So, day 3 brings more progress with the new Imperial Elegance build. He has told me to start thinking of textures.... which is what I'm dreading. I have no idea what kind of texture I want! T_T

An updated shot of the whole thing. I still love it a lot, even while its plywood. I really can't wait for the texturing to begin - because if I love it this much - imagine how much I'll love it once done :D


The most noticeable thing he's done though - is put some stairs in. I didn't want deathtrap stairs, so these were a good option. I am unbelievably clumsy in SL, so if there is something that has a possibly of falling off, I probably will fall off it. However, these are wide, and I've walked over them at least 20 times, and I have yet to fall. :D I believe his plan is to put two stairs in, on opposite sides of the store. ^^


Some railing for the upstairs. As I said, I fall off everything - so, I wanted some kind of idiot proof barrier thing up here. :D


This... is the source of worry. I've made him redo this window/door area at least 5 times because I can't decide on what I like. XD No window? Arched doors? Window with arched doors? @_@ No idea. But - his patience is amazing. :O


It looks like he's finished the sitting area as well. I asked about continuing this rail concept to the other side of the store, and he said that was his plan, and then said it was going to be "rail city" XD I'll have rails in the sitting area, upstairs, and pose area. Heh. :D


Kamian noticed many people dropping by for my free AOs, and suggested I drop the freebies down, so people can grab them while the store is closed. I was worried they would be in his way while he worked, so I only put a sign down. But - he can move them if needed. :D

I have a crapload of things I want to release for the reopening. I want to do poses with Dancing Fans, a freebie male AO, finish my Moon poses, faun poses, and another fashion set. I will definitely not finish all them - but dammit, I WILL TRY! :D

Suddenly - I find that tons of things are going on at once. I've been waiting patiently for the builder I hired to start work on my new IE build. He's been busy, but IM'ed me last night, asking if I wanted him to start the build right away. Excited, I was like : "YUS!", and immediately tore down the old IE building to make way for the new one. I stood with him for a few hours, telling him what I did like, and didn't like. This will be a huge post, with tons of progress pictures.

It was my first time working with a builder, and I was clueless on how it's done. It took a little while to tell him what type of build I wanted, and the features. My main thing was that I wanted a little sitting area, and an upstairs viewable from the ground floor. So, he immediately got to work, setting up a layout that would work for me.


I was utterly shocked at how fast he worked. What would have taken me weeks to line up prims, size them and whatnot with scripts, took him like 5 minutes without any scripts. It was really amazing to watch him - and as I marveled to him, he even gave me a mini-lesson on how to do it. \o/


I was snapping pictures the entire time! That was one of my requests when I asked him to do my build. I wanted to be able to take lots of pictures. :D This particular picture was us trying to decide on what type of windows to put in. And! This will be the little sitting area, surrounded by windows, where I'll have my lucky board and freebies.


We had to have tried at least 6 different window layouts before deciding on this one. I swear, Kamian has the patience of a saint to have not exploded on me during this window stage. xD I was soooo confused of what I wanted. But nope - he was very patient, and found the perfect window. :D AND! I loooove windows, and he loves windows - so I told him to put as many as he wants in. ^^


As of last night, before I logged off for bed - this is what it looked like. We had the basic layout decided, and it looked very nice in it's plywood form. I love it. :D The layout is exactly what I wanted, from the sitting area, to the upstairs.


When I logged on this morning, I found he had done a considerable amount of work while I was sleeping. He made the entrances prettier (I told him they looked like garage doors before xD), and added a few windows off the the sides. OMG, its so awesome.


He also textured some of the floor sometime last night. While I'm not particularly fond of the texture, I do like the fact that it's hardwood, and I also like the color. I still need to IM him about that. XD These stairs are tiny and totally cute :D


It also looks like he was in the process of adding a rail thing to the sitting area. This looks a bit unfinished, so I'm not sure if he plans on keeping it, adding to it, or what - but I like the direction its going in.


The entrances look great too. I was really worried they would end up looking like garage doors still, but they turned out really great. I've changed the TP point to right in the doorway and added the sign, for customers as well. Just so they know that I will return. :D


The thought occured to me this morning before I logged in: "OMG, I don't want a plain ceiling! I must IM him ASAP!" Well, imagine my shock when I tped to IE, and seen that he's already thought of it.

