Drifter House 006 – Aubrey & Lorna Pt1

Aubrey Drifter

Lorna Springer and I were best friends growing up. When it was time for us to be given our plot of land, we petitioned to share one and were granted a huge plot of land in Willow Creek. There’s only so much you can do by yourself and I don’t want a tiny house like my grandparents. I want a huge house, with a pool and a piano and plenty of other luxuries. With Lorna, I have a chance.

Our first days were rough as expected. Fishing and collecting gave us enough money for the bare minimums of life. But it was tough sleeping on benches, always hungry. We were dying for a shower. Or a toilet. Or a bed that wasn’t a bench. Lorna thought I was crazy when I first suggested this plan and I know she had to be having second thoughts now. But I had to trust my plan, I’d paid attention to my parents, to my aunt, when they talked about what had worked and what hadn’t worked for them.

The first thing we bought with our money was a shower and toilet, just a little box on an empty lot. But filled with the most valuable purchases this side of a cooler.

I fear, despite my careful plans, Lorna did all the heavy lifting early on. She always managed to find plenty of seed and crystals and fish. I knew where to sell them, but on my foraging trips, I always came back exhausted and with very little to show for it. But finally, finally, with our essentials purchased, we bought our little moneymaker.

My dad and aunt talked about how much better their life was after they got an easel. I have always enjoyed painting. I used to do it a lot when I lived at home.

There’s something comforting about the smell of fresh paint and the sight of half-finished masterpieces. Not that I’m creating masterpieces. Not by a long shot. Although I’m not as good as my parents were, but my painting sell for enough to really help us out. We no longer have to trade off who gets to sleep on the cot.

Now we both have cots.

And the beginning of a proper kitchen. Sure it’s not much when it’s only a half-filled cooler. But when I look around our lot and this little house, I see only potential.

I think we’ve made an excellent start, Lorna and me.

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Lorna Springer

When Aubrey first suggested we apply together for a land grant, I laughed. Sure, I knew she came from a one of ‘those’ families. The kind that had been here for generations. But well, my parents were immigrants. We lived out in one of the subsidized houses, just the four of us. Since we were born here, my brother and I were eligible, but I hadn’t planned on applying. It seemed so absurb. Start from nothing when could for a modest deposit I get a lovely little house like my parents?

But Aubrey keep bugging me all though high school. Every day it seemed she’d be talking about it. She had all these strategies: selling plants at the market, crystals at the flea market, frog breeding… Frog breeding?! How is that even a thing? In the end, she convinced me. We applied and then I went about my business and didn’t give it another thought.

Then our application was accepted. I was surprised, it had been months. I figured we’d been rejected since we weren’t related. But she showed up at my door deed in hand and dragged me to our new home. Aubrey was bubbling with excitement. I have to admit I’d hoped we’d get one of the smaller plots. Something, you know…reasonably sized? Maybe a little 20×20? Or a 20×30?

Have you seen our lot? Acres of grass. Somehow, I managed not to freak too badly when we fist arrived. Much.

But my head was filled wiht a hundred questons. Where would we sleep? How would we even begin to make enough money to eat? There was nothing here at all. Aubrey just grinned and started talking about gazebos and swimming pools and that with this big a lot there might even be room for an observatory like her grandma had. I held my tongue – mostly – and nodded along like I could even begin to imagine what it would look like.

And now I was stuck with it. I couldn’t go back home and we had absolutely nothing. Aubrey was of course undeterred. She said if we were lucky we could have a shower by nightfall and shooed me off to try my hand at fishing. I have to say fishing was a blast. Right off the bat, I started catching stuff.

Not always fish, true, but Aubrey knew where to sell whatever I found. We might not have had a shower that first night. But we both kept at it. There’s a market for everything, even random electronics, I learned. And Aubrey is really, really good at painting. She says she not, because she’s always comparing herself to her parents and her aunt. But her work has its own charm.

It’s really a shame we have to sell them all. I hope someday we can keep the best of them. It broke my heart when she sold a lovely painting she’d titled Moon goddess. I don’t know what the critics said, but to me, it was a masterpiece.

True, it sold for over §1,000 and that will be used to help buy a proper kitchen for us, but I just loved it. Hopefully, it went to a good home.

These days, Aubrey is in ‘paint all the things’ mode. And I wouldn’t stop her. It would be nice to get proper beds or at least proper bedrooms for our cots. But my small contributions of fish and flowers aren’t as helpful anymore. I’m kind of at a loss for what to do. It feels like it’s a waste to spend all my days hunting for small things to sell when Aubrey makes more with a single painting than I make all day.

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Author’s Note: This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a couple weeks now. But I wasn’t happy with Lorna’s voice. It felt too similar to Aubrey’s – and probably still is – but it’s time to stop procrasting. I’m much further along with the generation and I don’t want to loose momentum.

I’m switching between this save and my Switch save, torn between wanting both families to age together and how the game works. I could turn non-played sim aging off when I play one house, but with MCC people would still get married and have kids during that time. I’m still debating though. Phonix and Rez are together in both saves as will be any relationships here ported to there. But the kids would be different. I don’t know. It’s kind of too late right now. But maybe I’ll remerge the saves after this generation.

So far this house has been going very well. I’ve been avoiding gardening for a while since I abused it my first few houses, but this time, we’re going for Mansion Baron. – Extreme. That means getting a house worth §350,000 before our heir ages up starting at §0. So we’re trying everything we can. Luckily Aubrey did paint at her parents house autonomously, so she’s already level 6. And I know gardening *can* pay off. Eventually. And writing. That’s my long term goal for Lorna. First though we have to afford a computer.