I've had so much to do lately, and I haven't gotten hardly anything done! The one thing I did do, however - was relocate my store to a sim that has lower prims, and the parcel is slightly smaller. But, the price is fantastic, the location is even better, the sim has no lag, and I'm not paying for space and prims that I'm not using. So, win! And, I even decided to have another 50% off pose sale - because it's become tradition to have a sale whenever I move my store. :D

I finished the new build for the store (which is really just a modified version of the Barnesworth house that Jeffry and I live in now), and set up my vendors and stuff. I had to get rid of the store card system (but I will still honor store cards manually!), and change vendors - but I think its worth it.

With that scratched off my list - I started landscaping our sim, Cheys Cove. It took me almost 2 weeks, but I finally got the house somewhat in order, so now it's time to do some landscaping. The landscaping isn't even half finished, I have floating palm trees and beach grass all over the place - but I thought it was best to sit down the rocks first... then focus on trees... then grass. So, in my pictures, just ignore the floating landscape objects, I'm working on them xD

This was my starting point, where I just rezzed all the rocks I had so I can shift-drag them around as I need them. xD I love these rocks - they are gorgeous and only 2-3 prims for like a pile of them... but they are non-phantom. So, when walking, you occasionally run into an invisible wall near the rocks. Its just one of the things I sacrifice for beautiful landscaping I guess. xD


I only have the rocks on the chicken area done. xD I didn't realize it, but landscaping a whole sim is a lot of work, time consuming, and extremely exhausting.


I probably went a little crazy with the rocks, but I loooove a lot of them. Empty space kind of bothers me, so I use giant rocks to fill it. :D


I did take all my photos in the shadow viewer, and I just love the shadows on the water on this photo.


I've been eyeing these stepping stones from Organica for a while now. I just couldn't justify spending $500L on them when I only wanted one. It came in a pack of straight stones, curved stones, in like 5 different colors. I love them though. :D

It's my goal to have the whole sim completely landscaped by Sunday. :D

So, I lost a chicken a little while ago. It had lag-walked out of it's pen, went off-world, and returned to my inventory. Ever since then, I've been terrified of losing another one. These chickens are quite important to me, and they really aren't just 'virtual chickens'. But anyway. Ever since then, I started looking at homestead islands.

At first, it was just to amuse myself, to show me that I really couldn't afford one anyway, so I should just give up. But, as I looked, I began to really wish I had one. It became an obsession. I'd find a homestead I wanted and mull over ideas how to buy it in my head. And, somehow... Jeffry got into the obsession too. :O

He found this land, and it was love at first sight, for him, and me. It was the perfect island, I loved it as soon as I seen it. Well, aside from the ugly grass textures, those were really, really ugly (I actually think the first thing I said to him when I TP'ed in was something like 'These ground textures look like crap'). I adored the layout of the island, the hills, the lack of lag, the fact that we got estate rights, everything. We talked about how we could afford it, and after much complaining and mourning at my $L balance, I decided to buy it.

I was pretty much pissy about the cost of it all night, and poor Jeffry tried pretty much everything he could to cheer me up. I played with estate tools for a while, which was soooo amusing to me. Changing the water height, sending region messages, playing with the sun. It was a great 15 minutes of amusement. xD

But, after I got all that out of my system, I looked through my inventory for some sand to change the textures. It took me a good hour, but I eventually worked out how to use the ground textures tab, and got something I was really proud of.


The next morning I woke up, and instead of being all irritated about it again, it hit me that this island is ours, and is our little piece of paradise. I am extremely excited, happy, and I adored the island even more. The ground textures are perfect, beautiful, and it doesn't even need to be terraformed at all. I love it :D


So, I returned everything to the previous owner that morning, and set to work on moving in. I laid down our house, the chickens, and started putting out furniture. I think I got halfway through setting furniture out before I got bored and started looking for other things to do. xD

So, this blog post has been a little overdue. Ever since blogging about Jeffry's and my decision to have a SL baby, I've received several notecards and IMs of support, people telling me their stories and suggestions. I'm really happy that other people have experienced this - and are willing to share their experiences with me because really - I haven't seen a blog that explained how pregnancies worked in SL. I haven't found no tips, no mention of the best maternity clinics - nothing. So, I'm grateful to those who have dropped me notecards. They've really helped. :D

I was most worried about my friends though, as I said before. Shortly after blogging about our decision, I was cornered in group chat. Instead of telling me what a crappy choice I made - most of them seemed to be filled with curious questions about it. And, after all that, I was still accepted, and nothing has really changed at all, so I am sooooo relieved.

One of the questions I got was: Are you going to do the maternity clinic thing and all? Yes, we are! We eventually settled on Rock a Bye Babies Maternity and Birthing Center. When we went to check them out - they had physicians and nurses there when we TP'ed in to help us. This was probably the best looking clinic I've seen in SL, so I was sold on it. They helped us pick out a package that fit us. All we really wanted was the exams, lamaze and the actual birth. ^^

Saturday at 8am was our appointment. It didn't really go very well, considering I was ejected by security right after being TP'ed in. Which put me in a foul mood for the rest of the day. But, we rescheduled for later that day.