There are still some things to be decided though. Like, the stairs. I know I want curvy stairs (but not spiral!), and he told me he hates staircases. XD So, right now, he's just building, building, building, and said the stair placement will come to him later. I've loved every suggestion he's had so far, so I'll trust him on that one. :D

I am unbelievably impressed by the build so far. Its beautiful, and everything I wanted. And its not even textured! :O

Friday's Challenge from Alicia was:

We spend a great deal of time in Second Life shopping. Why do you think this is? Do you think you could have fun in SL if you didn't shop [and that includes getting freebies!] for a week? How big is your inventory? Do you keep it organized or is it a big mess? Do you shop for mostly fashion items, or do you shop for things like toys and prefabs and other gadgets? Show off a picture of you hanging out in your favorite store!

I think my whole SL experience revolves around shopping. Whether it be actully shopping, freebie hunting, window shopping, drooling, or stalking lucky chairs, I would get bored in SL if it was taken away from me. I probably would be okay for a few days, finding new places to explore and what not - but after that, I'd get frustrated that I don't have anything to wear, and give up completely.

My inventory is a disaster area, and is at 24,000 items. However - I also have several thousand items boxed and tucked away in my Fashionista Closet - so I really don't know exactly how much I have anymore. I really don't think it's such a huge secret of how messy my inventory can get, but - really, once I set my mind to it, I get it all clean and boxed up in one day. Its just... finding the thing to motivate me enough to do it. Last time - I was faced with the Hair Fair, and told myself I was NOT GOING until my inventory was completely organized. I dredged though it all, and was there the minute Hair Fair opened.

I acutually shop for many, many things. I absolutely love scripts, script systems, and toys. I like finding spiffy drivable things, and weird wearable things as well. I also love furniture shopping. I spend about 80% of my time in SL at my SL home, and it needs to look good. I spend days and days and days hunting for the perfect furniture, setting things up, and perfecting every single room. So, I enjoy furniture shopping alot - to get design ideas... because, I really have none. XD Prefab shopping is a blast too, as long as I am not looking for me a home. I love looking at the builder's talent, deciding which rooms would be what, laying out objects in my head, and admiring the lot size it would require XD

I just love shopping in general. :D

However, I have one most favorite store. I have several favorites, but only one most favorite. Yabusaka.


I tell you - Yabusaka's work is soooo amazing, it makes me really depressed that he doesn't get the publicity he definitely deserves. I am in love with his sculpty work, and he makes shoes, jewelry, furniture and even prefabs in incredible detail.


Plus, how can you not love a store that has cuteness like this at the entrance?

I am a bit late on posting this - sorry! Yesterday was a giant swarm of things, from giving tours of my home, to picking an outfit for hump day, to perfecting the build I put together for the hump day party last night. But, anyway. Yesterday's challenge was (from Alicia's blog):

In SL, we're often afraid of looking silly. I've noticed this more with bloggers than with anyone else. Why have you made your avatar look the way it does? What does it mean to you? Do you think people respond to you differently if you're attractive? Today, put on something just totally crazy. It can be a funny avatar, a crazy outfit, weird hair, or just some bling-blangin' jewelry. Go out in public, see if anyone has anything to say about it. See if you think of yourself differently if your avatar isn't perfect looking. Don't forget to take a picture of your outfit!!

My avatar is made to be what I wish I was in RL. I created her with the thought that SL is a world where I can do everything I can't do in RL. In RL, I am constantly dreaming of being able to wear really cute shorts, miniskirts, beautiful gowns and the like - however, I don't have the body to wear them. So, Sai wears what I can't in RL, and she was created for it.


Surprisingly - its meant a lot to me. Before SL, I was fashion clueless (and, for the most part, I still am) in RL. When talking to someone, and they mentioned fall colors, stilettos and pumps, my eyes would gloss over and I'd get all confused. @_@ Because SL follows the same RL fashion trends, and my avatar follows them - I find myself able to follow fashion trends now, in both SL and RL. I still can't wear what my avatar does - I still find enjoyment that I can wear awesome things in at least one life. And that, means quite a bit to me. My avatar has become an extension of who I am.


