Wishing you all Happy Holidays

Hi, everyone. I know I’ve been gone a long time, and I hope you don’t hold that against me. This past year has been unbelievably busy and stressful but also really fun. I spent the entire month of August in Poland, participating in a language and culture course called Polonicum at the University of Warsaw. It was amazing, and I highly recommend the program to anyone interested in learning about Poland and the Polish language! There are many different kinds of scholarships available as well, and all ages are welcome.

However, through all of this, my back pain did not subside. I was on pain killers the entire time I was in Poland. Actually, at some point I thought my pain was going away. I thought I was getting better but when I returned home, I noticed there was something wrong with my right leg. I went to my Neurosurgeon and told him about my symptoms and he scheduled me for surgery immediately. My nerve was dying. I had an operation on my back in September and was in the hospital for a week. Afterwards, I spent a month in a rehab center (I was on the waiting list for three weeks first), just focusing on strengthening my back and healing. I have to say, without rehab I wouldn’t be as far as I am now. I am still considered unable to work and I have a doctor’s note until January 12th, but I feel stronger and healthier than I have in the last two years.

Sometimes, when I think about the pain I went through and dealt with, I start to tear up because I had begun to believe it would never end. I was incredibly depressed, and even though I wasn’t suicidal, I often questioned the point in living if I had to deal with excruciating pain all the time. I am young and unless they were paying attention to how I moved and walked, most people could not tell that I was in so much pain. It made me feel weak and useless. I’m sharing this because I want anyone else in this situation to know that the pain can end. But most importantly, I want to remind everyone how important it is to listen to your body. If I’d done that in the beginning, and I’d gone to the doctor right away instead of being scared and hiding my pain from my family and friends, maybe I’d have never needed surgery.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve bene up to lately. As far as sims go, I still pop on The Sims 4 sometimes. In fact, I’m planning on purchasing Get Together . I haven’t pre-ordered yet because I’m being stingy about money, but I like what I see in the expansion. When it comes to the Sims 3, however, don’t expect anything. I uninstalled it months ago, and to be honest, I can’t imagine myself sitting at the computer to program anytime soon.

Happy Holidays!

Freedom!

Took my last exam last Thursday, woohoo! I’m all done with all that stressful stuff, just have to write a term paper now, which is not a big deal. I still have really intense back pain, and today I was finally told that it’s a herniated disk. I’ve been getting acupuncture for the last 4 weeks, and soon I get to start physical therapy.

All that said, I have some big news. I’m planning to go to Warsaw for a semester next winter! I hope by then I have my back pain under control.  Anyhow, it’s really exciting.

So yeah, I just opened up Sims 4. I think I can finally play a little 🙂

Happy Holidays

This year is quickly coming to an end, and I thought I should finally stop putting off writing this blog entry.

This semester has not treated me well. Even the start was rocky, what with missing the first week of classes due to a severe cold. Later the same cold came back in a milder form, and I missed another lecture as well. Through all of this I have had a lot a back pain, which has become so excruciatingly painful that it is difficult just to show up to lectures and seminars. I cannot stand or walk without being in extreme pain. I went to the chiropractor, and he made some adjustments and gave me some pain medication and a muscle relaxant. However, I suffered an extreme side effect from the pain medication and I was very ill. The whole thing has been such a disaster. I’ve now got a referral to an orthopedic specialist, so I hope this will help.

All of this pain and illness means that even when I have a little bit of free time to actually play the sims (between studying and teaching) I just don’t. Sitting at the computer is extremely uncomfortable, and it does nothing to help heal my back. In fact, it probably makes things worse. I did finally buy a new, very comfortable desk chair, which helps, but my motivation to play computer games in general is fairly low. Of course, this also means that my hopes of digging around in the game and making a few mods have all fallen to pieces. I can’t really say whether I will make mods for the Sims 4, though I do think that at some point I’ll want to do it again.

If I had to ask for once thing for Christmas, it would be that I would be forever rid of this back pain. It makes me feel incredibly sad to ask for this and it bring tears to my eyes to say it out loud. It makes me feel weak and whiny. But this back pain is wearing me out, and my emotions are all over the place. Normally I have trouble enough controlling my temper and my mental state, but compounded with a chronic pain that is very nearly debilitating, I have trouble smiling at all. I feel like a bad friend and wife, because I cannot tell cheerful stories and little things like waiting an extra five minutes for my husband to get out of his lecture make me extraordinarily irritated and tired because the pain is so difficult to bear. But no amount of wishing or begging Santa to heal my back will help. It’s going to take hard work and patience, and maybe a really good doctor to get this thing sorted, I suppose.

