I started this WordPress Blog back in 2012. At the beginning, I assure you, I had no idea what I was starting. I posted a few things... but it wasn't for several years that my blogging really took off. I dabbled in a few Sims 3 stories (which are still accessible on this site - just check my retired & completed simlit section). By August 2016, however, I was well and truly hooked on blogging, although at that point, I was still waffling between Sims 3 and 4. The waffling didn't take too much more time, though, before I was thoroughly addicted to Sims 4. Once I hit this point, I've never gone back. I still had (and have) periods of writer's block and inactivity, but I always come back.
Sometime in 2023, this blog really tripled in traffic. And it did so on a very consistent basis. Which made me really start seriously considering the thoughts and ideas for it that I'd had in the back of my head for YEARS. The host I was on prior to this one, wordpress.com .. was great. It was cheap, it was reliable, and it was easy to use. However, the amount of customization and control I had over the website design and add-ons was, well.. very very low. And even if I doubled the cost of the plan I was on, it was going to remain virtually the same.... which is exactly the opposite of what this growing blog needed. With my challenges gaining in popularity, and my livestreaming, I really wanted to be able to upgrade the graphics, layout, and things that the website offered... By October, it was clear my blog was getting 25,000 to 30,000 hits per month on a very stable basis - so when I noticed that my two year subscription to wrodpress.com was ready to renew on the 26th, I decided, spur-of-the-moment, that there wasn't going to be a better time to upgrade. So I immediately started looking for a way to pay for a new webhost, and researching where I wanted to go, as well as finding out exactly what upgrades I wanted and needed for the site. Originally, I was going to do a fund-raising stream for the money, but a very lovely friend of mine kindly donated the full amount I needed to pay for the next THREE YEARS of hosting. When that's almost up, I will certainly be looking for ways to raise the money for the next web-hosting fee, but that's a problem for future me. (If you're interested in helping to support this site and my streaming, check out my Support Me page. 100% of donations will go to the website and my streaming.)
All that being said, I do try to be pretty transparent on the effort that goes into this website - the background work, the time for upgrading, the work involved in moving the site, as well as what it takes to keep my challenges updated. I'm also in a long process of adding a knowledge database to this website to share the Sims 4 knowledge I've accrued over the years (expect that to start happening by January 2024 - I do have a few other major things on my list before I start devoting a ton of time into the toolsnlinks section, but it's coming.) This transparency led to the need to have a page devoted to collecting the posts about website news and information.... so that's where this page comes in. Obviously, there's no real reason to go back to the news I was posting at the very beginning of the website, but it's there buried in the archives if you're ever curious!
I have only just (in the last couple days) realized that a good portion of my stories' images are now showing as either a blank line on the page or a broken link. I can't apologize anymore.. I'm super unhappy about this.. but here's the good news: all those images still exist. They're even in the media library for THIS site. But for some reason, all of the pages on this site are trying to find the pictures on my old website, which has inexplicably deleted most of my images. And the only way I can figure out to fix them... is going to be fixing the URLs literally one. at. a. time. - for some 5000+ images. This is going to take time. So... yeah. In addition to updating all my challenges, apparently I have more to update, too.. the image URLs.
Again, I apologize profusely about this problem... and will be fixing it as quickly as I can!
So, while I'm not streaming for the next couple weeks, that doesn't mean I won't be doing anything. As of now, I have plans to get ALL my challenges updated over this time. Currently, the order of the planned updates is as follows:
Yeah. It's a lot. But I have it all spaced out, and hopefully I can get most of it done with very little stress. Everything but the Decades modification and the Build A World Challenge should (hopefully) be done by the time I get back to streaming (April 1st), then I'll work on the last three items over the month of May.
Also, as I finish each item, I will pop back here on this post to cross them out - as well as posting a note to state that it's done and ready to be used!
Oh, yeah, and as a postscript, in the next couple weeks you should also see Mod lists for my other Youtube playthroughs posted!
The Shell Challenges section of this website is now - finally - current again. I will try to remember to keep it current in the future! If you're interested, I have added information about my current year-long challenge - 2024 ISpy House. And in no way do you need to be a builder to participate. It's all about decorating and having a good time hiding things for me to find! See here: 2024 Shells.
I just realized I haven't posted a thing on here about what's been going on. On December 1, I was diagnosed with both two large kidney stones.. and a tumor on my kidney. (Same kidney, no less).. So I had the kidney stones taken out surgically on December 11th, then had a healing period before they could go in after the tumor. March 13th (two days ago) I had robotic surgery to get the tumor out of there. Dr. says he got the whole thing out, so I should be home free. I will still not know whether it was actually malignant cancer until he gets the results back from pathology, which will be in a couple of weeks. I stayed overnight in the hospital after surgery, but I am back at home, and am doing pretty well. Pain is still higher than I'd like it to be, but that's how healing works. I will be back to filming my YouTube series by April 1st, and shouldn't have to miss too much there.. and as for streaming, at this time I'm planning to be back April 1st. But anyway - that's the main reason there haven't been any updates on here for a while.
However, What I really did want to mention, is that last week of "vacation" - I'm going to dedicate some time to updating ALL my challenge rule sets and the spreadsheets. So that should be finished before I start streaming again - I hope.
One last note: After much agonizing deliberation, I have pulled the forums down that were on this site. You can still easily contact me via comment or the "send me a message" page - and most of the people signing up for the forums were spam accounts. Which was a real hassle and headache. Finally, I just decided Discord is way easier to police and keep safe for everyone - so if you do want to chat about my challenges, there are channels for each of my challenges there. I apologize, but spending 4-5+ hours a week deleting spam member sign-ups just got old.. fast.
