Day 220 - My 3 Wishes

It's time again for a Berry Meme Monday! I just love these. I really enjoy talking about stuff, but sometimes I just have NO idea what to talk about! This one is a fun topic: My 3 Second Life Wishes.






1. I wish tier was lower. I know, I know. Everyone wishes this. But even though I'm very blessed to have an island, and I'm very very lucky to have the people I have living there, I still dream of having an island just for Aldwyn and me one day. I want to landscape an entire island just for us. I feel like more people would have islands if tier was lower and that could only lead to more beauty and fun in Second Life. We can dream!

2. I wish I had skills. I would LOVE to create in SL. I would make so much furniture and landscaping stuff and jewelry if I only had the skill! It's not that I haven't tried, believe me. But there are some people who pick up these things easily and some who do not, and I am a do not. :-p Plus, I have like no artistic talent at all, so doing textures and whatnot would be ridiculous and everything would look like a hot mess. I'd like photography skills, too. Or at least social skills!! I think that I am a decent enough DJ, but not social enough these days to be able to throw parties like I used to, and my RL schedule doesn't allow me to work at clubs. I would just like to be able to do something!

3. I wish people I didn't like would leave SL. Hahahahaahha.... sorry. Had to say it. Okay, let me cross this out.

3. I wish people loved SL in the way that I do. Despite the lag, and the viewer problems, and the bits of drama here and there, I adore this world. I hate when people say mean things about it. And if they DON'T like it or don't want to be here, I wish they'd leave and just...go away. Don't stick around talking about how they're not in SL any more because of *insert whatever overdramatic issue here*. I see it on plurk sometimes. People are excited about something in SL and someone else has to pop their head in to say "I'M NOT EXCITED BECAUSE SL SUCKS AND I LEFT IT AND I'M NOT IN IT AND Y'ALL ARE STUPID BECAUSE YOU'RE EXCITED ABOUT SL STUFF." No. Go away. Shoo. This world is big and beautiful and sure, it has its problems, but it's Second Life. It's ours. As with anything, it is what you make of it. If you expect problems, you get problems. So stop and get in there and enjoy what we have while we have it!

Day 219 - Sometimes We Must Let It Be

I spend a lot of time in SL alone. Sometimes I don't mind. If I need to do blog pics or put outfits together or dash out to a store to grab one thing, having people with me would be kind of useless. But other times...




I'll admit that I'm having a down day. Something happened last night that caused me unnecessary [and unexpected] anxiety and since then I've been down. I know it's not forever, but it's one of those times where I pray that the part of my mind that easily forgets people out would just kick in. Part of me thinks, "Well, it's karma from what you did over 5 years ago." But good grief, have I not repaid that already?? Go visit someone else, karma!

So I'm not really great at making friends in SL these days. When someone appears to be getting closer, I shy away. I run through things in my head. "What do they actually want? Are they just here to get information? Do they want something from me? Will they leave once they get it? If they ARE just being nice, will they leave as soon as they realize that I'm bad at conversation? And what if I do attempt to be chatty with them? Am I going to annoy them? If I annoy them, they'll leave." And on and on and on.

I'm not sure I really know how to just hang out in SL at this point. I don't really like clubs. I'm not into the whole "Omg, let's be sexxyyyyyy...but you know, totally intellectual about it" thing. I just kinda want to hang out at my house, or someone's house, and chat and have fun there. But then it goes back to the whole "They're gonna think I'm not entertaining enough!" Or even worse, "But what if [insert random person here] shows up and I don't like them/they don't like me!" So... yeah.

Ugh. I don't know. lol It's a down day. I'll get over it. I'm just in one of those "I want to wipe my friends list clean and start over" moods. I'll be better tomorrow.

Day 218 - Har-RUMPH!

You'd think that my dear SL husband would want to spend ALL his spare time with me, but you'd be WRONG. He went on a trip this week and did not even submit the proper paperwork for taking vacation time! I feel like I should be screaming, "Ashley Katchadourian, you were supposed to be watching the door!"

Harumph.




I still have like 3 days before he gets back. I should try to get into some mischief while he's gone. Like...go to clubs and go push people around in stores and...

Oh. Let's face it. I'll just send him stupid song lyrics on Kik and play Skyrim. But I COULD get into mischief without him, and that's really what counts, right? :-p

Day 217 - God Berry, Y U SO NOSY??