All of that said, 2014 has not been such a terrible year. I enjoy all of my lectures and seminars and I’ve made new friends that I hope to keep for the rest of my life. Losing Simlogical forums felt like a real blow to me, but I’m grateful that all of the mods and tutorials at least remain in an archive. Once I’ve gotten my health sorted, I hope I will have time to go through my Sims 3 mods and figure out if I want to host them elsewhere as well.

I miss the Sims community very much, and I’ll try to post more, just so I can hear from you all more often. I wish all of you Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year.

The closing of Nona’s Wiki — where to next?

I received an e-mail a few days ago from WikiSpaces stating that in order to keep my free wiki I have to mark it as educational or get a paid wiki. If I take no action, my wiki will deleted in 30 days! Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with this wiki. I worked really hard on it. Should I host it somewhere else? Should I just let it go?  Meh. I don’t like having to make these decisions.

Unplanned triplets galore

Right, so I’ve been playing a lot of TS4, and something kind of strange is going on in my game. My sims keep having triplets, even without the fertile aspiration reward! At least, this one particular family is having triplets. My “founder” sim, so to speak, first had triplets. I thought she must have been super lucky or something. Anyhow, now her daughter has had triplets also! I turned aging off just so I could play around and explore the game without any concerns about aging and death spoiling the fun, so it’s not really a legacy game in the strictest definition, but now I’m sort of interested in finding out if this next generation will also have triplets. It might be time to send my founder off the after life soon anyhow, considering she’s completed 3 aspirations. But I will really miss her handiness.

Anyhow, anybody else having lots of triplets?

About The Sims 4 and the future

So, I did end up pre-ordering The Sims 4 and and I’ve basically been playing the game since it was released in Germany, with the exception of having to work in between (I’m clocked in at 52 hours played and game wasn’t released here until September 4th). I enjoy the game very much and I think it has a lot of potential. 

Some of you may be wondering if I am planning to mod for the The Sims 4 and as of right now, I’m still not sure. I really enjoy making mods, and already I can see a few places where we really need mods. What’s holding me back is that I tend to get really involved in not only the modding process but also supporting and updating mods. It seems like the developers did as much as they could to make the game mod friendly, so that’s definitely a plus. The constant updating of mods in Sims 3 grew wearisome and it made modding feel like an unpaid, unappreciated job. It was also a reason I avoided making core mods at all costs: not only did it mean certain conflict but also it meant updating the mod every single patch and I just did not want to deal with either of those issues.

Right, I think I’ve gone entirely off track now. Basically, I’m still on the fence about becoming a public modder for Sims 4. Between my studies and my work (teaching English), I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. In fact, I need to write a paper by the end of the month and I haven’t started yet. I wish I had just written it in August and been done with it but as usual, I’m a huge procrastinator. 

Expect Delays

I went to my first class of the semester today. I’m really hyped up about this whole studying thing. Anyhow, if you post a question or something, I will probably need time to answer it.

 

That said, if I have has Russian readers, feel free to say hi 🙂 My minor is in Slavic Cultures, and I have to learn Russian as part of my studies. I’m working on the Cyrillic alphabet right now.

The Big News

That thing I mentioned in an earlier post is actually happening! It’s really big news for me. At the end of April I’m going back to University to work on a Master’s in English.  I’ll be pretty busy studying, so I won’t have as much time for the Sims. But don’t worry, I won’t forget you all 🙂 I’m planning to try to be as active as I can be, without it taking any time from my studies.  ❤ you all 🙂

Some people…

I got an e-mail from box 2 days ago that I didn’t even notice until now that somebody reported my ccmerged as COPYRIGHTED material and box deleted it.

Seriously? What is wrong with people? There is no difference in distributing the ccmerged versus distributing a mod. Thanks for making it harder for people to fix their issues with their content, jerk.

Trying to Update the Custom Edible Food Wiki

If you use my Script  for Custom Foods mod, you might be aware of my collection of custom edible food links available at my Wiki:

Custom Edible Food

Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to watch the entire Sims 3 community for every single published piece of CC. I’m trying to make sure this list is up to date, so if you know of a piece of custom edible food that is not included in the wiki, please share it with me!

You can share Custom Edible Food links with me by

• Commenting here
• Sending me a PM at Simlogical or MTS
• or by posting in the following thread at my wiki: Please post your links to Custom Edible food here

Alternatively, feel free to update Custom Edible Food Directory yourself. It is a wiki after all 🙂