Extended NSB had a few errors in it. They have now been fixed. Sheet should work properly again.
As for the Timeline Adventure spreadsheet, I have added tracking for sims Fears, Lifestyles, and Likes & Dislikes. I also added an entirely new page for tracking your pets!!
Remember, if you want to "upgrade" to the newest version, you will need to copy the new sheets from my links, then copy paste etc to add the existing data from your old sheet. Sorry it's tedious, but unfortunately that's the way spreadsheet updating works!
Additionally, I do plan to update ALL challenges for the new pack as soon as I can, so keep an eye for that. I will post when each is updated.
Lastly, BIG NEWS about my Youtube channel. As of 9 AM this morning, my channel now hosts exclusive series that have NOT been streamed. Rather they have been filmed and edited exclusively for Youtube in approximately 30 minute episodes. The first one (below) is an Extended play of my Extended Not So Berry Challenge, then the second (which will premiere tomorrow at 9AM) is a Modded Project Hospital playthrough.
First of all... WELCOME!! Second.. please, if things go south over here, forgive me.. I've done everything I can possibly think of to make this transition as smooth as possible, but as a one-person team, I have, inevitably, missed something here or there.
Just so you know, the registration feature IS active, but I do (for safety) have registrations set to be manually approved by me. I will do my best to get everyone activated ASAP on registering, but bear with me on this one, please.
On another note.. just before moving to this website, my old wordpress site hit a couple of major milestones I really wanted to share with everyone:
500k all time views...
and over 150,000 individual visitors!!
I have all you to thank for that, and I very much appreciate it! The success of my site is the main reason for me moving the site over to this new domain, and despite being nervous as hell that this whole house of cards will come tumbling down around me, I'm super excited to show off all the work I've put in over the last couple of months. It's been one heck of a journey, and without the support of friends (and all of you who have been reading my Website Journal) - I would NOT have made it through. I appreciate each and every one of you.. and I hope you like the new site as much as I do!
P.S. In the next day or so I will post up what remains of my to-do list - things that were put off as "things I can do later" .. and a list of things that are still in progress or coming to the site in the future.... but I do believe everything that's on this site currently SHOULD work. (Which seems to be a minor miracle!)
ONE DAY LEFT!! We launch tomorrow! Super exciting, but let me just tell you this day has been DRAGGING by. I got EVERYTHING done that I absolutely had to get done, and I have my list ready for tomorrow. This will be my last post on this site until tomorrow evening when I set up the redirect on this site and open up the new one. Which is scary to say... but I think I'm ready. If nothing else, I'm certainly mentally ready to be DONE with this process, because it's been so much work. So so very much work.
So.. here goes nothing. Time to move over these last posts to the new site.. and set up some final overnight checks and backups. Currently, my plan is to open the site up at about 8 PM eastern, but if I get things done early.. it'll open early. See you then!!
Just a heads up... had a major snafu with the website last night.. and I will be launching on Monday evening instead of anytime today. I sincerely apologize, but it was absolutely nothing I had control over!! Expect the Day 29 Journal sometime Sunday evening, and a Day 30 post sometime Monday when I complete the transfer and set up the site redirect here.
Getting down to the "nitty gritty" now, but I really think things are going well. As of today, I have COMPLETELY finished all posts that needed editing/fixing, with the exception of these Journal posts (which I will transfer over on Saturday evening in prep for launch on Sunday).
Beyond that, I have gotten a ton done this week. I'm still not confident that I'll have time to actually add any more links than the bare minimum I already have, but I do finally have the whole section working, including the form for people to submit links for consideration, and I elected to separate the links out by category on different pages to allow for better navigation, load times, and expandability of the link library. (Which took me extra time I probably didn't have to spare, but I wanted to make sure it was done correctly.)
As for my to-do list, I am both behind.. and ahead of the game. Technically I was supposed to finish the last of the post fixing tomorrow, and get some more writing and random fixing done today, but I was on a roll, so the posts got done today. Which, is a good thing - because part of tomorrow will be spent meeting one of my Twitch mods and friends. Super excited about it!
As for what I have left before launch? ... More than I'd like, but still not more than I think I can get done. I still have some writing to do on the "about me" section, although I have about half of that done, as well. Then, I need to set up some checking, error logs, privacy and cookie policy pages, and figure out how I want to work the "sitemap" page. Lastly, I have some final checks and fixes to do on the 200 plus pages, and I'd like to set up a table of contents on some of the longer pages to allow for easier reading. If, by some miracle, I get all of that done in time, then, and only then, will I work on the links section more. The very last thing to do Saturday night will be to post Journal #29 here, transfer over all the Journal posts and make sure they're linked properly on the new site.
Sunday morning will be a flurry of activity, as that's when I'll take down the "coming soon" page, set up the link redirect from this current site, enable forum user registration, and do my final back-up on the full site in a "finished" state. Finally, I'll be posting the 30th journal entry, and a "still coming" list (of anything that didn't get done, or is still in the works for later), as well as a welcome to everyone visiting the new site... and then I cross my fingers and "let her go".
Okay. So I took a break.. but I came back swinging. Today has been a brutally long day, and I plan to do some more after a snack break... but I am FINALLY feeling really good about where I am on the site. I am still about a day behind where I wanted to be, but I still believe I can get the whole thing done by Sunday afternoon. Barring any disaster, that is.
Past all that, things are, as I said, looking quite good. No major breaks of the templates in the last few days, it appears I have fixed all that.. and today's header debacle has done what I should have done weeks ago, as well as gotten the templates into what I considered as a "finished" state. Can't really complain. However, it is now "lunch" time, since I forgot to eat earlier... oops. At least I have a tasty turkey and muenster cheese sandwich waiting for me in the fridge!
