1850 Part 1 | Story Info | 1851

Charlotte’s morning started very much like the mornings had back east. With a waddle to the outhouse. Sighing deeply, Charlotte rejoiced when she actually made it there, and headed back inside to get dressed for the day and make breakfast for her growing family.

She didn’t have more than a few moments of peace before the delicious smells of the Forager’s Stew woke everyone up with rumbly bellies.

Story Info | 1850 Part Two

Charlotte walked up to their new home, trying to juggle two toddlers and a hatbox she’d kept with her on the coach. Her husband, Theodore, had traveled with most of their belongings weeks ago, and the smoke rising from the chimneys was a welcome sight. Back home, things had gone from good to horrible in the space of a few words from Theodore’s older brother. As soon as he had decided not to go to sea with his ship, and decided to, instead, take over the family farm… Theodore’s prospects changed from wealthy farmer to a homeless family man in moments. It was also very quickly clear that there was no talking Theodore’s brother out of his newfound wealth by birthright. Theodore and Charlotte had been working under the assumption that the plantation was all but theirs, and they found themselves out on their rears from one heartbeat to the next. Theo had found a boarding house that could take them temporarily, and had immediately begun looking for opportunities. The sad truth of the matter, though, was that back east, there just weren’t any opportunities to be had. However, the government was opening up the west, and there were claims of riches for farmers willing to take the arduous journey to the plains. Sadly, They had decided that, to assure their children the best future possible, living near their families was no longer going to happen. With the meager stipend Theodore’s brother had allotted them to “find their own way”, Theo bought a large undeveloped farm sight unseen. Before Charlotte was anywhere close to ready, and with a toddler and a tiny babe in her arms, Charlotte was left to her own devices while Theo headed west to prepare a home for them.

By the time Theo’s “all is well” letter arrived, signaling the start of Charlotte and the kids’ journey, that baby was a toddler, and Charlotte felt she needed four extra hands to keep both of them out of trouble on the journey.

One last thing to do before I actually start writing: introduce you to the families and lots I added to my game for this save. (Also, make sure you check the Challenge Home Page link below if you’re interested in game details like the ageing scheme I’m using.) All of the below lots and families are pulled off the gallery by searching hashtags, and I’m including item names and EA ids of each piece, so if you are interested in them, you can grab them, too.

The first thing I want to do before I start writing this new challenge is introduce you to the family and their house. Both are on the gallery, if you’re interested in downloading them. In fact, there’s also a smaller version of the cabin uploaded earlier, because I had to add room for their toddlers.

“Do I need a new challenge? No. Should I start a new challenge? No. But I want to get back to blogging in the worst way, and I’m afraid to jump back into existing stories until I get the hang of writing again… At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. I’ve started this particular challenge before, and didn’t get very far… so it deserves another look. Then I have this young family from yet another challenge that didn’t get very far (because I mis-read the rules and missed something rather massive)… and I am absolutely in love with them. So I figured, why not restart the Simerican Settlers Challenge… and bend the rules just far enough to allow me to start with an existing family instead of just the one founder.”

So, that’s the plan. I can’t promise that I will be updating this regularly, nor can I guesstimate how long I’ll play it before feeling confident enough to pick up my old stories where I left off… so don’t ask. I just don’t know.

Now, on to the challenge. The challenge I picked for the young McPherson family is the “Simerican Settlers” Challenge. It’s not one I wrote, nor have I done any updating to it…. so some changes may have to be made along the line, as I am approaching this mostly from a story standpoint.