In my last post, I mentioned two people entering our little family. Rayito was one, this post will be about a special little girl. I've mentioned Liiani a couple of times, mainly when she went on vacation with us. Several weeks ago, Misty mentioned to me that she wanted Liiani to be "official" family. This is where it gets complicated, as Liiani already has a family she loves very much. Misty and I talked about it, and decided that we'd ask her to be her cousin/my niece.... just... without me having a sister. LOL, SL families are weird, right? Your world, your imagination.

So, anyway, we waited several weeks, waiting for her to either forget or assume I said no. And all the while, we planned this little event for her. Some backstory: we have a mine on the sim we live on, and it's boarded up, abandoned and scary looking. Liiani's always wanted to go in there, explore around... but obviously, it's too dangerous for kids,so I've always said NOPE.

Except for last week. We gathered our flashlights, and I opened up the mine, told Liiani we're going to explore! She was very excited! I set up this big maze mineshaft thing up in the sky for us to explore. It was long, fun and filled with turns and inclines... and at the very end of the mine, when we couldn't go any further.....

We found treasure! Liiani was surprised, happy and excited! And thankfully, said yes! The space was so small in the mine, and lighting was so horrible, we all just sat on the treasure for our photo. It was still perfect.

Misty and I are so very happy to welcome Liiani into our family!

The RFL Family Fun Fair started yesterday! I have been SO excited for this for weeks! Mainly because, I heard that there will be bunk rentals, and it will have fun activities like camp does. OF COURSE I needed to rent a bunk there. As soon as I was able to, I logged in and immediately ran to decorate my bunk! I had no idea what kind of bunk I wanted, and even had no idea where to purchase one. But, I improvised, and while my bunk probably isn't as cool as everyone else's, I think it turned out pretty neat! A lot of the other kids seem to be camp pros, by attending the previous Camp Hardknock, and the Playdate Cruise, but this is my first "bunk decorating experience."

I'm really loving this fair thing! I've been trying to go to as many event things as I can, and really enjoy as much of it as I can! I'm loving being just a kid, wearing weird things, and supporting the RFL charity! Today, I've worn weird glowing goggles, a laser gun, a KFC bucket container on my head, and a balloon headpiece! It's fun, and I'm really trying to make an attempt at coming out of my shell a little bit.


While I know this is not camp, I'm really trying to treat it like it is! And that's okay, because I'm having so much fun, I can't wait to see what the rest of the week will bring for me during this fair!

Happy November! I hope everyone is having a great one so far! Last night, my family and I went trick or treating! We had a ton of fun looking at everyone's decorations, and grabbing the treats that everyone set out! At first I was kind of nervous about how I had decorated. This is our first year being part of the family community, I wasn't sure what kind of "treat" we were supposed to put out, I didn't know if we weren't decorated enough, or decorated too much. I had no idea what to expect!

However, it all turned out well, and when we went to the other houses, I felt our decorations were right on track. For us, who haven't been in SL for the past few years, had no mesh things, and our first year as a family - I think it looked like we've been doing it for years. I was worrying and stressing for weeks for nothing. LOL!

We went, and I was having so many issues last night. I was having issues with my Catwa head not blinking and animating properly, things were not rezzing for me, and I was lagging so bad! I've been having internet issues, which appears to be our router. So, until we can get a new one, I really tried to handle it like a trooper! I was also extremely tired, only getting about three hours of sleep the previous night. I was exhausted!

We went as "Cops & Robber" type of theme. I was really struggling with finding a costume, because Halloween isn't one of my favorite holidays, so I didn't want to spend a fortune on something I was only going to wear for a couple hours. Also, I was having trouble finding a "themed" costume which was family appropriate. So... well, I tried.


We even got to trick or treat at some of the family community sims. I really, really love the family communities! I tried to bring it up to Jeffry, seeing if maybe we can move to one or look into it, but he prefers our sim. He says the only way he'd move to a family community, is if he owned it. Hmmm, my wheels are turning!


Our last house of the night - our home.We had SO much fun, and I'm already looking forward to Christmas! As our first year as a family, I can't wait to see what kind of family-things we can do this year! House to house looking at lights, maybe? One can hope, right?!

Last night, we took Yuna to the pumpkin patch and then we decorated our pumpkins! This was probably one of my first "real RP" experiences with our family, and we all had so much fun. When we were first adopting, one of our things was that we weren't really into RP that much. It still holds true today, we are not that big on mealtimes, tuck ins, but the RP that we do, it's so much fun, and we are always laughing like crazy! Our trip to the pumpkin patch was really our first attempt to plan an actual family event, and I was sure it was going to be a huge, epic fail somehow.

