Harvey and Lori Ferguson Ch. 25 - Moving Along

An update before I launch into their latest adventures.

It has been 9 years since I last published here in my Sims 2 blog! The last chapter was from 2013. The trouble began for me when I got a new computer that used Windows 8. The game did not work right and, worse, I could no longer take screen shots which not only illustrated my stories, it also inspired them. I played on for a little while, even though the look of my Sims was a little narrow, but without pictures I couldn't do my blog. Without my blog the game no longer seemed as fun. I still would have continued, but then one of my star Sims disappeared. That is, I opened the game one day and her face (that I created myself) was gone and had been replaced by a regular Sims basic face. Not ugly, but not my Sim! She had fast been becoming one of my favorite leading ladies and I was so upset that I quit playing the game altogether. It made me quite sad. It was Pepper Monaghan, who figured prominently in the Prince Everhart story. I believe she was one of the prettiest Sims I ever created, right along with Barbara Bel Geddes (no relation to the actress😊), maybe prettier. But she had more original looks then even the beauteous Barbara, in my opinion. I was so glad that I'd had books published of my blog that I got through Blog2Print. I had 15 books in total by that time, although some were bigger books than others.

I hadn't read them in a very long time and decided to do just that a couple of weeks ago. That idea occurred to me mainly because I'm in the midst of redecorating my house and having to go through several rooms of my "stuff", I came across the "Sims 2 Stories by Lorelei" volumes. It was fun to read them and to relive my Sims 2 lives, and it made me really homesick for Pleasantview, weird as it is, and my Simmies. So, on the off chance that Windows 10 might work differently, I fired up the game. Lo and behold, it was working, and working much better and the best part is that I can, once again, take screen shots. Of course, my Sim, Pepper, still has this basic Sim face instead of her own and has been relegated to the Sim bin. I'm having to relearn so many basic things I did automatically before. At the same time, I'm trying to remember how to use Blogger again. I THINK I packaged Pepper way back when, but I'm not positive because I also think I had called her a different name at first. If I can remember how to download a packaged Sim to the game I will do so when I can. She will not have all the memories, friends, relationship and experiences the original Pepper had, but I can work on getting her up to speed eventually.

Meanwhile, I have several ongoing stories that had not yet been published, including pictures I took on my old computer. So in the last few days I have been trying to see what I can salvage of them and put together chapters I had intended. However; when I got back in the game I discovered that when I had played the game during the time I could NOT take pictures I'd evidently decided to age up quite a few of the children and teens and even turned some adults to seniors. Ordinarily I turn aging off during play so it had to have been on purpose but right now I don't know why I did that. So that will cause a, sometimes awkward, gap between the pictures I took previously and the new ones I'm making. 

Bear with me, if you would be so kind, and I'll get it sorted out. If you are completely new to this blog I suggest several ways at the beginning of the blog how to start the stories (since the blog has the most recent chapters at the beginning). You can start with one family (I have a lot of them and I hop around between their stories), I am now on my third generation of Sims and almost all the families are connected one way or another by now. Or you can just go to Chapter 1 and follow from there. From my point of view the blog didn't really get going good with a real plot until The Lassiters Ch. 6 "The Twins Are Growing Up Part 1" which was published November 19, 2010. Before that I was mainly telling the story of the game as it went. By the time of Ch. 6 of the Lassiters I had begun telling the story the way I wanted it to go, using the Sims to illustrate, but still getting a push now and then from the game itself. It has a way of making itself known every so often even if you think you are in charge of the story. Of course, characters often take over a story as well, anyone who writes fiction will tell you that. For the fullest knowledge of the characters though, it's probably best to start at the beginning. So take a look at the tabs at the top of the page and start with the "Prologue", then choose "In The Beginning". It will tell you who is who and how to navigate the blog. 

Meanwhile I have a new chapter on Harvey and Lori Ferguson and their family ready now.

Lorelei, your narrator

If you need a refresher on what was going on 9 years ago with Harvey and Lori, I suggest reading the 2 previous chapters. 

