Hi all! It's been a while since my last post, and I'm so sorry! My laptop got really crappy, it used to be a good gaming laptop, but ever since the dedicated graphics card went out on it, it turned real bad... real quick. Buttons on my keyboard stopped working, it had some weird noises happening, the screen wouldn't stay turned on unless plugged in... ugh. It was laggy, almost impossible to do much of anything. I was done.

So, I recently bought parts and built my own gaming computer. While it isn't top of the line or anything, I took my time in choosing parts that I could possibly upgrade later. So, it works out I think. It was my first time in building my own, I've really only ever added simple parts, like RAM and graphics cards. Never an entire computer. I was nervous, but it was surprisingly easy. I don't think I'd hesitate again to build one.

Because of this, I am finally able to get back in SL, and actually enjoy taking photos again. I've been gacha-collecting backdrops, playing and experimenting with SL photography. It's been fun. It's amazing how much a laggy computer can suck the life out of SecondLife. Bonus is that I can play other games lag-free now too! :)

The day has finally come! I got my hands on the LOGO Quinn Bento head! When bento came out, I really, really didn't want to give up my LOGO Alex head. It was the head that I felt most comfortable in, and I had loved it so much. It was ME. I had hoped there would be a Bento LOGO that would come out soon, but it never really did.

A preview photo of a new head, Quinn came out on Flickr, and I drooled over this like crazy. I stalked the Flickr feed for weeks. And then someone asked me this morning: "Hey, did you get the new LOGO bento head?" My heart stopped, and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was.... "What?"

I acquired this head as soon as I could, and quickly set out to make Quinn my own. My favorite LOGO skin was applied, and it took me hours to get a shape that I semi-like. That's mainly because... I'm not a good shape maker. I've never made my own shapes, I really don't know anything about them. The only two things in SL that I can't do: making shapes, and scripting.

But all things considered, I think I did pretty good! Obviously, I'm still tweaking things (and don't mind my double ears, I didn't take off my Mandala ones before taking the photo), but it's a good start I think. Also, the head is in a closed beta, so it's still being heavily worked on. But, it's functioning, it just needs some bugs worked out of it! It's so great though, if I could get this head to feel like more like "Sai", it will likely become my daily head.


In case you're wondering, this Quinn head, still has such adorable expressions as my favorite Alex head. Not as many yet, but they are still very, very, cute. I love them! My absolute most favorite part of the expressions for me, are the big, wide, fun smiles. LOGO is the only head that I've found that has smiles that I could die for. So perfect!

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!

My adorable kiddo has bought a fancy, shiny, new sim from Linden Labs! She's been wanting one for a while, and was able to get one for Christmas! And that being said, I've been given the task of sim design. It's a HUGE job, much bigger than I've even encountered, really. Sure, I've had homesteads before, but... there wasn't that many prims to play with, so it wasn't such a daunting task.

It's been about 2 weeks now since I had asked Misty to be my daughter. Things are still going really, really wonderfully! I really found the connection with a child that I've been really striving for. She's much like a little compact version of myself. Very much my child, in many different ways. LOL!

When I first met her, I mentioned that I have many photo frames in my house that needs to be filled up. Well, Misty and I seem to have taken up the challenge to fill all those empty frames up. Of course, though.... I know we have a lifetime together to take ALL the photos together!


We've been doing all kinds of things, from exploring, shopping, PaleoQuest (even if we do get frustrated at it), to even watching more movies! Some days, it feels like I haven't only known her for three weeks, it feels like so much longer.

This one, I'm keeping forever, no matter what happens.

Yesterday, was day number two of the Start of Summer camp! I'm really struggling, having a difficult time there, to be honest. I do not know many people, everyone has their cliques, and it's hard to fit in, especially for me. In RL, I have huge social anxiety, and yes, it applies in SL the same way.