For the challenge - I went out as a cat avatar. I was actually hanging out at the Katat0nik chair last night, and remembered the challenge. So - I changed into the avatar right there, and as soon as the avatar parts rezzed for me, I had gotten an IM asking where I got the avatar, and how cute it was. I stayed there for a bit, and got about 3 more IMs telling me that the avatar was cute.

I actually enjoy going around as a tiny, or some kind of animal creature. I wish I could do it more often, but with people and their no-script zones, I can't do that. I'd rather not TP into a place, wearing a tiny avatar, with skinny human legs poking out through the bottom. If people would take off their no srcipt zone (WHY would you put no scripts anyway? Pointless.), I would be wearing these type of avatars more often. Why? Because they are cute and adorable :D

Thanks to Quaintly, I got an incredible deal on some land. I originally went to check out a 2240sq. meter plot, or something around that size, but ended up walking away with a great 4256sq. meter plot for dirt cheap. That is over twice the size of my land in Polis, and half the price in teir. After a little bit of thinking, I somehow knew exactly what I wanted. First: A house.

I went to Barnesworth, the Homestore, and a few other places, before I remembered the one house I truly fell in love with a while ago. Because I lived in a prefab rental, I couldn't have my own home - so I've kept a list of gorgeous homes that I would love to have if I ever owned land again. Well, now is the time, and I was actually unbelievably excited.

There was actually several things I missed about owning land. Being able to ban morons, being allowed to terraform my own waterways, ponds and stuff, being able to choose my own home, laying down my own trees, and even simply renaming my plot to suit me better. But mostly and most important - to be able to call it MY home. Anyway, on to the pictures!


This house, is SO me, and was the one house that I adored back when it first came out. I went to look at it that day and said: OMG. It's modern, looks like a mini mansion, and is almost greyscale. OMG, mine. I swear, its almost like this house was made just for me. :D And, it comes with a HUD for the windows and lights. O.o;


The rear looks fantastic too. When I showed a member of my RL family this house, he said: "There's no windows!". but as soon as I flipped the camera around, he was like :O Which, I guess is good. I still haven't really finished moving stuff from the old place to this one, but I am still deciding what I want this extra room to be for. Seriously - it has a Living Room, Bedroom, and a Den. I mean, WTF is a Den, anyway? XD


I also knew I wanted a pond. I love Katat0nik's pond so much, and I spend so much time there, I thought I would attempt one of my own. Plus, I had tons of space in front of my house, that I originally had no idea what to do with. So, this was a great idea, I think. I also thought, since I was making a pond, I might as well make it beautiful and a serene place to hang out. So, I added some nature sounds, fireflies, trees, and a dock. I still have some more things I would like to add - like HPMD birds, bunnies, and those bubble chairs I won from the HPMD lucky chair. And possibly some more rocks. If prims allow, I'd also like to add a few fish in the pond. :D

I am also proud to say that I terraformed both the little ocean thing behind my house, as well as my cute little pond. And, omg - I am totally proud, they turned out even better than I expected. :D

BTW - There is still quite a bit of Envision land left, though I am not sure if there are any beachfronts still available. If you are in the market for some great land, read this over, and IM Tiyuk Quellmalz - his prices are amazing, and he seems like a promising new estate owner.

You know I can't resist a good challenge - so, when Alicia posted her blogger's challenge for today, I had to do it. Today's topic, from her blog:

Second Life is a huge place, but we all have our favorite place where we seem to visit often just to look it, to hang out, to take friends, or just be alone and think. Where is your place, how did you find it, and what keeps you going back? Go there and take a picture!

At first thought, I was convinced this was going to be difficult. Lately, I've been ridiculously anti-social, and even dread going out to shop. Then what have I been doing? Usually sitting at home, staring at a wall. Seriously. However, once I really started thinking about it, it wasn't so hard. I actually came up with a few places to share.