It was pretty realistic. They ask you questions about your pregnancy, like if your feet are swollen, or what your stress level is, and if you've had cramping or bleeding. Then you lay on the chair and they take the heart rate of the baby and all kinds of stuff. I've never been pregnant in RL, so all the information went completely over my head - but it was a really interesting experience. :D

At one point, after we came home - even Jeffry said it was realistic, almost like we were experiencing it in RL together xD

This is a blog post I've kind of been dreading. No, not because I regret my decision - because of the friends I might lose, the bad comments I might receive, or the loss of respect. I am prepared to be looked down upon for it, or possibly lose some friends over it, but its a decision Jeffry and I came to together, after discussing it often.

We decided to have a prim baby. Yeah, I know. But no - not just the prim baby, we decided to go the whole pregnancy thing and all. (But don't worry, I will never wear a talking belly in public, or around anyone else. :P) I used to hate going shopping, and seeing pregnant avatars, or hearing prim stomachs tell the world that the mother-to-be needed vitamins, or anything. It was extremely annoying, and I really didn't want to be spammed by it all while I shopped for shoes. And, I never understood why someone would want to do that, in a perfect world, where you never had to worry about getting pregnant.


However, I knew Jeffry wanted a SL marriage, and he brought the idea of a prim baby up occasionally. I skirted around the idea, because prim babies kinda scared the crap out of me (although, admitting, I had considered buying a prim baby a couple months ago for some kind of amusing pet). But, as I got to know Jeffry, my thoughts changed. I started to warm up to the idea of having a prim baby. I mean, after all - nurserys in SL are sooooooo cute, and I wanted to decorate one. And, the mix of my curiosity and being interested in how SL pregnancies worked - eventually... as I'm getting closer to booking a plane flight to meet him in RL, I agreed to have a baby with Jeffry.


I debated - should I keep it from my friends? Just hide in my house for 6 weeks? Should I come out and risk being the oddball pregnant girl who is the butt of all jokes? Should I risk losing my friends by telling them about it? I thought for several days. And, decided I will not hide, and this is how I want to spend my SL. I mean, I'm not just here to please other people, right? So, this is my blog post - saying my decision to have a baby with my partner, Jeffry.

I plan on writing about having a baby, showing pregnant pictures, writing about how crappy it is modding clothes for maternity is, making and blogging pregnancy poses I make, and even writing about lamaze and stuff. Yes, we signed up at a clinic to do the whole prenatal care, lamaze, and delivery things :P

So, if you see mah belleh growing - this is why. On August 17th, 2009, we will have a baby girl named Jasmine Arlene. :D

A couple weeks ago Jeffry and I expanded Byakuya, our land. I had around 5200sq meters previously - and when a neighbor moved... we decided to pick it up. So now - Byakuya is 8832sq meters, which is more land than I've ever had - and I'm officially paying enough tier for my home and my store to buy my own homestead. xD

But anyway. Jeffry has been on vacation for a couple days, so I've was amusing myself with playing with shadows last night. I landscaped the house earlier in the day and was so excited with how it came out... though I wish the awesome rocks I put down were phantom. Like omg - why would you make non-phantom sculpted rocks? And no mod at that? :O

I downloaded the new Kirsten's S18 viewer, hoping I can get some shadows, because her previous viewer's didn't give me any shadows at all. I downloaded it, installed it, and ran it - Yay! Shadows! And instead of getting 3 frames per second, I get 6-8 now! \o/ So I roamed around the house, looking for good shots.

I think our house is beautiful. I don't think Jeffry liked it at all when I got it, but I think he's coming around to it. xD Its a Barnesworth house - brand new, and I don't think its in the store yet. I was roaming around the sim looking at the houses when I spotted it, and it had a info board, so I bought it from there xD


I really love SL shadows, its amazing how such a normally boring picture can be brought to life with a couple shadows.


There are 2 main rooms in this house, one which is the bedroom - and another which is a huge, huge room. The huge room, I made into a hot tub area, sitting area and little mini kitchen. Sounds weird, but I think it's positioned well enough to work :D I was also so excited with this house, because I purchased one of those Intan Couple Poseball things. You load your couple's poses and dances in there, then it rezzes a set of poseballs for you when you click it. I've put some dances and some.... other couple's animations in there as well. Less clutter \o/


The bedroom. Jeffry brought this black and red bed with him when he moved in with me, which he was absolutely insistent on using. So, I had to plan the house around this bed, which is where my black and red theme came from... which is shown throughout the house. On the other side of this picture is a fireplace, and a small sitting area. ^^