I'm having trouble finding beautiful places to take photos in, the sim is not photogenic at all. And, the activities really aren't the type of activities I enjoy. I was really hoping for things like building classes, dancing, actual scheduled movies.... but there's nothing really that I find entertaining enough. I think I look more forward to the breakfast/lunch/dinner events, than anything else. Even then, everything is so cliquey that I find it not very fun at all.

The counselors have their favorites, it's easy for me to get overlooked and ignored. I also find one counselor REALLY hard to understand when he is talking on voice. I can never understand a single word he says. Which makes it more difficult. *shrugs*

I was looking forward to this, I will stick it out until the end! But, in the meantime, I'm going to probably continue to do my own thing, by myself. In the meantime, I hope it gets more fun for me!

Ennaline, my mini, is currently at camp! I've been really, really wanting to go to a real camp, and I have been waiting very impatiently for this one! This particular camp is put on by First Step Elementary school, the Start of Summer Camp!

Yesterday, mom and I did our camping photo, which turned out absolutely adorable! I couldn't have planned out a better photo, it turned out just as cute as I envisioned in my head. Well, to be honest, I didn't know what I envisioned when I was prepping this scene. I just started rezzing things out, and it really just came together on it's own. This is without a doubt, my most favorite photo of us right now.


The flight to camp was so much fun! I know and understand it's SecondLife, and to some people, it's just a "game", while on the plane, it really felt real! Our pilot really sounded like a pilot, the airplane had sounds like an real life plane taking off. It was great. We were even greeted by a counselor who showed us to our cabins! It was awesome!


On the first day, we all explored around, decorated our bunks, and at the end of the day, there was a performance by the FSE dance team. And also a luau. It was great! I, however, ended my day by taking a jump from the diving board into the ocean! (But, it's okay! Because I totally was wearing a life vest!)

I am so sad that last night was our last night on vacation! We had so much fun, I wish we could have stayed longer! But, a vacation isn't nearly as fun if you stay all the time, right? At least... that's what I'm telling myself right now. I will definitely miss it, but at the same time, I love being at my home. Anyway! The day started well, a very gorgeous day (as every day is in the rain forest, I assume), as I took my daily "waking up" photo.

Turned out cute! It was always so hard to get photos, because everywhere is gorgeous, I could never decide on a place to snap the photo! I wanted a photo in like, all the places! I really, really, really can't wait for out next vacation here!


But! Last night, was our "formal night". I set up the dance area with photos from the duration of our vacation, and some snacks. Jeffry DJ'ed country love songs to me. I really wanted to do a formal night, because I never get to dress up, and I really enjoy doing it. It was also a way to really celebrate the end of our vacation, and Jeffry had a surprise for me. He was talking about the "surprise" for the entirety of our stay, so I was really anxious to see what it was. As I touched on in a previous post, he had been sending me on a hunt through the sim, searching for bottles with messages in them. Then with a clue to the next one. He had also put codes in the notecards, that spelled something out... but I wouldn't know what it said until I had gotten to the last bottle.


So, what did the notecard say? When I got to the end of the bottle hunt, I put all the codes together, and found out that he had asked me to renew our vows in SL! We have been SL married for almost 7 years and married in RL for over 2 years now. I think it's about time we did so. We probably even should have done them at 5 years together, but RL got in the way, and all. We weren't really in SL at that point very much. Naturally, I said yes.

He already has plans, for our vow renewal ceremony. When we married in SL, we kind of eloped (much like our RL marriage at the courthouse). And we want it different now, filled with fun, friends and family. And afterward, he said we can go to Greece as our vow renewal honeymoon! So, with that being said, I think that I might talk to Lolita soon, and see when Greece de la Oleander will be open and prepare our ceremony around then.

I still live! I had a really terrible December in my RL, but now that is over. My RL is somewhat back to normal a bit. We are still trying to look for jobs in a tiny, tiny, town way up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but we are settled into our new place of residence after our emergency cross-country move.