But it really wasn't! I planned this for many weeks, kept on the lookout for a fabulous pumpkin patch, made a holding pose, bought all the gacha pumpkin carving stuff we needed, and set it all out. I didn't know how the RP bits of it worked, and my wonderful friends on Plurk even really helped me better understand a lot of it!

In the end, for us and our family, it kind of came naturally! It was so much fun, and for a minimal-RP family like us, we really enjoyed it so much! The planning, the locations, the decorating, and the pumpkins, it really made for an awesome time.

I had been looking for weeks for a pumpkin patch, and really enjoyed this one that I had found. It was pretty, had pumpkins that you could pick out, and even more. You can do much more than explore the pumpkin patch, but that's all we did there.


Then we went home to carve and decorate our pumpkins. It was so worth all the anxiety I had to make it perfect! I think I made it more complicated than what it probably should have been, but I really didn't know what to expect, or anything. Next year, I'll definitely be more prepared, know what to expect, and know what will work for our family.


I saw Alicia's wonderful family on plurk actually "decorating" their pumpkin patch pumpkins. I loooooved that idea, it looked like so much fun. It also gave an actual purpose to the pumpkins we picked out! So, we copied them, and did the same! I think this really completed the event for us, and what really made it so it wasn't SO much RP. This made it perfect. It became more of a "OMG I need to add hair and shoes!" and "What is happening to daddy's eyes?!" thing. We were laughing so much last night, it was great. It probably would have been a very stiff, I-don't-know-how-to-RP thing without the silliness.

At the start of the Halloween season, people on plurk were starting to wonder if this place called Havenhollow was going to happen again this year. Me, being away from SL for so long, had not heard of this place before! When it was explained to me, it sounded like SO much fun, and I was excited to check it out!

So, we took the family exploring there! Yuna had already been to Havenhollow last year, so she was like our guide for the whole thing. We had a lot of fun! Jeffry tried to look like the Phantom of the Opera, Yuna went as Link from the Legend of Zelda, and I went as... well, I'm not really sure. SL's female costumes are so unoriginal when it comes to being family-friendly. Everything is either sexy nurse, sexy maid, or something bloody. I was not interested in any of that. So, I put on a Halloween skin applier. I don't know what I was, but I tried.

Havenhollow was fun! We had a blast roaming around, and it was actually quite creepy! I know in previous years, I've really tried to visit all the haunted places I can go. But, with Yuna as a part of our family, I feel so excited for all the RP aspects of the holidays! I know I've said it before, but well, it's fun to share the SL holidays with other people you care about. For the longest time, it's just been Jeffry and I.

Speaking of Jeffry, we went gachaing the other day. We went a little crazy! I got quite a bit of the stuff I wanted, but there was some things that he wouldn't give up on. I logged on to this.


Sculpted gift boxes in the shape of a heart. 12 prims each, no baked maps. LOL! He tried, right? Filled with all the gacha items that I gave up on! Even through the ugliness, I was excited! Yuna got gifts too, set out in her bedroom, from a couple of machines that we thought she'd like! However, she didn't want to take them from us! I was threatening to ground her and drop them on her instead when she finally accepted them!

A few months ago, I got a brand new laptop, it is a very powerful thing, much more powerful than my desktop. I adore it. To be honest, the reason why I wanted it, was so it can play SecondLife, and also World of Warcraft. I specifically sought out a laptop that was powerful enough for SL. Words can not express how much I miss it. Owning land, exploring beautiful worlds, people creating things I will never see in my real life. However, this being my first laptop, I could not figure out for the life of me - how to keep the computer from using the onboard graphics card, and switch to the dedicated card. Well, all geekery aside, I have figured it out, my laptop now runs SecondLife smooth as butter, with shadows even enabled. It is an incredible feeling.

After that was situated, I started looking back to the beginnings of this blog. Waaay back when I first started. It was amazing, I was almost in tears, looking at both the evolution of the Sai Pennell avatar, and also my store, ImpEle. It struck something in me, and I could not believe this longing I felt for my blog at it's very beginnings. I missed it. SL was a huge part of my life, it was there for me during a difficult time in my real life, and I also met my RL husband there.