It's time for yet another meme from Berry!





1. How long have you been blogging?

Since forever? LOL! I've kept diaries all my life, and have been online journaling since 2002 or so, but this blog started in December 2007.

2. Why did you start blogging?

Quite honestly, I don't know how to NOT write about my life. It's as normal as breathing to me. This blog started because I needed something to do and I had a project in my head. But even without the project, I would have done it anyway. I started fashion blogging because people who liked THIS blog liked me enough to start giving me things although I was not a fashion blogger at the time. I wanted to keep this blog just for my randomness so that's why I started a new one just for fashion type stuff. I don't want to be on any feeds with this blog just so I can talk shit when I want. :-p

3. How many times a week do you post an entry?

Oh god...I've been so lazy recently. Well, lazy in blogging because I've been busy in RL. So on a good week, I'll do 3-4 posts in this blog, and maybe 2 for the fashion blog. But I really need to step it up.


4. How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis?

Oh man, I can't even count. I read so many blogs, both SL and RL. But it seems like everyone has a blog these days, so it's almost impossible to go a day without reading SOMEONE'S blog, you know?


5. Do you comment on other people’s blogs?

Sometimes! Not as often as I should, but I do try to reach out here and there.

6. Do you keep track of how many visitors you have?

Not really. It's not a big deal to me. I would rather have a small, dedicated group of readers than thousands of hits a day of people who don't actually care about what I'm writing. And let's face it - even if I only had a couple of people who came here every time I posted, I'd still be writing anyway. In the long run, I'm writing because I love it, not for popularity.

7. Did you ever regret a post that you wrote?

Mmm...I won't say REGRET, but I do wish I hadn't written some things here and there just because it caused unnecessary drama for myself. Like the whole Inworldz craziness, and the thing with our wedding guest list. But if I ever really regretted something, I probably wouldn't write it in the first place. We have a delete button for a reason. Even things I've written that caused some drama taught me something in the end. [Like, I will never ever go to Inworldz and some people have big mouths. LOL!]

8. Do you think your readers have a true sense of who you are based on your blog?

Mostly! I write like I speak - usually - and since this blog is really just about my life, it would be weird if they didn't know who I was at this point. :) I don't like bloggers who try to prove how amazing they are, or how deep they are, or how mysterious they are, so I try not to do that myself. And hopefully I don't come off as too pretentious or snotty. I feel like I write in a way that someone could say, "Yeah, I totally get that." At least, I hope I do. But if you really want to know ME, it's probably better to just talk to me outside of blog comments.

9. Do you blog under your real name?

Yep! Not here, obviously, but I do have a couple of blogs that have my name on them. I am a lot worse about updating those, though.


10. Are there topics that you would never blog about?

Of course! You'd have to be kind of naive to blog every single thing that crosses your mind or that is happening in your life, in my opinion.

11. What is the theme/topic of your blog?

Well...this one is obviously mostly about the random things I do in Second Life, although I write about my offline life as well from time to time. I will never be one of those "SL IS SL AND RL IS RL" kind of people because to me, the line is very much blurred. My feelings don't shut off the moment I log out, and my RL issues aren't pushed from my head the moment I log in. And my style blog is obviously about SL fashion and stuff. That's a no brainer. :)

12. Do you have more than one blog? If so, why?

Oh yes. I have my two SL blogs, I have a couple of RL blogs [one for regular stuff and one for health related stuff], and I have two Tumblrs [although I don't actually consider those blogs] that I use for keeping funny things and keeping Fitspo type things. I still have a Live Journal, too, although that one is updated maybe twice a year at this point just because most of my closer LJ friends are on my Facebook.

13. What have you found to be the benefits of blogging?

Besides glory and fame and free swag? :-p Kidding! I just love to write. I love being able to look back and say "Oh my God, yes! That happened!!" I've met wonderful people through my blogs and since SL blogs are useless without pics, my Photoshop skills have improved as well.

14. So, why do you continue to blog?

It's my thing. It's who I am. If I wasn't SL blogging, I'd be blogging somewhere else for some other topic. I know I'll keep writing for the rest of my life, even if I have to scratch out my words with a stick in the dirt. :)

Day 216 - I Can't Pay The Price

[Lots of Real Life stuff ahead. Pass by if you only like reading about SL. :)]

You get a lot of time to think when you're in a hospital.