PREVIOUSLY:

Go to Chapter 23  HERE and go to:

Chapter 24 HERE

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Harvey and Lori Ferguson Chapter 25

Valrae's Journal

I haven't written in here in two weeks. 

Daddy and Mumma had a "serious talk" with us last night. They called it a family meeting this time, but Gray and I knew better. Mamie and Grandpa Shep were there, too. When my parents want to have a "serious talk" with us it can mean me and Gray are in BIG TROUBLE. Like the time we went to the park and didn't tell anyone. We had been playing in the side yard and it was a really pretty day. We didn't think Grandpa Shep and Mamie would let us go because it was afternoon and not long until supper. So we just went anyway, we didn't even discuss it. Daddy and Mumma were both at work and it scared Grandpa Shep and Mamie when they couldn't find us and it was getting dark. When Gray and I saw the streetlights come on and we had a long walk from the park, we didn't want to go home at all because we knew we would catch it when we got there. You know that sick feeling. And, just like we thought, we got a major lecture from Daddy. Oh, boy. Gray didn't say one word. I started sniffling. We knew we had done wrong. When Daddy asked if we had anything to say, I started to explain how the park was just calling to us and Gray shook his head at me and I shut up. Then both of us said we were sorry to Grandpa Shep and Mamie and would never do it again. I can see why Daddy was angry, we upset everyone and we knew better. I'm going to be good for the rest of my life, I never want to misbehave for Grandpa Shep and Mamie again. I love them SO much and they are so good to Gray and me.

Anyway, the last serious talk BEFORE last night had been about the old Brace-Gideon house and that it was going to take a lot of work to fix it up because Mumma wanted to do some of that, plus work in her bakery. I think I told you about her bakery before, it's called "Take the Cake". Daddy was going to do most of the work himself. He can work shorter hours at the health club he owns because he has a very good assistant manager there now. At least that's what he says. I don't know because no one ever takes me there. I saw the pictures in the brochure he had made up by the printer in town. The club is called "Feel The Burn". And there's even a pool inside. One of the pictures had Poppa in it with Daddy. Oh, well. Just a lot of sweaty people there I guess, so why should I care? 

So Mumma and Daddy said we had to be extra good since during this time they were working on the Brace-Gideon house. Mamie and Grandpa Shep would mostly be taking care of us and we were “not to create too much work for them because they are getting older.” Mamie giggled when Daddy said that but Grandpa Shep got grumpy,

“Everyone gets older every day! You act like I’m 100! Don’t you think you’re aging, son?”

Daddy just grinned and said, “I do. I can feel it even as we speak.”

Daddy is mostly funny. Mumma says he has a “dry sense of humor”. So when he gets serious, even when he is not yelling at me, just talking about how he and Mumma can tell we have been studying hard and that they’re proud or that he has decided to raise Gray and my allowances, it sometimes makes me get tears in my eyes. And then he gets kind of fussed and says “Well, don’t cry, honey, I’m not angry”. He always hugs me after and then I feel better. Gray never cries but he doesn’t exactly smile either when Daddy gets that serious tone of voice.

I don’t like to hear Mumma and Daddy talk about Mamie and Grandpa Shep getting older. But I guess it’s true. Daddy and his sister Holly are almost the youngest of his family and there is a big age difference— 13 years—between them and their older brother, Uncle Nicky and then there are the two sisters Aunt Gillian and Aunt Margo who are even older than Uncle Nicky. Aunt Debbie is the only one younger than Daddy. I guess Aunt Gillian is really old! Her oldest son is in college right now and so are Aunt Margo’s twins. Uncle Nicky got married only a few years ago so his daughter is a baby pretty much. Anyway, both Mamie and Grandpa Shep are 75 years old!

So last night Mumma and Daddy wanted another serious talk (“family meeting”). They didn’t say what about. I was thinking this was not good news. Gray looked at me as we went down the stairs to the dining room and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

I made a list of things they told us. I always make lists of everything or else I can’t even keep stuff straight in my head. Gray says my thought processes are a mystery to him and also to me.