Let me first say... I joined SL for the purpose to explore Buddhism as a philosophy. I wanted to tour the shrines, also other religions, such as Shinto. I wanted to read everything about them! My blogging experience started that way, but then, somehow.... It became revolved around fashion. I started the fashion blog, and began to hate blogging, also began to dislike SL. It was not the same feelings I had early on. Every picture became a battle of "I can't wear this, because I already wore this outfit/hair in the last photo", which eventually turned into... "Why even go at all?" Fashion blogging became a nightmare for me too, always trying to buy the newest things, the best things, just to keep up with the ever-changing style.  In essence, I believe these combined is what drove me out of SecondLife.

I'll be coming back, and reblogging here. However, I am giving myself limitations, to keep blogging, and SL in general, a fun experience for me:

• I will not blog about fashion. For my sanity, I can not get back into the fashion scene.
• It appears the majority of my friends in SL has left, or moved on to other things. I need to keep getting out of my skybox and try to make new friends. Somehow. (This is a huge one for me, because believe it or not - I'm an introvert!)
• I am going to look for some form of a job in SL, that does not require creation. I'm currently dabbling in mesh clothing on an alt, but Sai won't be creating anymore! Anyone have an need for a customer service person for their store? Hah.
• Explore! One of the amazing feelings that I got when going through my early posts was the wonder of how beautiful SL is. Even pre-windlight. I will need to find that wonder again.
• I will not fear the fact that I CAN go two days without changing clothing items. I will not worry about which hair, or clothes I previously wore. Because in SL, I can get away with that.
• Lastly, I will not fear the silly-ness of SL. I will wear onigokko occasionally, and wear my crazy dancing cow attachment often.

So, all that being said, I hope you all are not too angry at me for re-opening Sai's Random Bloggage. And I hope you all will join me on this new quest of re-discovery! I hope to explore new, beautiful and fun sims, while also blogging about little bits of my life (and my obsession still with breedables) in SecondLife!

How long has it been since I updated this blog?? Way too long! I have been inactive from SecondLife for a long time, busy with work, maintaining a home, and dealing with two cats now. I miss SecondLife, the whimsy, the exploring, the shopping.

Since my last post, which was AGES ago, I moved in with the RL Jeffry, we now have our own apartment, and I've been living here for almost 2 years now. We are looking towards the future by planning a RL family at this point, but I've been really craving SL for the past few months.

So, I've decided to make a little comeback. I've come back to SL to do what I love, shop, raise breedable kitties, and explore beautiful locations. So much has changed since I left in 2011. Mesh, mainly. Who knew that I could have almost an entire bedroom set for less than 10 land impact?! What is this sorcery?!

I've worked on updating my avatar to mesh lately. Shoes, clothing, hair, updated eyes, skin, mesh hands and feet. It's been an adventure, having to learn what appliers are, and trying to pick out a skin that works well with them. Whew! Once that was all updated, I'm free to run around on the grid freely!

First place I went to explore, was this place called Moonlight Teahouse, Tuli (141, 246, 32). Japanese sims and locations have a soft spot in my heart, considering that I joined SL originally to learn about the culture and religions.


It's basically and small tradional teahouse, with a really great garden. Garden is filled with flowers and trees, fantastic for photo taking.


It's not all that huge of a parcel, either. Pretty neat place though. Good place to bring me back and remind me of why I came to SL in the first place.

SLURL: Moonlight Teahouse, Tuli (141, 246, 32)

Alee and I visited Japan Kansai and the surrounding sims a little while ago, but I didn't somehow grab any pictures. So, I decided to go wander around with the Shadow Viewer again, because the place was just so beautiful, I wanted to grab pictures with shadows.

It was actually much more productive just to go and snap pictures. I love trying to find the best lighting, and the best angle for a photo with the Shadow Viewer, its so much fun.


But then you throw in the beauty of a historical Japanese sim - and I'm in total heaven. There's just so much to take photos of, I had no idea what to take pictures of first. xD


Normally, I'm not a fan of local lighting, and usually have it off - but this sim did such a great job with capuring moods and such with their lighting, I had to leave it on :D


There are tons of areas to explore at Japan Kansai, from foresty places, to teahouses, to rice fields, and even temples.


And even loads of places to take fantastic photos at. :P


It looks so realistic, even broken down boats are just laying around. ^^


Foresty place. Its so cute - it even had a little wooden plank walkway above the water to cross.


A palce to sit, and admire the... monkeys? O.o;


This was a little secluded place in the middle of the water, you can kneel on the pillow and watch the scenery as well :D


I loved the boats on this sim. They are really well done, and they even rock with the waves of the water.


I think the Shadow Viewer makes things tons beautiful, even the prettiest sims in SL can be made 20 times more stunning by just snapping up pictures in using shadows.