Oh, I'm fine. My mom was in the hospital overnight one week ago for a blood transfusion. It was kind of terrifying for me, although I didn't show it. She'd gone in to her doctor just for some routine lab work. Insurance purposes, you know. She'd been putting it off for a while but then figured she might as well do it. Thank God that she did because she was severely anemic. I mean, the kind of anemic where she was walking around with basically half the blood in her body that she should have. The kind where she could barely get off her chair most days. The kind that had it gone on much longer, it would have killed her.

I knew why it happened. My mom has a pretty weird relationship with food. For the past couple of years, she hasn't eaten much and what she has eaten has been junk. There's only so long you can eat what you want, when you want. She wanted just little bites of junk and not very often. She's not dieting and in fact has wanted to gain weight, but it wasn't uncommon for her to go a couple of days without eating. She would say to me, "I don't know how your dad can eat so much! He eats like 4 or 5 times a day!"

As her anemia has progressed over the past year, her appetite has gotten smaller and smaller. [A symptom of it.] She got more and more tired doing even the smallest things. It's old age, she'd tell me. But she's 68. My dad is older and although the pain of arthritis keeps him from doing as much as he'd like, he still had energy. Her sister is older and she dances. It couldn't just be old age.

So into the hospital we went last Friday afternoon. My mom is extremely modest and I knew I'd have to stay with her in case she needed help getting to the bathroom or anything like that. They did lots of tests on her because someone with that kind of anemia MUST have internal bleeding somewhere, right? When they couldn't find anything, they started asking questions about her home life, if she lived alone and if she had food at home. They even asked if she was a vegan. But no...she simply just ate what she wanted when she wanted to eat it, and that was her downfall.

We had a truly lovely night shift nurse and after all the tests and questions, and after my mom had eaten a quite sizable hamburger, she finally brought up the first unit of blood to my mom. Within about 30 minutes, my mom's hands started to get pink, and warm. It was kind of remarkable! About an hour in, she told me she was feeling a lot better, and would like to go home. I told her good for her, but she was staying put because she had another unit of blood to get. Blood transfusions are kind of slow, about 3 hours for a large bag, and so we were definitely in there for the night.

I had to stay over at my parents' house on Monday night because we had a plumbing issue here at my house, and I worried about my mom. She still seemed tired, and irritated [yet another symptom of severe anemia], and I kept thinking that maybe this just didn't work.

But, it did. I talked to her yesterday and she sounded like her old self again. Happy, strong, and full of jokes. She said that she's been simply ravenous and even cooked dinner on Wednesday night! She hasn't cooked a meal in months, they mostly just eat out. My dad is thrilled because he loves to eat, and he loves when she is happy. Even the dog is excited because my mom finally has the energy to play with her and take her outside. [I suspect the dog will be less excited when my mom dunks her in the bucket for a bath now that she has the energy to do so.]

As happy as I am that everything appears to be working out, now I feel like I want to kind of fall apart. I haven't really been able to talk to anyone about all of this, although my plurk friends were very supportive last Friday while we were at the hospital. But in general, I haven't talked about it much. I mean, what do I want people to say anyway? There's nothing TO say because everything came out fine. But I still feel like I'm on shaky ground emotionally. I'll get over it, of course. This is not the first time either of my parents have been sick, or have been in the hospital, and unfortunately it is not likely to be the last time. I will get over it. I don't even know what I want right now or what would make me feel better and THAT is what pisses me off.

Anyway, I know this post is kind of long and it's more RL than most people would want to read, so thank you if you managed to read this far. :)

I had a different idea for this photo when I was taking it last night but it just didn't come out how I wanted, so I slapped a filter on it and called it a day.

Day 215 - Do you remember the first time...

So after being sick for a week, I'm finally feeling like blogging. I've had respiratory issues my entire life and it just wears me out when I actually get sick. This is why I take vitamins, get a flu shot, and try to keep our house as pollen free as humanly possible. Of course, when someone insists on keeping the windows open for 3 days straight when we're in the middle of some super high pollen days... well, something's gonna give. :-p I'm happy to get back into SL, though, because I missed our little beach.