As I mentioned several times before in this blog, I originally came to SL to explore Buddhism and Shinto religions. So, naturally, one of the first places I came to was a place that gives Buddhism classes - The Skeptical Buddhist Sangha. It was my favorite place, and I still return often to sit and hang out. It has grown quite a bit since my first visit, and gets better each time I return.


Next place is the Life is Good sim. Its a great island filled with trees, flowers, poseballs and sitting areas. It's fun to explore, sit and watch things, and even take pictures. Just being here is relaxing, really.


I absolutely have to blog about Kenroku as well. If you enjoy gardens, parks, nature and the like, Kenroku just might be your place as well. After seeing Straylight, other sims were just like: Meh to me. However, once I seen and explored Kenroku a bit, it became one of my favorite places, even better than Straylight. Its Japanese inspired, with Asian elements scattered all around. And, it's huge and beautiful to explore.


My life in SL lately has become obsessed with the 7Seas Fishing game. Katat0nik's fishing hole in Axis Mundi has become my favorite place to fish. While its simple, and really not spectacular, the people who fish here are great. Whenever I am looking for human interaction, this is where I head to. Even if I really don't want to talk to people, I still come here to fish. Because no matter who is around, or even if you are alone, fishing is calming in itself. I have been spending a large amount of time here in Axis Mundi, because I love this place. :D


Lastly, my home. Whenever I feel "blah", go afk, or just don't want to do anything, this is where I sit. The home I share with Kagic is my personal Zen area, and I furnished it with things that made me happy. It is probably my ultimate favorite place in SL to be, no matter what mood I am in. I go through many moods here in this house, from happy with Kagic, uninspired by not having any ideas, to even irritation with other people.

First off - I want to think all who have given me LMs, locations, and tips on where to find a mall. I've visited tons and tons over the last few days, but I think the answer was right under my nose this whole time.

The little plot behind my store has been for sale for a few weeks now, and I am thinking of picking it up for this purpose, and I think I can benefit from it for a while. Its about 572 meters or so, and will give me around 220 prims, which is great. I think as soon as I hear from my builder, I will purchase it, and get started on making the store there. I am deciding on this for several reasons right now:

1. Instead of having a LM giver while IE is closed, I can simply put a teleport script in. Much easier than grabbing LMs and stuff, I think.
2. If I like this land, I might keep it. I'd love a little place to fish, and having this at the back of my store wouldn't be so bad. (Though, I'd have to have prim water, instead of pretty, reflective linden water... which sucks -.-)
3. Yay! Extra prims!
4. The tier isn't so bad for the size/prims.

I also plan on making my own store! I mean, its a temporary build, right? I did an impulse buy today, and I plan on making it the centerpiece of the temporary store. Ready to see it? :D


OMG, isn't it adorable?! :D The pictures really don't do it justice - It totally looks better in-world. I think when its done being the center of IE's smaller store, it will go in my fishing pond thing. :D

But not forever! As several of you know, I contacted my favorite builder a few weeks ago, asking if he had time to make my little store a build. He was booked with a build, and then had a mall to finish. I offered to wait - and I did. Well, last night - he IMed me, saying that his mall build is going slow, he has a little idle time, and offered to start mine while he is doing the mall. Of course, my build won't be going as fast, but it will still get done.

The bad side is - I have to close down the store while he works on it, which, I guess I knew. I am a bit sad by it - ever since I started IE, I've never had to close it. I've always remodeled while it was open, and stuff. Never actually closed it down. So, IE will be closed for a couple weeks. I don't really know when I'll need to close it, only that it will probably just 'disappear' for a while. I've asked my builder if I could leave a LM giver or something that would give out a LM to some smaller location that has newer stuff, and he agreed. Now - my question: Does anyone know a reasonably priced mall with empty spaces I can have a few items for sale at?

It's still kind of in 'idea' stage right now. I've been working on a list of what features I wanted, but when he asked "Ok, but what do you want it to *look* like?" I was like, "Uhh...", I really had no clue. So, he asked me to find pictures on google, of concepts about what I want it to look like. So, I am in the process of gathering a few images.