A lot has happened. Yuna has left our family. It's very sad for us, but perhaps it's the best. That's all I think I'm going to say about it for the time being. Since then, I've been working a little bit on my alt. I've decided that I'm going to put a little work into her, maybe take off her mesh head and try to give her a cute face. Then, put up a panel at Heritage for her to find a family.

I think I have succeeded in making her cute! Don't mind the partially un-rezzed bench texture. I totally did not realize it at first. I should have went back and redid the photo, but EH. Laziness at it's finest. But anyway, I've also enrolled her in school as well as ballet classes! This blog will likely become a mix of Ennaline's life as well as Sai's life, because I really enjoy playing on both!


Also, a little bit ago, when Yuna left us, I decided to put up a panel at Heritage. Jeffry logged in with me so that I could make a pose for us and we could take an updated photo for our panel. It turned out really cute, and really adorable. I was REALLY happy with how it came out. We had the panel up for a little while... but then I suddenly wasn't sure if that's what I wanted at this point. I don't think I'm ready to try again just yet. I haven't clicked it in a few days, so I'm pretty sure that it has expired. And that's perfectly okay. We will take our time on this, when we are ready again, we'll know, right? However, I'm not sure if we will every be ready again. For now, I'm completely happy playing on my child alt!

During the house-to-house trick or treating, we visited a few houses that were part of actual family communities. I did not even realize that these sort of things existed! I absolutely loved the community feel of them! I say often that my family isn't big on the "role-play" aspect, like, we don't really do mealtimes, or tuck-ins... but we do things like PaleoQuest, pumpkin carving, and movie nights. But for some reason, the family sims really appealed to me. I think for a couple of hidden reasons.

First, we have decided to move halfway across the country in RL, early next year. Because of this, we need to cut un-needed expenses out of our life. The sim is the first thing that is not absolutely necessary. Second, our sim is just WAY too big. We are a small family of three, and we don't utilize it all. We had one party for Yuna's adoption, we sometimes watch a movie at our outdoor cinema, and we stand in the house to AFK. That's about it. All of these things, we can do on a smaller piece of land. Third, our house was way too big. I loved the house when I bought it, it's gorgeous, and the type of house I'd love to live in RL. However, for us, it was just too much space. But really, the cost of the sim was the main reason for the decision. 

As much as I say I'm not a "RP" type of person, I think I'm craving just a little bit more of it! I LOVE that you have to have a driver's license to drive on the family sims, you have to stop at stop lights and all that. These communities seem to have a police force, firefighters, playgrounds, and city hall. It's so much fun! I spent a good 2-3 days hopping from one sim to another, reading covenants, trying to find the perfect house.

Eventually, I found it. Well, it was mainly the plot I fell in love with! The back of the house is right on the lake, the front of the house is facing the road, so I can see people driving by and all. It has it's own fence, came with some landscaping already put down. The price is much more do-able than what we were paying for the sim (we can almost pay a whole month here with what we were paying a week for the sim), and the prim limit is SO generous. I was done putting down all the things that I wanted from the old house, and I was not even halfway though our given prim allowance. I was completely amazed!

However, I did opt to purchase my own home, and because it was an "approved house," I got to use it. It's smaller two bedroom, one bath home from Roost. I love Roost Homes, they are very beautiful, and completely customizable. I find you can tint... everything! Doors, ceilings, walls, exteriors... I love it! The Rules notecard I was given from the community manager says that if you use your own home, you are given a prim allowance that won't count against your prims, but when I check on the prim counter, my home counts against me. I'll see what happens later, when/if we ever need more prims.

Of course, it's still a work in progress, I haven't committed to an exterior paint color, and I still have some landscaping and all to do... but, I just got it yesterday! I'm still playing with things outside, but I am very happy that I was able to secure this plot, and this house! It's so perfect for us!

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!