AND I'm glad I feel a little better today because there's a new meme from Berry! This one is about our 10 SL firsts. I'm just going to use my firsts from THIS av because quite frankly, I barely remember a lot of the stuff from my first av, and I'm sure there are a few people who would rather I forget them anyway. LOL!

I'm also going to try to add pictures where I can because I think that's more fun.


1. First SL Friend: The first person I met that I had on my friends list was a guy named Fudo. He was pretty decent and we explored a bit together. I thought I had a picture of us at this crazy place we'd gone to see, but I guess I don't. I didn't use Flickr much originally.

2. First SL Kiss: I actually don't remember his name. At all. He was a guy I met while exploring clubs in early January 2008 and we talked and talked while dancing and then he kissed me. We stopped talking by the end of the next day.

3. First SLex time/place/partner: Berry, you're naughty. LOL! It was in April 2008 with a guy named Levi. This is obviously not a picture of the event, but I believe it was that same night.




4. First SL Partner/Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Wife/Husband: That goes to Levi again. We were hanging out with Cen and Dyami [June 2008] and while we were playing around with them, he asked me to partner. Of course, we unpartnered barely 3 months later, but that's SL for ya.




5. First SL Job: Hostess at Liquid Rage. It was a brand new club and the staff members were really really kind to me. I don't talk to any of them now, though.




6. First SL Creation: It was this thing. I still don't know what I was attempting to make.




7. First Encounter with a Linden: Honestly, I don't remember. But I do have this picture from February 2008 of Mia and Ekim back when LL did the valentine sims, so I'm assuming this was the first.




8. First Encounter with a SLebrity: I feel like I should remember this given that I used to fangirl a LOT more than I do now. I want to say it was Sioxie Legend. She used to have the store Second Wave Apparel and I used to LOVE that store. I want to say it was her, but really, I just don't know and my blog is being of no help.

9. First SL Sim you fell in love with: Oh that's easy! The Pillow Talk sim! I used to go and just spend hours down on the grounds, going in and out of the houses, sitting by the water. It was my favorite place EVER. I still go there sometimes just to remember things.




10. First SL Blog Post: Let's...let's not talk about it. Seriously. I don't even like to go back and read it because it wasn't good and it embarrasses me. LOL! I just... no. No.

Thanks for this walk down memory lane, Berry! I need to go back and try to figure some stuff out now because while I was flipping through some old blog posts, I discovered some stories I'd forgotten about! ♥

Day 214 - Ya know what grinds my gears?

So Miss Berry did it again and gave us a new meme - Pet Peeves! So immediately I thought of that Family Guy episode where Peter gets a news segment "You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?" and he just comes up with just the most random junk that he hates. I feel like that's totally me.

This picture also has nothing to do with the meme, but I thought it was cute, so I'm using it today.




Please remember that these are MY opinions and if you get butthurt, that's kind of not my problem. :)



My Pet Peeves:

1. Terraforming!! Not the whole act of it really, but there aren't enough controls! You know what I really want when I'm terraforming? A PUSH control. Sometimes I don't want to have to lower and smooth and flatten. I just want to shove a piece of land to the side. And the select feature! Does it always have to be a square? Why can't we take a tip from Photoshop and have like a magic lasso so we can draw where we need to do stuff! It would really make for more interesting sims.

2. Creators and bloggers who have a very undeserved sense of accomplishment. Okay, so you made a dress or a pair of pants or a chair or a pose. Hundreds of designers make dresses and pants and chairs and poses every single day. There's a good chance yours are not any better than any one else's, so why do you think that you're so damn amazing, everyone should be beating down your door to buy your stuff? And bloggers! Look, a monkey could blog. It might not be a good blog, but it'll be a blog. Some bloggers do an AMAZING job and I fully admit that and they should celebrate that. But in most cases, your blog isn't all that much more special than any other blog and if you're upset that no one is throwing you a party every time you post something, that's all on you. In both cases, you should do it because YOU love doing it, not because you expect accolades.

3. People on plurk who plurk almost nothing but private jokes to a few special people in public OR who use it to rant Every. Single. Day. It's social media - be social! Invite other people to be in on the joke once in a while or just take it to private plurk so the rest of us don't have to see it. Stop telling the world everything that's bad in your life and tell them what is good! And if you ARE going to rant, tell us EXACTLY why you are ranting, don't just use it as your little attention whorey spot of the web because when something truly IS bad? No one is going to care.