1. We are not going to live in the old Brace-Gideon mansion (the Ghost House is what I've been calling it). They said "the closing fell through". I don't know what that means except that we can't move in there. Daddy said it was probably for the best because it was in worse shape than they thought and really was about to fall down and fixing those problems would be a lot more money than they planned, too. I hope the ghosts get out of there before it falls down.

2. We are going to stay right here in Grandpa Shep and Mamie's house. I've been thinking about it all day and I've decided it's okay with me; although Daddy WAS going to build me a secret room of my own on the 4th floor if we got to keep the Ghost House. Oh, well. Gray is not happy because he had made up his mind that he wanted to see a ghost after all, even if it was standing at the end of his bed in the middle of the night (his secret, secret fear). He talked to the ghost pirate at Twikkii Island and was even telling him jokes and wasn't even scared. Really, Gray is not afraid of anything. But lots of stuff scares me, like spiders and snakes and bad thunderstorms, especially when the lights go out. I want to close my eyes while it's lightning, but Daddy told me to start counting seconds after I see lightning until I hear thunder. Then divide the number of seconds by five and that is how many miles away the storm is. If I see lightning and a second later I hear thunder then the storm is right here! If the lights go out I can't wait until Daddy gets out candles and flashlights and sometimes even the gas lantern that we use when we go camping. If the lights take a long time to come back on Mumma reads to us and Daddy makes coke floats so we can use up the ice cream before it melts. Except he makes a Boston Cooler for me with Vernors ginger ale because I don't like Coke. I must be the only person in Pleasantview that doesn't just love Coke.

3. Here is the bad thing Gray and I found out. Mamie and Grandpa Shep are going to move to Florida! They said the cold winters here are hard on them and so are all the stairs because there are three floors in this house. So they are going down to Florida to see what kind of house they can get with one floor and we will stay and live here in their old house. But Mumma said she and Daddy are going to renovate the downstairs. She even said I can help her pick colors! Grandpa Shep also said the good thing is that we will get to visit them in Florida, swim in the gulf and probably go to Disney World. But I was so sad that I started crying and Mumma said it was time for the family meeting to be over and we could have pudding in a cloud.

Last night I was looking at a scrapbook she is making with photos, and souvenirs and greeting cards. It's going to be full of reminders of good times we have made while living here and remembering all the fun times with my grandparents. We will still have Mumma's parents, Nana and Poppa Lassiter a couple blocks over, but we never lived with them like we have with Grandpa Shep and Mamie. I started crying a little bit again, looking at the scrapbook, but they are not leaving right away. I mean, they are going to Florida in two days they said to "house hunt", but as soon as they decide where to live they are coming back here for a couple weeks before they move down there to stay. Well, I have to go now. Gray is yelling that he wants the lights out. He's a poo sometimes and I hate sharing our room now.

I love you and you love me,

Valrae Diana Ferguson

Harvey and Lori Ferguson

Lori and Harvey were very disappointed, indeed, at the loss of the house they'd hoped to renovate and make their new home.

"We shouldn't have told the kids until it was a done deal," Harvey remarked regretfully when he and Lori were relaxing in their bedroom the night before they announced they were abandoning the Brace-Gideon house project.

"We wanted to give them some good news, they were so broken-hearted about the other house when we lost it to the fire," Lori reminded him, "Looking back, I guess we did jump the gun before we got a thorough inspection of the property by a truly professional inspector. Thank goodness Perry Everhart recommended him to us after he heard about the first guy we hired that didn't even bring a ladder and then said everything was just fine. Hindsight is 20/20, sweetie."

"Yes, well I'm dreading have to tell them tomorrow."

"They love this house, Harvey. They'll adapt."

So, after that meeting, they focused on helping the twins adjust to the idea that their beloved grandparents would be moving far away. For now, Lori's bakery and Harvey's health club kept the parents very busy. The kids, meanwhile, had school and activities and friends to help them not dwell on their grandparents' imminent departure. Still Harvey and Lori were a bit nervous about having his parents move, they had counted on them for so long. They'd always been right there to back them up no matter what. Harvey, the youngest son of their six children, was especially close to them. And who would keep an eye on the twins while they worked? Of course, Gray and Valrae were nearly to their teens and should be able to stay safe at home after school until one or the other of the parents got home. Harvey's sister, Gillian was right next door with her husband and kids.

