From the Flames

I was horrified when I opened this blog up and saw just how long it is since I wrote anything here. Far longer than I thought. However, in a way, that fits in quite well with what I am here to write today.

I have finally made the decision to combine my two blogs into one, which will encompass all aspects of my lives, both first and second. Instead of incorporating one of my current blogs into the other, I have made a fresh start in a shiny new blog.

There isn’t much there yet, but that will change soon. I hope that if anyone is still checking here, you will pay a visit, over at Carpe Diem and let me know what you think of the idea.

Thank you for sticking around, and I hope to see you all soon xx

What a night!!!!!Last night was, quite simply, the best time I have ever had in Second Life! If you are reading this, then the chances are that you were there, and if you weren’t, then know that you were missed very much.My actual rez-day is Monday 23rd, but it made more sense to have a party on Saturday. I wouldn’t have bothered as I was convinced no one would attend. However, Wolf kept on suggesting it and in the end I let him get on with it and gave my promise that I would be there even if no one else was. Well, I have never been so happy to be proved wrong!!!

I was delighted to get the chance to meet Chloe, Brandy and Hiero in person for the first time, after many months of feeling like they were friends. Jaid I had met before when she took me shopping for my tiny and Teal I had met at the Raglan Art Walk. It was wonderful that they both wanted to be at the party too. It wouldn’t have been the same without Dani, who has made so much difference in both my lives in recent weeks, and who arrived in all her neko glory - whiskers and all!!

Wolf DJ’d - the first time he has done so for anyone other than me. He made a brilliant job of it, played all my favourite music and even bowed to public pressure and played a Rick Astley song!!!!

Highlights of the evening included Wolf on his Space Hopper, the conversation during The Time Warp, Tiny Teal breakdancing and Jaid and Hiero’s wonderfully synchronised dancing.

By the end of the evening new friendships had been made, old ones reinforced, a new group of party animals born and a promise to each other and ourselves that we need to do this more often.

Thanks guys - Love you all xxx

Oh, and btw - Chloe, stop poking me now!!! I wrote it OK?!!!!

Remember me? I’m the one who used to post here, once upon a time. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you had given me up for dead by now. But I’m not - I’m back!!!!

I’ve never really been away - not physically. Mentally and spiritually though it’s been a different story. However, my life is, at long last, finally beginning to make sense and I am happier than I have been in a very long time.

So, I figured it was time to get back in here and re-boot my blog. I have so much I want to write about from the last couple of months, so don’t be surprised if I go from complete silence to blogging every day for a while

One change I am going to make is that I will be merging my two blogs. I have been humming and hahing about it for ages but I have finally made a decision. I have never written much in my RL blog and I often find myself editing what I write here because it doesn’t ‘belong’. Which is, of course, ridiculous!! My lives are so entwined it is impossible to document them seperately, and anything I want to put on the internet is something I would want to share with my SL friends. I will always preface the title of any totally real life posts with ‘RL’ so please feel free to skip those, or indeed any other of my ramblings!

I’m off now to decide what to bring over from the other blog. Will write more very soon - you have been warned

I finally went to see the doctor this week.  She prescribed medication and is referring me to the counselling team.  I know it was the right thing to do and will be worth it in the long term.  However, right now I feel lousy.  I always seem to get side effects in the first week or so of taking anti-depressants and this time I am feeling nauseous and shaky as well as the usual deadly tiredness.  However, in my head I feel no worse than I have done and hopefully it will only be another week at most before the good effects kick in.

If anyone wants to know more about what led to this, I have written about it here.

I just wanted to explain why I’ve been quiet here, in-world and in Flickr and to say that I am slowly edging myself back into both.  In the past week I have made the first step in two new friendships and over the last couple of weeks I have built my new house which I am very happy about.  I hope to catch up with some of you soon. best deals to new york city test

A few days ago, I posted a series of pictures on Flickr. They were of me, wearing a white, goth skin, and long, black hair. They are the first set in an ongoing series of pictures, exploring, in images, various aspects of myself - both RL and SL.

However, over the past few days, I have repeatedly returned to look at them, and have come to identify even more strongly with the person I see looking back at me.

So, when I went into SL this morning, I spent a very long time finding the perfect outfit from my cluttered wardrobe (in fact it is pieced together from three seperate outfits), delved into my vast collection of hairstyles and found the perfect long black style with purple tips, and once again slipped into the goth skin.

I took more pictures and something remarkable happened. I found I was acutely attuned to all the feelings and emotions that have been filling me for the past few weeks and I was at last able to capture them in photographs and bare my soul to the world. As I explained to Wolf before posting these pictures, they do not show where I am now, but where I have been, and I rejoice in the fact that I can now accept them, embrace what they have taught me, and show the world that I was in a very dark place but am now moving further into the light.

This whole experience touched me so deeply that I have made the decision to remain in this skin for the forseeable future. Actually that’s not right - I didn’t make the decision - there wasn’t a decision to be made. This is ‘me’, whatever that means, at least for now. (And if I could look like this in RL too - I would!)

I celebrated with a trip to Nomine where I bought a couple of outfits and the lip piercing you see in this picture (something I have never considered before).

So, if you see me inworld, you might not recognise me - but, be sure, it really is, very much, me

Grrrrr!!!! How frustrating is land shopping?!!!! I’ve spent some time this morning, TPing all over the grid trying to find a place to call home and being dissapointed every time. Anything even vaguely nice is vastly overpriced and way beyond my budget (which is a reasonable size) and everything else is in the middle of a mish mash of prims that give me a headache to even look at.