4. People who think their shape is the end all and be all of Second Life. Honey, with a few tweaks to the sliders, anyone could look just like you. But the chances are that if you think your shape is so amazingly special that you haven't changed it since 2006, it probably sucks.

5. Customers who won't take the time to read anything. I do a little bit of Ulaa's customer service if she's offline and someone IMs me, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people simply don't READ anything. I've noticed this in store groups, too. If you want customer service, read the creator's profile. Usually that's where you'll find a landmark to the store, return policies, how to get a hold of them, and if they prefer notecards or IMs. [If you're in business in SL and you DON'T have this stuff in your profile, you're doing it wrong.] IMing them with simply "Hey" won't usually get you a response. Figure out what you need, find out the best way to get customer service, and go from there. Then WAIT. WAIT. These people have real lives too and your 89 cent problem is not always top priority!


You know...surprisingly, I had to struggle a bit with this list. I have way more pet peeves in RL than I do in SL at this point. Progress, I say! :)

Day 213 - He said it would be me.

A long time ago, way before we started dating, the whole Formspring thing was going around plurk. One of questions someone asked a bunch of us was "Who would you take with you if you were stuck on a deserted island?" Although we weren't particularly close at the time, and definitely weren't hanging out very much, Aldwyn said he would take me. :)

Tonight we got our new little mini beach set up. Looks like he'd still pick me.




The beach making didn't go exactly how I intended it to. I wanted the beach to gently slope off of the side of our parcel, but well, without the terrain texture to blend it in, there was no gentle sloping. It just looked like prims. So I did the next best thing - I made it into a mini island and put a bridge leading to it. I think I like it better this way. It feels more private.

Tomorrow I'll be working on putting trees and flowers down. I bought a forest building set but after putting some parts down, it's just not what I wanted. It's lovely and all, really is, but I think it'll be better for the autumn and for when the house isn't up on the hill. Right now I think big trees will look better and more balanced. Of course, I say that now and tomorrow when I start putting trees down, I might change my mind.

I think the thing that will get me after I put all the trees and stuff down is what ELSE to put on the sim. I mean, sure, I can just plunk down tons of trees, but I feel like we need some other little building and whatnot.

Oh well, that's something to think about later. :)

Day 212 - Well, that's a mess and a half.

So after all the inspiration I got out at Neva River, I thought to myself, "Self, it's time to finally get the parcel done." Remember how I said I'd be doing that this weekend? Well... At around 8pm tonight, this was how it looked.




A mess and a half.

See, it was all going pretty well yesterday. I managed to move our house up without TOO many things ending up on different floors. Well, okay, the bed was in the living room and the living room couch was in the water, but WHATEVER. It all moved back fine. Then I managed to terraform it up AND use my path building kit from Studio Skye to make a path leading UP to the house. I was tickled pink! In fact, it was so awesome, I thought I'd leave well enough alone and do more today.

And that's when all the crazy started to happen.

See, I want to make a tiny little beach because, you know, sometimes you want a little sand between your toes and Aldwyn used to live on a beachy sim and sometimes I wonder if he misses it. Studio Skye makes a beach kit. Perfect! Only I couldn't quite figure out where I wanted the beach. I wanted it to be more of a "private" thing for us [private looking, not actually "don't come here" or anything like that], but the place that would look the best for it? The corner where our house is! The more I thought about it, the more I wanted the little beach in THAT corner. So, I grabbed the whole house again, scooted it over to where it is in that picture, and set about terraforming the pathway AGAIN.

So I started working and putting the beach prims down. I really like them because they have waves! But because our whole sim is green, there's not that fade into sand like I wanted. So off to the Studio Skye sim I went [AGAIN] to look and see how the little beach there was. OH. There's ANOTHER set of beachy things I need!

But then something else came up and I needed to do some style blog pics for FaMESHed and I also need to buy more $Lindens to buy the other beachy things I need to finish the little beach so I can start working on the more foresty part of the parcel and then build my little river and put the pond back.

This landscaping stuff is no joke. I can see now why some people just hire others to do their sim for them.

I'm really exhausted now, and I keep feeling like I'm TRYING to get sick, which I don't have time for, so I think I need to go to bed and see if I can sleep this off. Goodnight!