🍁gisforgeorgina 🍁 

Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, England

Architectural Designs by Ross Chapin

Flower power

📷: Dana Hoff, Design by Marnie Custom Homes

📷: @hayes.cottage on Instagram

📷: Leslie Brown, Styling by Addie Lane Design, Built by Hillside Homes

Do you have a dream bathroom?

📷: @wallflower_cottage on Instagram

Part Ten- The List

The man that is staying with us is of a higher caliber from looks alone. His hair is always done and his eyes are sharp. I have not spoken to him since he came to our home. I suppose now I have no choice. He has not eaten in days. I feel it is my responsibility to feed him. He is staying in a room far separated so as to set Lila’s mind at ease. I approach the door and knock sharply and wait. I wait for three minutes. It is too late for him to still be asleep. I announce that I will be coming in. I open the door. There is a smell unlike any that I have ever smelled before. It makes me sick. I manage to make it to the bathroom. I do not want to go back to his room, but it seems I have no choice. There is a rag in the kitchen that I grab on my way to the room. I stuff my nose into it and shove the door open once more. I am acutely aware of the rag’s inability to stop the worst of the smell, but I have no choice now.

I step inside. Nothing appears out of the ordinary except for the stench, but for now I fling it from my mind. I have no choice. The man is not here. He is not in the bedroom at least. I open the bathroom door. I turn around and vomit once more. I am afraid to turn back around. He was hanging there not like a man, but like a stone. It looked like the rope was from an old cartoon, where each end is frayed, trying to break against his weight. It looked like he was trying to claw free. I do not want to look again. But I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t show Lila. This was not a scar she needed. So I opened the window. The air leaked in. I went to the house across the street. They scoffed at me, called me a liar, but walked over anyways because they were interested in my claims. They stared at the body, gave a little giggle, and then helped me pull it down. There was a bin down the block that we put him in. The neighbor walks back to their house shaking their head. I don’t know why he was that way. He seemed to be mocking me. I don’t like it.

By the time Lila got home from wherever she had been, nothing was wrong. Well, almost nothing was wrong. I had scrubbed the bathroom head to toe with bleach, hoping the stench would be masked by something at least stronger. It worked for the most part. I tried to do the same thing with my brain. I closed my eyes as tight as I could and pressed my palms as deep as I could into my sockets. I watched as the mandalas formed beneath my eyelids and they danced and sung to me. I could not see while they danced. When I opened my eyes again, the world appeared slowly. First the sink and the rags that blinded me with their light tones and then the light and the mirror and myself staring back. He was still there, another body added to the list of those partially remembered and never known.

I didn’t know what to tell her. I walked down to the kitchen where she sat drinking something. It smelled strong.

“Where have you been darling?”

“I went to run some errands.” She smiled a quiet smile to herself. I felt like I was intruding on something by being privy to its quirks.

“Oh, did you buy me anything special?” I gave her an extravagant smirk so she would know I was joking. I never wanted to think I expected anything from her. Even still, she closed her hand into a fist. I don’t know why she did that. She didn’t seem angry.

“Not today. Get me some food would ya.” Tonight was my night. I had forgotten.

“Before I start cooking---”

“You haven’t even made anything yet?”

“No, I have something we need to talk about.” She was suspicious of my words. As if I had given her some reason to doubt my honesty and reliability.

“Okay, what is it?”

“That man… the one staying in the guest room, I found him hanging in the bathroom today.” She giggled a little bit. I’m not very sure why.

“Okay did you get rid of it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. D’ya need me to make dinner for us tonight, then?”

“I got it. Don’t worry. You can sit and watch things or whatever pleases you.”

“K.”

I may be in the minority in this, but if you can’t eat any of the animals in Cottage Living, I’m going to be really disappointed. I really hate all the games like Farmville where you “harvest truffles” from a pig instead of actually raising pork like an actual farm. 

I mean, animals age in Sims 4! Animals die in Sims 4! Is it too much to hope that when your farm animals die, you can use them like farm animals?

No one is going to make vegan players kill their animals, I just want the option to be there for everyone else. I mean, obviously, I don’t want or expect anything to be shown on screen, this is a Maxis game. What I would expect is that you purchase an abattoir, which probably looks like a tin shed with no windows, you click on the abattoir, a dialogue comes up for which animal do you want to... they would probably have a game specific euphemism for it. Like “ ‘trade’ for meat” and ‘trade’ is always in quotation marks. Honestly, I am picturing something like the hunting system in Sims Medieval, where you click on the forest, select “hunt”, your sims disappears into the forest for an hour and reappears with meat in their inventory. 

Maybe it would be something like “select an animal to send to Hungry Hills Butcher ‘Care Home’ “ and the animal walks off screen. In a few hours, you get a message saying something like “Thank you, Bella! BiggieSimsie the cow is very happy in her new paddock, and everything is fine! On an unrelated note, you now have 10 beefsteaks in your inventory, just a little thank you for selling us your cow!”

That sounds like the Maxis sense of humour. (I mean, you could be a cannibal in SimAnt, but that was a long time ago)

Really, with the option to make Sims vegan or vegetarian, you would get so much more gameplay with the option to slaughter your animals. Vegan sim notices the farm is down a pig and gets a sad buff. There’s gameplay options there.

Not to give up on the pack before it’s even released, but I really hope there’s enough people like me who want their farm to function like a farm that someone will make a mod.

Apple Pie, Chestnut, Wool Blanket, and Kitchen for the cozy cottage asks <3

Apple pie: What is your favorite pie or cake?

Pumpkin pie and Cheesecake💚

Chestnut: Did you ever tinker anything out of materials from the forest?

Oh, all the time. With just sticks alone I'd make little tipis, gardens, Bows- I've always loved it haha

Wool blanket: How many blankets do you usually use to sleep?

One thick one. I get hot, but enjoy feeling like I'm in a little nest, so I'd never complain about having multiple

Kitchen: What is your favorite kitchen tool?

The mixer, definitely; my arms can only handle so much lol

📷: Neil A. Landino, Design by Gara Morse

𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖞 𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖉𝖊

the princess of the night <3

A woodland aesthetic and a lovely cottage in Buckland-in-the-Moor (steve_parke on Instagram)

Apple blossoms 🌸

Day 4 of my cottagecore sims. I love sunflowers.

via Google Alert - dog friendly