I also asked one important question to him. Can I take pictures of the progress? And, he said I could :D So, I'll probably give status pictures here, when he updates something. ^^

HOWEVER! Since I will be closing the mainstore for a while (but I do hope to have a secondary store somewhere), I will be working on a huge release, for when IE opens again. :D

So - I have a couple things today. I will be hosting the Hump Day party on Sept 24th, for the Asian Style theme, and I am excited about it. I found THE PERFECT skybox thing for it, and I can't wait to set it up. I didn't want to have us all dance -in- the shop, because there seriously isn't enough room in there xD So, I'll be putting in a skybox, themed for the party. I'll be spending the time this week setting it up and stuff. Its kinda small-ish, big enough for dancing, yet way too small for Meara's stay-puft avatar. XD I wonder if I should keep it a surprise? Or show progress of it?

Anyway. I went on a skin hunt yesterday. I was doing the Love Soul hunt (omg, the zombie killing was so much fun!), and came across a little store called Body Soul. After finishing the hunt, I went back to the shop to get a closer look at the skins. The had demos at the store, but no way to actually purchase them. O.o; So, I grabbed the demos, and went home to try them on anyway.

I think these are quite cute, however I am not sure they look all that great on my shape. *Bangs head on desk* WHY can't I find a skin that looks better than my current one?! But so far - Aden and MinaJunk are rating pretty high on my list. I might play with the Splendor skins a bit more. I think they look great on my shape too.

Apparently - the lindens are running around trying to fix all the bad things in the viewer that is pissing people off. Now, with the introduction of the new RC viewer, huge things are happening. The death of group chats! I am only running the standard viewer, but have heard about this new feature. So, I decided to test it by opening FashCon group chat. I got this:

:O Yay Yay Yay~ One of the most annoying things ever is to hear a ping and see someone asking "Hey, I know this isn't allowed, but where can I find good skirts?" So irritating. But, if they can't open the chat session, how are they going to ask? *does happy dance*


I took my alt to my favorite sandbox so she can open some boxes - and came across this. xD It was so weird to see it because this this only a 15 minute sandbox, and I NEVER see anyone else there... let alone a griefer. :O Was kinda comical, actually.

After helping Aisuru with her AO last night, I was inspired to make a new one! I used Vista animations for a looooong time, and recently put on the freebie one I made. I started hunting in my inventory for interesting AOs (I really do have an embarassing amount of them), and came across one from TorridWear. Its called "Valentine" so, I am assuming I picked it up sometime around Valentine's day - though I seriously can't remember.


I tried it on, and was really impressed with it. I added a Sexywalk, my favorite flys and hovers, and wore it for the rest of the night. This morning, I went to the TorridWear store and bought more. :D While these are pretty much static poses, they blend well into each other, and look really nice.

Thanks for the comments on my previous post, guys. :D I like all the skins listed, in their own ways - but still.... I shall continue my hunt.

A few nights ago, I asked Kagic if we could have a pet. I rezzed all my pets out for him - my cat, panther, black lab, french bulldog, and even my horse. Eventually, we settled on the lab, and I was reminded of how cute SL pets are.

You don't have to crate train, feed them, take them out on walks.... they just roam around and greet you in SL. However, with this one - you can pet it, picnic next to it, buy different collars or bandannas, shake its paw, or even play frisbee. :D Its super cute.

Anyway. We call him Chevy, and he is always there to greet me when I TP home. ^^

So - my PeeCee is grinding, freezing and definitely not happy lately. I believe my hard drive is failing, and should happen any time now. If I don't log in or blog for a while... that's probably why. xD

But, anyway. Last night, I went through my skins folder to see if I had any skins that I like better than my current one. I have a huge collection of skins, actually. I adore various skins, but I always only wear one.

These are the two I am debating between. I really love the one on the left. However, when I tried it on for Kagic, he wasn't too fond of it. And then - my Nora skin edit on the right. I love the Nora skins, but I fear that in the coming months - they will be as common as the Eloh Eliot mods. *Sigh*


Next: Dutch Touch. These are cute - I love many of the makeups. However, I think they make me look really, really bitchy.


These are Rosemar/Cupcakes skins that were either group gifts or freebies. I like them because they have a certain charm about them. But, I really couldn't find a skin tone I liked.