Shep, on the other hand, was happy and eager to be making this move. For nearly 20 years he and Madeleine had beengoing down to Florida for a few months every winter after Christmas. They kept a 5th wheel travel trailer down there permanently parked in a gated community that was populated by retired people in similar trailers and RV's. They didn't return to Pleasantview until late March or early April as a rule. Now they wanted to sell that trailer and buy a real house. Secretly, Madeleine was quite worried about how much she would miss living in the same town as all her 6 children and their spouses and all 12 of her grandchildren, but she and Shep had made many true friendships among the retirees at the park when they'd stayed every winter. Shep kept talking about how he was finally going to take up golf and do some deep sea fishing. Madeleine knew the winters were hard on his arthritis and bursitis and he would be outside in the sun more often in Florida year round. Besides, she really enjoyed the card clubs she belonged to down there, the luncheons and shopping with "the girls", and the beautiful sunshine.

Valrae at the upright piano in the dining room at Shep and Madeleine's house when they moved in after the house fire.

Gray and Val waiting for the school bus

On their way.

Valrae's Journal

We are going to the shelter tomorrow and get a dog! Gray and I were doing happy dances when Daddy told us. He said it's fun to get a puppy, but we might want to find a dog already grown and give him a good home because the puppies at the shelter get adopted easily but grown dogs and older dogs have a hard time. That's okay with me--I've been praying for a dog for my whole life! I'm filling out a notebook on names for males and females since I don't know which we will get. I asked Mumma for some names of people in the old movies she and Nana love, too. I will let our dog sleep on my bed and I will brush him. Gray said he will train him and walk him. We had to promise Mumma and Daddy that we will not fight over him. I just hope Gray doesn't get all bossy like he does sometimes.

Next week Mumma is taking me with her and Daddy to look at paint and flooring and curtains and other stuff because we are re-doing Mamie and Grandpa Shep's house downstairs. Mumma wants to keep all the portraits already on the walls downstairs (well, except for the walls that are coming down), because she says they are our "heritage". We will bring home samples and take pictures to show Daddy whenever he can't go with us. (He doesn't like to shop much, except for stuff for fishing or the health club). Gray said he doesn't care WHAT color anything is or what they do to the house as long as he gets his own room.

Mumma is taking naps a lot, almost as much as Grandpa Shep. I guess she is tired from working at the bakery. She's been making stuff for the bakery at home more than at work, too. I don't know why, when Mamie's kitchen here is so teeny. Lately she and Daddy whisper to each other a lot more than usual. It's like they have a secret and, really, I don't think adults should keep secrets and whisper. I think it's rude. Gray and me are not babies anymore and parents should tell us everything that is about our family. When I once told Mumma that, she just said "I don't like your tone, missy" and then she tried to hide that she was smiling a tiny bit and said, "Your father and I will take that under advisement. Meanwhile, don't you have homework to do?"

That's the same as when she says, "Did you brush your teeth yet?" Like I'm a baby who forgets to brush my teeth! Or she says "Set the table." or sometimes she bribes me like "If you like you can mash the potatoes for me" Mumma says stuff like that to change the subject and send me out of the room eve . So probably they will still keep secrets and make me have to spend all my time trying to accidently overhear stuff. Really if I didn't do that I wouldn't know what was going on in my own house. 

I've been thinking about all the houses we've lived in and I want to make a scrapbook about them, I think.

I'm calling the middle one "the burned house" instead of "the old house" because we already call the house across the street that Gray and I were born in "the old house". I think it would be confusing if I called them both the old house. I guess I could say "the old house" and "the older house", or maybe even "Old House 1" and "Old House 2" and then the Brace-Gideon could be "Old Ghost House 3" and Grandpa Shep's would be "Grandpa's House 4"

Old House 1. This is the first house Mumma and Daddy had after they married. It's across the street from Aunt Gillian and Uncle Jeremy. And they live next door to Grandpa Shep and Madeleine (where we live now). But this picture is of Mumma and Daddy when they were first living there before Gray and I were born. I guess I could just call it "The First House". I can barely remember living there anymore, just bits and pieces or when I see pictures.