Outside, with the non-phantom rocks. Seriously - WHY no mod? :O Ah well, the things we sacrifice for pretty landscaping items. :D


The pond. Jeffry wanted koi, and at one point probably had at least 20 physical koi in this tiny pond. I pleaded with him to get less laggy fish, and pleaded, pleaded, pleaded - until he eventually got frustrated with me and got some little flexi fish that swam around in circles. :D


This is where I spend most of my time. The chicken coop, where I keep my favorite chickens. I took a couple pieces from the barnesworth house - and modded a chicken coop from it - I think it turned out absolutely awesome, and I totally love it. Its perfect, and matches the house even better than I imagined it would. I just wish I could get those ugly blue lights off of the radi-o-statics. Looks like I'm breeding radioactive frogs under black lights or something :/

My two favorite things in Second Life right now: Jeffry, and our little family of chickens. I wrote about Jeffry in my previous post - now, I'm going to write about all the things that happened with our chickens within the past couple days.

I was literally being dragged to some stupid family event on July 4th. Which, I absolutely hate going to family things... so it put me in a really bad mood for the days leading up to the Fourth, because I was really dreading it. The day came - and I was feeling extremely irritable. Jeffry logged on, and I was still really down and irritated at everything. So, I went to take a shower for the family BBQ, and when I came back - he had a couple surprises for me. :O

Two 2nd Growth Ancient SionChicken eggs! I've been itching to buy some for weeks, but he would never let me - saying to "wait" and stuff. And, with the recent sprout of Ancient eggs among my circle of friends, it wasn't really helping my impatience to get an ancient. I've been really wanting one - so I was soooooo excited he got some for me. I yelled at him a lot (the poor guy), but I was excited, and somehow didn't care anymore about the BBQ. xD

We both waited by the chicken coop for 2 hours, waiting, waiting, waiting for them to hatch before I had to leave... begging to the eggs to give us a male and female pair. We waited some more, clicking the egg every 30 seconds, and then first one hatched. A female! we were soooo excited... until the second egg hatched to be another female. So, I told him that when I come back from the BBQ, we would go out, and I'd buy a couple more (we were determined to get a male and a female at that point, and they were reasonably cheap).


So, try number 2. I picked up 2 more 2nd Growth ancients - and one original double bright ancient. Out of a total of 5 eggs, at least ONE has to be a male, right? xD

We waited and waited again. The first one hatched - female. A couple minutes later - the second one - a MALE! Yay, it was so exciting. :D And then, the original ancient hatched to be yet, another female.


So, on July 4th, we welcomed Farrah, Mai, Eve, Danielle and Tyler to our chicken family. :D

So, a lot of stuff happened within the past couple days, I'm going to be splitting this post into 2 posts - one for Jeffry, and one later for the stuff that recently happened with our chicken family :D But first, a random picture I've been hoarding.... I love this picture, its soooooo cute.

On Saturday, Jeffry and I were cuddling, which is my favorite part of the day - when he passes me a gushy love letter notecard which really made me cry - even in real life, it was very sweet. Then, shortly after that - he gave me an object and told me to put it on - which turned out to be a necklace he had gotten customized to say "I love you Sai". It was sooooooo adorable, I yelled and screamed at him for doing something like that - but inside I was totally excited and wasn't sure how I can be any happier. :D

But, next thing I knew, he was asking me to get on some poseball with him. Yay, more cuddles! I thought. But, no.


I knew he wanted to 'officially' propose to me, because he wanted me to remember the day, and for it to be special - but I didn't expect this. I loved it, and was so great. Jeffry is so important to me now in SL, I'm actually extremely excited to get married to him. He's been wanting to do the formal proposal for a while, and now we can start planning the wedding. \o/ I was sooooooo happy, I mean, can life get any better?

Yes. Before I answered a huge YES to him, he told me to check my email inbox. And there it was.... a partnership request. :O My internets was having huge fail - where every time I hit "Accept" I got a 404 Page not found error on the Second Life website. :( Even when he sent me a second one - I got the same error. So, I sent him one - and now....


I'm so excited. OMG, every time I look at it I get all girly, giggly and happy. xD He wants to start planning the wedding I think, but I really have no idea where to start :O I mean, in RL - you can look through the phone book and stuff to check out a wedding planner, or something - but SL... is not that easy. xD I'm so excited though. I mean, I never really imagined myself to get married, didn't think I wanted it - but now, I can't wait. I seem to be becoming quite the domesticated girl, aren't I? :O



And, a silly video I took of us dancing in our bedroom. And, he looks so freaking adorable in his fedora hat he picked up when we went to the hair fair together. xD

But its funny - I thought I was happy with other guys I've blogged about. But no guy ever made me feel the way Jeffry does. He is so sweet, we are looking for the same things in SL and RL - and is perfect in almost every way. :O I can say with confidence - that its been almost years since I've been this happy in SL. :D