Today, I'm talking about mesh heads! I've bought two of them within the past week, and I'm becoming a bit of a head hoarder! I bought a head from TMP (I hate them so much that I'm not even going to put a link to their SLURL) a while ago, which I have blogged about previously. Long story short, I hated it. The Pink Fuel skin I wore was beautiful on it, but that was really the only thing it had going for it. TMP is brutally expensive for the features you get, mainly the lack of expressions. I think I purchased it, thinking (hoping) that something that expensive would have regular updates, maybe they would add expressions. WRONG. Their customer service is the absolute worst I've encountered (except maybe for 7 Deadly Skins, of which we won't go into). But, anyway, my main reason for looking for a new head was for one reason: I want to be able to look happy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a really wonderful family in SL, and I am incredibly happy, but sadly, my face in SL never shows it! I constantly have a really grumpy look, and seems like I always have somewhere better to be. But, I don't, really! I set out to look for another mesh head that was still "me", and had the ability to have expressions!

I demo'ed a Catwa head, and liked a skin from TheSkinnery with it. I bought the head, skin and appliers, was wearing it around to really see if it "grew" on me. As I was still in the 'I don't really know how I feel about this stage', Mochi, from Pink Fuel was plurking gorgeous skin photos of something she was working on for the Logo mesh head. My immediate thought: "But, I literally JUST bought a Catwa head!" Seriously! Why do these things always happen when I make a large purchase like this?!

The Pink Fuel skin was Omega compatible, and guess what! So was my Catwa! Just for kicks, I decided to see if it would apply to the head. And it did! I was so happy, and it even looked SO gorgeous, even on the Catwa. I decided to try a demo of the Logo head, just to look at it, but unfortunately, the Logo demo... is not Omega compatible. However! I absolutely fell in love with the expressions. The Logo head had such fun, beautiful expressions. And I loved them so much that... I bought the head. Without being able to demo the skin on it. Yep.


However, I have absolutely NO regrets. As soon as I was able to put the Pink Fuel skin on the Logo head, it was worth it, I had absolutely no buyer's remorse for this purchase, not being able to demo it first! It really feels like "me", as most Pink Fuel skins do. The smile is big, happy, and as silly as it sounds, I feel these expressions really even show it up to the eyes. They like, change the whole feel of a photo! I loved the expressions so much that I bought all the add-on packs of them!


My husband likes the Catwa head, and I much prefer the Logo one. I can't wait to see what other skins come out for the Catwa and Logo heads, and all the other Omega compatible stuff! I know that the Catwa head is still new, too - I really hope that the creator can make it so you don't have to use the included shape! I used my shape and had a neck gap, and couldn't quite get rid of it.

Notes on Catwa:

• Alpha mask eyelashes! YES!
• Able to alpha hair bases! Great for hair that can't fit, otherwise!
• Omega compatible!
• Able to save appliers into the HUD.
• Expressions! Expressions play like on a loop, but you're able to pause them for photos.
• Need to wear the included shape, otherwise you have a neck gap.
• Required to wear mesh eyes. And even then, I had a complete nightmare of a time fitting them *just* right. And I'm not a noob. 

Notes on Logo:

• Expressions, expressions, and more expressions! LOVE!
• Omega compatible! 
• Fits mesh bodies well!
• Unable to demo Omega skins before buying.
• Gives you like 15 folders when you unpack the box. 
• As for the other features, I'm not sure, as the HUD is too small for my laptop screen to even see! (And it's no modify, so I can't even stretch it to make it bigger)

Yesterday, I found some really low land impact photo frames for my house! I was really looking for a "family" orientated type of frame, or shelf, or something that I could use for displaying Yuna's Adoption Certificate, and the photo I took of when she first saw the question of us asking her to join the family. I didn't find one that looked how I wanted, so I made one! But anyway! I'm a huge fan of photos, in both RL and SL. Some memories, you just can't repeat, or get back, and I'm very forgetful! I take a lot of photos! I'm trying to fill my large amounts of frames with some photos of us as a family now, instead of just Jeffry and I.