But the sim itself is still really beautiful, and definitely worth a look, if you like Japanese sims. It didn't seem like Alee was much into it as I was, but he still was having fun (I think) :D


Aaaaand, since I always have to snap a picture of me in the sim - here's this one. :D

SLURL: Japan Kansai (128, 128, 2)
Viewer: Boy Lane's Shadow Viewer

Still really depressed from what happened a couple days ago, I decided to play around a bit, and explore somewhere beautiful. I couldn't find anywhere really fantastic that really caught my eye, so I decided to do something really different. Install the awesome Shadow Viewer and explore somewhere that would create incredible shadows!

A couple notes about the shadow viewer first: I would suggest running it on a semi-decent computer. My Nvidia GeForce 8600GT graphics card was not very happy, and grumping along as I snapped these pictures, but it wasn't entirely impossible to do. I can't see myself using this viewer often, probably only to snap scenery pictures. But, just to capture these fantastic shots, makes it totally worth it all.

So, the sim I decided to play around on is called Error. It was filled with lots of rocks, trees and random other things, so I thought this would be perfect to see how the shadow viewer looks.


I think this was some kind of store. There were a couple little furniture (I think that's what they were), and little ladder things for sale in a small-ish building. Also if you poke around the sim, you can find little signs with free stuff in them, that you get just for exploring around. So, its kinda like a... *gasp* hunt!


This probably isn't one of the best shadow viewer pictures I took here, but I still think it turned out pretty nice. It shows a little bit of the shadows :D


When windlight first came out eons ago, it was so amazing to me - it was kind of living in the dark, then suddenly having a light switched on. That's what this new Shadow Viewer did for me again. Its a completely new Second Life experience, and makes you see things in ways you never did before. Really.


As for the sim itself, it kind of reminded me a bit of Miriel's sim, but only with sand textures, and dead trees. It was still really pretty to explore, take pictures in, and experiment with shadow viewer settings.


The really sad thing about this viewer, was that my settings in other viewers weren't saved in this one. I had none of my windlight presets, and took all my pictures, without even realizing I had "High Rez Snapshots" turned off. So, I had to go back and retake all my pictures, and install windlight settings. It was total epic fail. xD


I actually had more fun snapping photos of the rocks and beachy area more than any of the trees and structures. I think they showed the shadows I was going for so much better than the trees did.


The sim had kind of a... lonely feel to it. Or maybe it was just my mood at the time, I don't know. But, it was the kind of feeling where you would just want to sit on the little dock thing here and wait for a boat to come in to the island. xD


This is probably my favorite picture out of this exploration trip. I love the rocks, the shadows, the trees in the background, everything. Its really great. The Error sim is really fantastic, it seems to be all over everyone's Flickr stream right now, so its definitely the place to be. I would totally suggest visiting it, and if you can, try out the shadow viewer there, its pure awesomeness.


However. What happened to my prim lashes in this picture? It said I was wearing them, but the viewer decided it wasn't going to show them to me. :( But, I was pretty impressed shadows worked on avatar attachments as well :O

Download the Shadow Viewer here: Shadow Viewer 1.23.
Explore Error here: Error (118, 176, 38)

So Kamian and I visited the Cologne Cathedral the other day. It's so beautiful, and just as awesome as the pictures show. I seen it on someone's flickr stream, and thought, omg there is NO way it looks like that in world. But, it really does.

It appears to be modeled after the real life Cologne Cathedral, located in Germany (which I didn't even know existed until right now, when I googled it XD).


I love architecture like this, so I could not stop taking pictures. I just absolutely loved this build.


Yet another picture, another camera angle. This cathedral was huge, primmy, and spanned a huge portion of the sim.


It had a sim next to it with some sort of little garden area, it was very pretty. It had fountains and hedges and stuff as well.


Even had a little piano off to the side of the cathedral. Unsure what it would be used for, but it was still really pretty.


Another view of the piano. ^^


Kamian seemed to like it as well xD


However, the most beautiful part of the cathedral was the inside. It was pretty empty, but it was still stunning.


So many camera angles to take pictures at, so little time.


Yep, another picture of the inside. I think some of these pictures actually look like a RL photo :O


A different view, from the rear looking back to the entrance.


It felt so good to actually get out and explore again. I've been stuck inside my SL home for so long because of my crappy computer, and Kamian and I had plans to visit this cathedral since before PC died. So, I was really happy to finally get to go. ^^


I had fun, and got some great pictures, I hope Kamian did as well. :D

SLURL: Cologne Cathedral, Dom zu Koeln (10, 199, 37)