Chai. OMG, the eyebrows. I adore her makeup ideas, and her Nutmeg tone. However, no matter what I do to the eyebrows or my shape, I can't make these skins really work on me. I have various skins from Chai that were group gifts, and even one that I loved so much I had to purchase xD


Tuli makes beautiful skins, but none other than the newest Elizabeth line really worked on my shape. But, these are stunnning, and probably really high up on my list.


My shape was actually made for a Japanese skin. When I was a newbie - I hung out at alot of Japanese shopping centers, so I was exposed to alot of Japanese styled skins. Ando f course, the first skin I purchased was one of them. So, I think this style of skin looks pretty good on my shape.

*Sigh* Sai's skin hunt continues!

So, a little bit of Tiny Empires talk for a minute. A while ago, some new "features" were added to the Tiny Empires Federation HUD, which you gained or lost citizens based on what decisions you made. The disasters are: Famine, Crime Wave, and Disease. I stuck with Famine, constantly paying for researchers to go to inspect the area and whatever, and after a while, I finally got this:

\o/ I am really excited, now I don't have to pay craploads of gold to pay for famine anymore :D

Also, I've been trying to save up some $L for the builder that I want to hire. But, I can't seem to stop shopping! So, I've been engrossing myself in as many hunts as I possibly can. I've completed the Metamorphoses hunt, the Discord hunt, TekuTeku hunt, and even the MiaSnow hunt. I've been doing bunches of freebie hunting and lucky chair waiting. The lucky chairs I've cleaned out lately: Muism, Zaara, Aoharu Walk, Cyber Rapunzel, and even Silent Sparrow.... And I am currently working on TekuTeku's chairs.

The freebies coming out lately are just amazing as well. Such as the Rosemar/Cupcakes group gift skins, Alienbear's beautiful scepters, Di Chaintilly's free skin, to Chai's stunning powder skins - I'm really beginning to feel spoiled. Our SL creators are so generous, and I really love that they give us a reason to shop without spending money, or something to do while we have no $L to spend.

Ok, so maybe the store card sale isn't as much as a failure as I thought xD I seem to have gotten quite a response, and have decided to definitely do this again in the future. :D But, today, I have a few random pictures to show.

This was me for the majority of the day today. Luckily, I wasn't doing anything extremely important. I was on a mission to get all 3 items from the Muism lucky chair - and after 3 days and a few annoying losses due to SL issues... I finally got them! \o/

However, while I waited, I kept getting notifications that people were getting stuff from the lucky board. It was really weird, because my lucky board has never been that active before. So, I TP'ed to investigate, and was greeted with this scene.


People were actually hanging out at my lucky board! :O This was such a weird concept to me, that people were actually wanting the dorky things in my board XD But, still - it made me smile to know people like my things enough to wait for them :D

Yep. Doesn't seem like there was much interest in a store card sale. The busiest day for sales is always the day I send my notice out to my group (which actually hit 1300 members! :O zomg) and FashCon - but, it didn't do as well as I thought it would yesterday. Bah. Maybe it will pick up later on in the week. ^^ If this did well, I planned to do another one near Christmas - but I think I might have to rethink that. Ah well. That's a long time away.

So - yesterday was my RL birthday, and Kagic has been gone since Thursday night. So, I wanted to see him for a bit last night. :D He logged on a bit late, and we went to the skybox I set up a few days prior.

Its unbelievably dorky, and I am running out of skyboxes for various occasions. Good thing important days are rare :D I had a bit of a disaster though. I had the perfect gown, I resized it, tried it on, perfected each prim... But.. well, it was filled with alpha textures, and of course - the skybox is filled with alpha textures as well. So, when I stood in the skybox, it looked like I had no dress on. -.- I had to change, quickly. Luckily I found this gown sitting unused in my inventory, and it was totally adorable :D


I think I had a good night with him, and a good birthday. However, I did say some things last night to him that I probably shouldn't have. I am not sure if I should blog about it just yet, because I am still unsure about his thoughts on it. He seems to like to say "OK, sure" a lot to me, without ever telling me what he really thinks. O.o; So, depending on what he says about it tonight, I'll decide if I should mention it again or not xD