I know that I referenced to our fall photo several times in the previous post, and it appeared a couple of times on our adoption day. I never really posted it here, as I wanted it to be a complete surprise! Now that the surprise is done and over with, I can post it! It turned out sooooo great, I'm in love with it!

Yuna and I were watching a movie, and I snapped this photo of us! It turned out super cute, and I love this pose/animation that I made for us. Yuna has officially been calling us mommy and daddy, and we've been calling her our daughter! Because it's official now, and I'm super-excited about it still!


I've been experimenting with different mesh heads! I now have several of them, from Genesis, TMP, Logo, and Catwa. I think I'm going to do a blog post REALLY soon about them! However, for now, I am in LOVE with the Logo mesh head, the expressions are soooo much fun! I think I'm going to stick with the Logo head for a while, and made it a little more official by updating my in-world profile with a new photo!


For real, don't I look SO happy? Well, I should be! My life in SL has never been better than it is right now! I have been so blessed in SL, and I have the best family, ever! I feel like I just want to keep this smile on my face all the time!

As my Plurk friends know, Jeffry and I had been planning something for about a week now! I've been posting updates and preview photos on my Plurk, pretty much ever since we decided on it. We decided to ask Yuna to join our family! I went from not having a single clue how we were going to ask her, to a brilliant plan all of a sudden! We had a couple ideas, but nothing seemed good enough. The original idea was to go on a hot air balloon ride, and rez a huge prim on the ground with the question. We'd point it out, and she'd look down to see it. But, then we started brainstorming, and came up with something incredible.

We told her that we were having a laser tag party with some friends, and asked her to come on a little earlier so that we can "test" some things out. We got in the hot air balloon to "test" it. Once we were all in the balloon, it took off in a path. We had several stops along the way, which I had framed photos rezzed (held in the air by balloon clusters), with photos I took from the 2 week trial we did. They were invisible, and when we approached each photo, they appeared. Each stop had said a little blurb about how we felt about her.

The last stop, we got out of the hot air balloon, and walked up to more photo frames, this one held a photo I took of us a few days before. At first, this photo was a crucial part of how we would ask her, and us asking her to be part of the family was kind of the "unveiling" of the photo, as she hadn't seen the finished photo yet. These frames also held "the question."


I was kind of nervous! I mean, what if she didn't like us as much as we liked her? But, she did say yes! I bombarded her with all kinds of things... like the photo texture, and the Heartsdale Family group invite, so she could "officially" move in.


Then afterward, we had a small party! I DJ'ed the music (my first time playing music for someone other than myself!), I wasn't really expecting anyone to come, but the Zanzibar's and the Oleander's came! Both of these families have shown us so much support through this whole adoption process, it really brought tears to my eyes that they came to the adoption party for us, as well!

Yay, my graphics drivers have been fixed on the upgrade to Windows 10! It was terrible, instant blue screen of the computer crashing as soon as it booted up. I only had about 15 seconds to end all AMD processes before it crashed, then I had to disable the graphics card. Luckily, updated graphics drivers fixed the issue and I was only complaining about it for about half a day before they were fixed. Woo! Apparently it was affecting my particular brand of laptop. Who cares, I'm not broken anymore!

Anyway, ages ago, I found myself in need of a prefab, and was wandering around looking at these huge, mansion homes. It was incredible. I kept thinking: Who really needs more than one bedroom? Who would pay over $4,000L for a house? Who really needs that much SPACE? I was boggled. I hunted down a post where I briefly touched on it. (Dang, I was really depressed back there in 2008, wasn't I?)

