As many of you have read on this blog, my parents are in the process of divorcing. Yesterday was their first court hearing. Although I haven't heard the outcome, I'm pretty sure that by Thanksgiving or Christmas, the parents will not be sharing the same roof anymore. So I will be transitioning into that weird situation of how to handle the holidays. I think they'll both be living in the same town, so that will help. I'll be in IL with them for Thanksgiving and doing Xmas here in Buffalo. My plan for Xmas is to invite everyone (brother and both parents and grandmother) in the family to celebrate here and let them decide who wants to come.

Any advice from those with experience in juggling divorced parents and holidays?

My sim was in a bit of a rut.
Work, study, work socialize, work, study, work, socialize.

So she treated herself to a pool now that she makes the big bucks as a specialist:

Yeah, I look that good in a bikini in real life too.

She also acquired a lover to shake things up:


It's just a matter of time before she seduces Joey Johnson into marriage.

... in the Gospel of Janelle

Drew wanted the good life right away and bought a big mansion with no money to fill it....



He had no money left to buy a smoke detector or buy books to learn how to cook, so....



Despite his best efforts...



But greed has now led to....



Now, Janelle who started modestly, studied hard, and saved her money, is living the big life....

I've had some time on my hand so I've reinstalled the ole Sims game. I take pride in starting from scratch and not using the money cheat code.

Here's my modest new dwellings:



And here I am:



I'm in the medical career and I just got a promotion to intern. It's been hard to do all the socializing and studying I need to be a resident.

Not much interesting now, but I have three potential boyfriends lined up that I'm courting. More on that later, peeps....

America's Next Top Model.



I started watching it out of curiousity. Why was this a competition? Don't you just take a tall, pretty woman and take pictures and voila, she's a model?

It turns out that it takes some serious skills to be a high fashion model. You really have to be in tune with your body and comfortable with your body. You have to engage in the scenario. You have to express the designers purpose behind the outfit, but do it with your style. You're bringing your personality to the photograph, so you need to know who you are and be confident in it. You have to be willing to go outside of your personal comfort zone and trying something new that might make you feel scared or vulnerable.

The other cool thing about Top Model is that Tyra in the past few seasons has emphasized having plus sized models. Now, I have to admit, the plus sized contestants on the show don't seem very plus sized to me, but it's still a positive step forward for an industry where people starve themselves for years to stay the right size. Oh, and there's also a contestant on the show right now with Asperger's syndrome which is way cool.

There have been plenty of women on the show who appear to me to be unattractive or average attractiveness, or have acne or have cellulite and you see them transformed into this blemish free product. So you see that they aren't naturally the way they appear in the photographs. I think it helps chip away at the idea that women could look like these models if they just exercise more or diet more or get liposuction or whatever because these models don't naturally look the way they do in photographs. You understand that it's an image and not a reality. They get there with make up people; hair people and wardrobe people.

All that being said, there is still plenty to critique the modeling industry on and plenty that concerns me, but it's still been a pleasant surprise that the show has challenged my views on what modeling is and who a model is.