Then we moved to...

Old House 2. Mumma and Daddy were watching from our front yard as they built it. They hadn't decided whether or not to buy it yet. Then, not that long after we moved in, it burned up. It still makes me cry if I think about it too much. All our stuff got burned up. Just like that. I could call it "The Burned House" or maybe "The Dream House" because it was such a beautiful house, a perfect house to me and sometimes I really do dream about living there. But if I remember the fire, it turns into a nightmare.

I wrote on this picture to show how close the houses were to each other. 

The front was so pretty and Daddy had put in flowers and bushes and even a waterfall in the back yard.

Old House 3. The Brace-Gideon House or, as I call it, "The Ghost House" because the whole town says it is haunted. That is the house we never got to live in, but I'm still putting it with the houses we DID live in. I don't care. We almost got to live there.

And now House #4 is Grandpa Shep's house. I need to think of a new name for that instead, because now it will be our house. Maybe "The Blue House" or else "Heritage House" because of all the portraits on the walls. If you look close at the last picture you can see into the dining room and Daddy at the table. Gray took the picture.

So I asked Gray what he thought about those names and which ones should I use and all he did was look at me with his crazy eyebrows that go like this ^~ and then he said,

"You always ask me stuff like this, Val, and you know I'm gonna say it's dumb. Why do you do it? And why do you have to give them names like they're your dolls, anyway? They're not people or even pretend people." 

I smiled at him like a stupid. I didn't now what to tell him. I just love to make up names for things.

I love you and you love me,

Valrae Diana Ferguson

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Harvey and Lori Ferguson

Work went swiftly on the renovation, all things considered. It was mostly the kitchen and dining room that were completely being overhauled, but that meant that three walls were coming down and one small spare room was being eliminated. Shep and Madeleine had been down to Florida twice looking for a new home and finally decided on one close to their former gated RV community, which meant close to friends they had from 20 years. Back home in Pleasantview now they would soon be packing to leave again in two weeks. Meanwhile they saw to final plans like getting things transferred with their doctors and seeing to other legal affairs. The move was really going to happen Harvey and Lori and the kids realized with a sudden shock.

Lori and Harvey had another big decision to make; whether or not to cut the hours of the bakery or sell it. It had been Lori's dream, but she was exhausted these days. There was more than one reason for that; she was pregnant. She and Harvey had not yet told the kids. Perhaps, if Harvey could find a pastry dynamo who would meet Lori's high standards, she could stick to managing the bakery without having to do every bit of the baking as well. Unfortunately, the baking was what Lori loved best. Harvey had been doing double-duty between managing his health club and managing the financial aspects of the bakery. Lori was the only one baking and she managed the kitchen. 

"Don't worry, Harvey does the books, and he was the one who hired the cleaning lady. All I do is bake. Just bake," Lori had assured her mother, Melora, when she expressed worry that Lori was looking tired, "You know I cannot handle money. He says that we're making a narrow profit, though, and not in the red, but that's usual when you start a small business."

"Yes, but it's you that talks to the customers and runs the cash register so it's not that you "just bake", Melora remarked.

"Well, yes, we thought of hiring someone to talk to customers and cashier while I'm in the kitchen. But I really do like meeting customers and discussing the goods and any specials we have. We need to hire a dish washer, as well. I mean, a teenager could do it, really. It's not like we're a restaurant with huge amounts of dishes and pots and pans."

"Lori," Melora reached one hand over to cover her daughter's, "You are expecting a child. It's been 10 years since you had the twins. You are ten years older than you were then."

"Gee, thanks, Mom. You'd think I was ancient!" Lori, stung, came back, "You had Trey and me FIFTEEN years after you had David."

"Exactly. I know whereof I speak. I also know I worked long hours when you two were little and then realized I was missing out on your childhood. That's why I stopped filming my cooking show and retired. To be home with you and Trey."

So Harvey and Lori had some thinking to do and some more decisions to make. Perhaps the timing had been bad, but, even though she was only 34 Lori had been worried time was running out to have another child. 

Chapter 26 coming soon!