Odyssey: Garden of Eden, Chapter 9

Happy Birthday to Marilyn, who just had her birthday and became an Adult without any fanfare.  They are really missing those birthday cakes.  Jake also has a forgotten birthday so they must have had their birthdays around the same time and I didn’t notice either one.

Marilyn is still trying to level Flower Arranging but she is so lacking in fun she can’t stay with it.  She decides to read her way through this level and spends the entire day reading.  It builds her fun but doesn’t get her to level 8.  This skill is torture.

Teresa comes home with homework, as always, and Jake helps her just enough to flip her into focused.  She is done almost immediately though.

She gets a chemistry table so that she can play around with chemicals and mix up some potions.  She is on track to complete the mental aspiration before her birthday.

Marilyn has finally bumped flower arranging up to level 8 so now she is working on gardening up to level 9 for the next promotion.  She is close to the top of the career – level 8 – and she can see the end.

Jake had an option at work to Analyze Plant Anatomy.  The tooltip said it would increase work performance and increase logic so he chose that work tone.  It also said that it would lower his fun – but this is not what I expected to see.

Teresa works on her school project for the week with Jake and Marilyn’s help.  This time it is a model of the solar system.  At some point she completed her mental aspiration and I missed everything.  She is now an Artistic Prodigy and a Whiz Kid.  She makes the next change to Social Butterfly simply because there isn’t a playground near their home and at the moment, the milestones for the social aspiration will be easier.  I don’t expect her to complete a third aspiration, because the focus is really on her parents trying to level their skills so they can unlock a fridge.

Teresa is the first one home and she needs a bath desperately.

Teresa didn’t seem that tired when she went out to take a bath.  But then she fell asleep and never actually washed herself off.  Now she will need another bath and she is out of time because Jake and Marilyn are home and they also need to take a bath and use the toilet.

But first they eat and gossip about their coworkers.

Jake gives it up and passes out in the garden.  At this point, I realize one of the things I am doing differently with them that is contributing to this – there is no “Hand of God” helping them clean up the dirty dishes.  For the DIY mini challenge, which is to use no services from in game, I have also (apparently) decided that means I am not going to help them along either.  Without a sink they are carrying every plate to the trash, and most of the time they are taking the plates one by one, so it takes forever to clean the house.

Marilyn comes home with a promotion and she is one level away from topping her career and unlocking the fridge.  Of course, first she has to master gardening and flower arranging.

Teresa decides she needs a friend so she heads over to meet one of the kids walking around the neighborhood.  The lady that delivers the mail tries to join their conversation also but she doesn’t stay very long.

Teresa and Lucille spend the afternoon and evening getting to know each other and are friends by the time she leaves.  Maybe tomorrow they can become good friends, or even best friends.

Teresa looks at the toilet she just broke, thankfully after she used it.  Marilyn is busy so Jake is coming to repair it this time.

Jake and Marilyn decide to work from home and that will turn out to be a mistake.  Jake is tense because he is about to fail to complete his resolution to get a promotion.  He still has not increased his gardening skill, and I am hating gardening more and more.  Maybe they should have a bigger garden, but currently they only have one of each plant.  Marilyn is level 9 gardening and level 8 flower arranging – Jake is level 7 gardening.  If they didn’t want the damn fridge…

Marilyn completes the first collection – and she gets the credit because she is the founder, although both she and Jake contributed to the collecting.

Deciding that they need more plants to help build gardening faster, I suck it up and pull up my big girl panties, and Jake plants 50 Sage plants.  This finally gets him to within spitting distance of level 8.  He has to stop and take a bath, pee, and eat before he will agree to come back and water the plants for the last of what he needs to get to level 8.  And they forgot to anything for Love Day.  The holidays are killing them this challenge.

While Jake and Marilyn eat dinner at the table…

Teresa eats in her room, where she is pouting for some reason.  She is unhappy and wants to do something fun.

Jake has finally gotten the skills he needs for his next promotion and he is going to bed.

Teresa decides that it will be fun to practice the violin.  She has mastered creativity already so her violin playing is building actual violin skill.  She stops at level 4 to go pee.  It is also her birthday, but still there won’t be any cake, so her birthday will happen whenever it happens.

With a little time to himself, Jake heads to a new place to fish, still looking for one more new type of fish.  He catches one almost immediately – 20/20 types of fishes.  Now he only needs to master fishing to complete his aspiration.  He heads home because Marilyn just got home from work and she still needs to work on her skills and he can fish at home now.

Jake comes home to a random toddler on the front sidewalk and he says hi and then gives him a cup of water.

Some random dude has wandered into the back yard and sat down to try to talk to Marilyn while she is playing chess.  He doesn’t stay long because Marilyn stopped playing and went to bed.

Teresa went out and chatted with the toddler, who then left.

Jake spent the rest of the day fishing in the back and mastered the skill and completed his aspiration.  There are no challenge points for doing so, but he gets to spend the aspiration points on traits.  He has purchased Waterproof Sim, Entrepreneurial, Steel Bladder, Frugal, and Speed Cleaner.  Marilyn only has Super Green Thumb and Speed Cleaner, but she is hoping to get more if she ever completes her aspiration.

Teresa spends her last hours as a child making messes.

She was down fishing to get a start on the skill but was running home to pee when her birthday caught up with her.

Teresa becomes a Neat and Creative teen, that is Mentally and Creatively Gifted.  She also has the Top-Notch Toddler trait and her aspiration of Painter Extraordinaire gives her the Muser trait.  At the time of her birthday, she has completed 8/9 scouting badges, needing only the Get Fit badge to become a Llamacorn Scout.  As a teen she also needs to reach level 5 in two of the following skills: Cooking, Fishing, or Gardening.  Once she masters the painting skill, walls and floors can be made of any material.  And she did not make a vegetarian meal, leaving Marilyn to make a second meal of grilled fruits.

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