping to get into scuba diving in the summer.



He was enjoying windsurfing, too.



During the winter, Juliana's parents had bought a small boat.



They spent hours exploring the shore in it.



Her father had even taken up water skiing, and Juliana was sure Jason would want to try that, too.



She preferred less energetic activities herself.













By the end of the weekend, Juliana felt a lot better about everything. She could wait until autumn for the wedding. It wasn't like they had nothing to do to fill the time... and they had their whole lives ahead, after all. It would be worth the wait.



---

Following my round plan, this update was supposed to be Juliana and Jason's wedding. But my remade hood isn't up to hosting a big wedding right now and nor am I... so, sorry Juliana, but you'll have to wait a while.

Back in my first play-through of TS3 I loved the professions like architect and stylist, so I'm pleased to have some of my sims here moving into those careers... I enjoy decorating so the architect one is my favorite, and with so many sims in new houses right now that aren't personalized for them, its much needed. 

Unfortunately not all of the sims were as pleased with our efforts. Marla Centowski was disappointed in her new laundry (she really did talk about not being able to show her friends!) and the 'cluttered' house was a 10x15 tiny house so I don't know what they were expecting... *sigh*

You'll notice two or three relationship breakups in this first round of TS3 updates. These are relationships that weren't particularly close or strong. In all of them, the townie partner never became close enough (best friend or higher) to become playable so I haven't recreated them in the new game. I always liked my sims finding their own partners so, for now, they're at the mercy of Story Progression :)

Comments

  1. I'm sure Juliana will forgive you for delaying her wedding. ;) Best to be prepared though with any sim wedding, unless of course they decide to elope!
    Her parents live in a lovely spot by the beach. I see you are making use of Island Paradise, such a great expansion pack!

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    1. NO eloping - I already banned marriage in Story Progression :) I love Island Paradise... Twikki Island was my favorite subhood in TS2 so its great to have even more beach things here.

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  2. Ha, I laughed at the whole part about Juliana's job! Why on earth do they call that career "architecture" in TS3?! I think interior decorating is more fun than building anyway...but why not call it what it is? Hopefully Juliana starts getting better reviews from her clients soon.

    I did a couple of break-ups when I rebuilt my hood too. I think it was Mitchell and maybe someone else who left a partner behind in 1.0. Like your break-ups, they weren't super-strong relationships to begin with and I wasn't very attached to them!

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    Replies
    1. I enjoy decorating a lot more than building, too... and I agree, architecture is a silly name for that career. Remus and Juliana were already in architecture in TS2, but I'm probably going to just refer to it as Interior Design in-story for any future sims in that career.

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