I still love the piece of land I found the other day and have been back there several times. I think I would be ok with trusting the existance of my land to someone other than the Lindens, but the company running this sim (and several others) don’t inspire confidence with their very amateur, badly put together, half finished web site. I can’t afford to lose such a large chunk of money should they dissapear.

If anyone has any recommendations I would be glad to hear them, either for good land companies, or quiet mainland sims. I am looking for a reasonable sized piece of land (for that read - plenty of prims LOL), with character, preferably by water. I don’t like land which is totally flat, as I prefer it’s character to suggest a build to me and then I terraform from there, rather than starting from scratch. Of course if there is a covenant that says no terraforming, then it has to have character already as I wouldn’t consider a flat plot I couldn’t change. I like beaches and could live with a completely sandy plot, but not if it is flat. I also like mountains, though I would rather not live in the snow. Fussy, aren’t I? LOL

Anyway, rant and ramble over. I’m off to by a new dustbin for the bathroom

Wolf and I have decided not to blog about recent events. Those of you who know us well are already aware of them, and those of you who have stumbled across this blog have no need to know.

So, onwards …

The picture with this post shows the land at Baker where the house Wolf built us stood. The land was originally bought when we were first partnered in SL and, since then it has been home to us as a couple (twice), individually, and as neighbours sharing the land. As it stands now, the land is mine. I have sold most of my land at Jingbo, where I had been building a shop, and will hopefully sell the last piece soon. This leaves me with Baker and the question of what to do with it.

I knew fairly quickly that I did not want to live there any more. It is time to move on, find a new home and build a place of my own. I also knew that I didn’t want to sell it. Baker is on the old mainland and, from what I have found out, is one of the oldest sims still in use, with a long and varied history. This piece of it is beauitiful - a little island on the edge of the sim, plus the cliff across the water. I know the Lindens have begun to clamp down on ad farms, but I would hate to see someone divide this land up into tiny pieces or put a hideous build on it. I wouldn’t want to feel responsible for allowing that to happen.

So, what to do? Well, I have plans!!! This will be the new location of my shop - a simple build that I shall suit to the landscape. It will sit where the old house did, leaving the land at the back and front to be landscaped. I shall also incorporate the coffee shop that never quite got finished at Jingbo. The waterfall Wolf built is still there ( as are his underwater ruins) and I shall landscape the cliff area around it, including seating so people can enjoy the stunning sunsets from there. I hope that the whole build will be a place where people know they can come and enjoy beautiful, quiet surroundings, or chat with friends over a cup of coffee. This is something I have wanted to create in SL for a long time.

The only thing I am not 100% sure about is whether I shall actually include the shop. I am finding my feet again, creating a new Second Life for myself, and I am not sure how large a part of that will be selling in world. There are so many things I have never done in SL, places I have never visited and so many wonderful people to meet. I really don’t know yet what direction this new phase of life will take me in.

As for a home, which has always been important to me, I am currently ‘camping out’ in a skybox above Baker. I will stay there for as long as it takes me to find a new home that feels just right. For the first time ever, I am seriously looking at land on private sims, as I know I would be unbelievably lucky to find mainland as perfect as Baker again. I actually have found a wonderful piece of land, in a mountain, lakeside, sim, which is landscaped with fir trees and waterfalls and is absolutely perfect. It is far too big for one person really (though that has never stopped me before!) and the tier charge means I would be paying slightly more per month than I was with the land at Jingbo … but … it might just be worth it.

So, that’s as far as I have got with looking to the future - in SL at least. (RL is another matter, though I am making progress there too and am doing so much better than I have in a very, very long time.) I know I have people who care for me in SL, who will help me embrace life in whatever way I choose - and for that I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. I look forward to seeing you in my future

The management would like to apologise for the lack of recent posts to this blog. We would like to assure you that normal (!?!) service will be resumed shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Earlier today I said that the header of this blog wasn’t showing correctly and that it would be put right soon. Well, as you can see, Wolf got right on to it and made me a lovely new header. I’ve been toying with the idea of including an image for quite a while but am totally incapable of doing anything like that myself so it has had to wait. However, I think it was well worth the wait. Thanks Wolf x

This year is not going to plan! I still have the flu that has been with me since new year and if anything it is getting worse again. I now have a horrible, weepy eye to add to my list of ailments and a cough that must be keeping my neighbours awake!Â

I am having real difficulty focusing on anything for very long (although I have managed to do some reading) and so keep putting off going into SL. Apart from popping in once or twice to clear group messages etc, one shopping trip (where my connection dropped six times!), and a brief conversation with Raul, I have not been in since before Christmas. And that makes me sad.

I have so much stuff I want to get done and I really am enthusiastic about it all. I just don’t have the energy or focus to get started and I find sitting at my desk becomes very uncomfortable after a short while as I ache so much from coughing. So, I just wanted to let people know that I am still here and still wanting very much to get back onto the grid and make the most of 2008. It will just have to wait a while longer though while I try to get myself well again.

As soon as I am back, these are the projects I shall be working on:

New shop and coffee shop on my land at Jingbo.

Helping Paula with her new business venture (though I really need to do something about this within the next few days - so sorry Paula. I know I have been neglecting this and I feel really bad about it.)

Spending time with friends old and new.

Valentines and Easter products for my shop.

Possible idea for a photo story.

Sort my inventory.

Explore some of the amazing builds I have been making note of over the last few months.

Plenty to keep me occupied, so please keep your fingers crossed that this flu goes away soon.

 Oh, and by the way, if anyone has noticed a change in the header colour of my blog, it is not intentional and will be fixed soon

Edit:Â Header is now fixed