The funny thing is: I seem to have become exactly *that* person. With us wanting to adopt a child, I find that our current house is not as big as I wish it to be. Plus, the longer I have the house, I keep noticing a gap here, a bigger gap there. I like room to grow with, a room where my alt can do her thing, and large, spacious rooms. I have been actively looking for a house like this, and ironically - Could not find a house that I really liked that was big enough. With us wanting a family, obviously we wanted a dedicated kitchen, dining room, living space, bathroom and at least two bedrooms. I had other specifications that needed to be met as well. I wanted the mouldings to be mesh, and not just be a texture, tintable walls, an optional snow add-on, and baked shadows.

I hunted and looked until I came across a particular one from Roost. It was love at first sight for me, and met every prerequisite I had for a home. The downfall: the price, at $5,100L. I TP'ed Jeffry over who gave me the linden to buy it, and told me to just "get it if you like it".

Of course, I hunted around a little bit more, looked through over 75 pages of listings on the marketplace... I'm going to try to break my habit of changing homes so often, so I really needed to LOVE this house, and know that it's the one that I am going to stick with. I did not really want to spend so much $L on it just to find a home I like better in the next couple days.

I couldn't find another that I liked as much as this East Ives house. I bought it, and eventually plan on getting the matching guest house. I put it down on the land, and it was so much bigger than my house I had before, I had to terraform. I eventually just leveled the hill behind the house, so now the back porch has a great view as well.

I love it now even more than I did before I bought it. Right now, it's completely perfect for us, and hopefully, our family. I'm not going to complain about the price either, as it's a very beautifully done house. I have yet to come across any issues with it, unaligned textures, gaps, anything. It's got several different options with it (two attic rooms, vs. one giant attic room) - and... well, it's just freaking gorgeous.

I'm just going to come out and say it: Jeffry and I had decided to adopt a SL child! I suppose I'll do a little background. We moved in together in RL several years ago, and we decided a couple years ago to start trying to have a child in real life. That was over two and a half years ago now. It's been difficult, the hole that still occupies my heart. We made the decision to get a dog last year, and I've chronicled Amelia's life with us so far through my RL blog.  From videos, to our breeder visits, updates on how big she is.... she's been the love of my RL. I complain a lot about her, but she really is a beautiful, smart, incredible dog. Anyway! Even with her, there's still... something missing.

The more I looked into SL adoptions, the more it appealed to me. If I can't have children in my RL, I need to pour my love into a child in SL. So, after talking with Jeffry about it, he agreed, and wanted to go pick out a panel... right then. I, however still had questions. I bombarded the lovely Alicia with questions about their family, the role play involved, and all that. I am still a little nervous about the role play aspect - I would love to do it, but I am not entirely sure what that entails. So, I'm hoping get matched with a lenient child, who is willing to teach us the role play part. Or give us hints on what we need to do. Parenting is not a exact science, right? All parents learn as they go, even adoptive parents.

We took this photo together, before we listed our panel at Heritage Adoptions. This was part of our little "photo shoot" to get a photo of the both of us for our Parent panel. I liked it, and kept this one. We're hoping to find a good match for us, so we can shower our SL child with all the love we can't give in our RL.

I've mentioned my alt's little store on my blog already. I have also mentioned that Sai will not be creating anything anymore, all my work will be done on my alt. Sai retired from creating, and her job now is to simply enjoy SL. It's been a fun little outlet for me, without any pressure, and I can be as creative as I want, without worrying about deadlines. I like it, it's fun to play with mesh, and everyday I learn new things in Blender! I have picked up a few things here and there while working with mesh, and since my alt first set up her store, I've gotten better with it!

Now that we have our own homestead sim, the huge majority of it is our home, but I set up a little corner off of our sim to set up my alt's store. I've been quickly running out of prims on the land it is housed at now, so it's great that I can put it on my homestead and expand it as I need to. I definitely to not expect it to grow popular enough to worry about lag on my sim - I just really want to be able to have extra prims when needed. Because, I do this for fun, it's not really a "business" like [ImpEle] turned out to be. However, isn't this the exact same thing I said about [ImpEle] when I first started? Haha!

Anyway, I have been working on setting it all up. I purchased a new store build, one that has just a little bit less wall space, so the store doesn't look too empty. And, I've been really re-vamping everything. I've changed all the mesh text I had around the store, added a whole new "informational bar" as I'm calling it - has a join group script, has all the links to the blog, marketplace, flickr.... all that kind of stuff. Another big thing I did was I switched all the vendors over to the CasperVend system, which seems to be ever popular with stores lately. I set all that up, got the redelivery options working... It's been an adventure, frustrating at times, and extremely expensive in upload fees to do all that - but in the end, I feel like it is worth it. The store reflects more of my mesh skills now, and doesn't look so bad anymore. It actually looks like a store I, myself, might shop at. Whew!

I snapped this photo last night before officially calling it a night. Since then, I added the soon-to-be new group gift, updated the remaining vendor display photos, finished listing everything on CasperVend, set up the new release (also got the demo ready), and foldered all the stuffs to be sent to bloggers. All I have left is to update my alt's picks, classified, write the notecards about the newest releases for my dear bloggers, and drop them off to who needs them! I'm excited to be at the home stretch with this, and even more excited that I won't have to deal with any more upload fees for right now! Now, I can get back to Blender and work on the shorts I have started.

We are talking boats today! I have always loved having a boat on my land, even if it's really a waste of prims. I don't care about driving it, I really just love the look of having a boat. Purely for display, and they make fabulous props to take photos on, or around. Boats in SL are really beautiful, and SecondLife is all about what makes you happy, right?

A long, long time ago, I first decided that I wanted a boat. I searched, and came across this beauty. At the time, it was top of the line, and one of the best. It has made several appearances on this blog, one even dating back to July, 2008.  I paid a lot of $L for it at the time, though I can not remember how much exactly anymore. I still think it's gorgeous... even now. I'd be happy to keep it out, and continue to enjoy it... however, this boat is 205 prims. It's made mostly of actual primitives, and it looks like the only sculpty parts in this boat are the seats. You really have to appreciate the beauty of a creation like this, how creative people can get with just the tools they have available to them at the time. This boat, I feel is a fantastic example of that.

Because of the high prim count, I decided to look into getting a new boat, and doing a little "updating." The first place that I wanted to look at, was obviously where I originally purchased this boat, MaxMarine. I looked up the creator in-world, hoping that he was still around and making boats. Unfortunately, I don't think he is. A little disappointed, but that's okay, there are many more boats in SL!


I started just flying around some of the popular boating sims, with the intention of looking at the variety of different boats out there. However, the first sim I visited, I came across a boat, docked on someone's land. Intsa-love. I felt like this was a really close version to the MaxMarine boat I came to adore. So, I inspected it, found who created it, and off I teleported to their store. Bonus was that it's only 50 land impact!

I found myself at A.E. Worx.  I ran around, searching for this boat, got hit by 2 automated forklifts in the process, but I found it. And it looked even more gorgeous than it did on the boating sim. The price was $2,250L. There was a point in SL, when I wouldn't have cared, I had a very reasonable linden income from running ImpEle, but now - the RL Jeffry buys $L's for us, and I have to make my little "allowance" that he gives me last for a couple of weeks. But even still, I decided to purchase it. Imagine my glee, when I go to pay the boat vendor, and it comes up saying $899L! Sold! I couldn't pay it fast enough.

I rezzed it once back on my sim, and realized just how spectacular it is. It's tintable to literally any color, it's got a really fabulous control panel, and drives beautifully. It's even got particle waves that splash out when you start driving it. I don't really intend on driving it, but it's still cool that I can if I want to.


While I was tinting it, and getting it ready to drive... Jeffry started playing the "I'm on a boat!" song. So, I had to find the most ridiculous dance I had, to go with that music. Needless to say, we both ended up changing into our swimwear, and dancing on the boat to that song. I totally took a video on it. Was definitely one of the silliest things I have done in SL for a while. It was totally worth it though, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing.