Fashion Challenged

Once upon a time I thought it would be fun to be a fashion blogger. I love to dress up my avatars and take pics of them in cute poses, and I love to take SL pics in general, so it seemed like it would be a perfect hobby. The fashionista thing never took off for me, though, I’m far too lazy (and can’t afford) to keep up with all the new releases, and I’m not sure I have the style sense to put together terrific outfits on a regular basis. For these reasons I don’t usually attempt fashion challenges, but I saw Kitty O’Toole’s denim challenge and thought, “But I looked so cute in that outfit I saved, I have to take a pic of that…”

Much like myself, my avvies wear denim most of the time, so the real challenge was finding something that wasn’t a pair of blue jeans. I love the little denim jacket from Coquet that I’d picked up at Fameshed a few months ago. I’ve found if I wear it in large instead of my usual medium it goes nicely over some of my other mesh clothes and doesn’t look like it’s too big, which is terrific.  The dress is from ColdLogic, with an ancient (for SL fashion) tank top peeking out underneath from Celestial Studios, probably purchased in my first year or so in SL. Hey, I still like a lot of my system texture clothes, particularly for layering under mesh. A lot of it still holds up very well, I think.

I don’t know if I’ll attempt to tackle any more days of denim, I may be a bit too fashion challenged for that! But it was fun to be fashionable today. Thank you Kitty! 😀

 

Credits for most everything, (even though you can’t quite see some of it…)

Dress: coldLogic – jolie.onyx
Shirt: Celestial Studios Trixie Cami Nightfall
Jacket: Coquet Denim Jacket Blue/Burnt
Shoes: {Gothica} Maria’s Wooden Sandals
Glasses: Kumaki Glasses Style Saria 1.00
Jewelry: Maxi Gossamer Fay Malla Wooden Necklace – Group 1
Hair: Dura-Girl*51 (Dark Brown)
Eyeshadow: [mock] Dalek Copper eShadow
Lipstick: [mock] Cosmetics Sweet Coral Lipstain
Skin: *League* Erin (No brow option)
Brows, portrait pendant: mine

Running on Ultra

I went wandering today, looking for quiet and peaceful landscapes. I love the abstract, wild, impossible in real life sims, but I always seem to have the most fondness for the pretty, realistic, naturally landscaped places. I often wish I could transport myself into one of the quiet spots in SL and sit on a swing and enjoy the quiet.

With Love in Her Heart is one of those pretty places that was a joy to visit. According to the Destination Guide: “With Love in Her Heart is a simple seaside farmstead that evokes memories of days gone by. It offers a relaxing peaceful surrounding with spaces to hang out and enjoy the company of friends. Visit and experience, just know that it was created with love in her heart.

I also noticed this week that  Strawberry Singh has a new blog meme up, asking about computer specs and performance. I was curious enough to turned my stats on while I was taking the pics above, and on average I stayed at about 15 FPS, with things about one notch below ultra. This, to me, was perfect for exploring. I’m content puttering through the world at 10 to 15 FPS, I know I can more than triple my frame rate if I turn off advanced lighting and drop my draw distance, but I’d much rather have a low frame rate and beautiful surroundings.

  1. Share any of your computer specs (video card, memory, etc..) –  2011, it’s a bit aged now:  2.00 GHz core i7, 6GB ram, Nvidia 460M.
  2. Which viewer do you use most often? – Firestorm.
  3. What is your FPS (Frames Per Second) when you have your graphics on ultra? – It depends entirely on the sim, anywhere from barely 1 FPS up to 35 or so in really empty spaces. Quite a few of the art installations or nature sims will turn SL into a 2 FPS slideshow (dense forests are particularly hard on me) so I often try to find an out of the way spot to park my pixels, then I explore via the Space Navigator. It’s still slow going, but never seems to crash me like extensive camming with the mouse can.
  4. How often does Second Life crash for you? Is it usually just a viewer crash or your whole system crashes? What are you usually doing at the moment of the crash? I’ve only had viewer crashes. About half the time when I take a snapshot I will crash when I try to save to disk, but only on the first try, and usually if I’ve been camming a lot before the shot. If I can successfully save the first shot then subsequent ones never seem to be a problem, so I sometimes take a throwaway pic after I log in.
  5. Do you know of any tips or tricks in the settings that would improve performance? I think when I insist on running with graphics cranked up there’s not going to be much I can do to improve my performance short of getting a brand new machine, so I am tipless.

Berry says she’ll not be doing regular weekly memes any more, but I’m hoping she might give us a challenge at least once a month, I’ve really missed doing these. 😀

 

visit With Love in Her Heart

Lost

I lost July. I know it came and went, but I didn’t really notice it. I kept meaning to go into SL and find interesting things to do so I could take pics and blog, but I just couldn’t seem to motivate myself. When I did log in I spent most of the time in my house playing around in my inventory instead of exploring and going on picture taking adventures. My Second Life has been a lot like my offline life.

It’s certainly not the first time a month has slipped away from me. I still feel as if I am caught in a bubble outside of time. I know that it passes for others, but I just don’t feel it.

People keep repeating to me that there’s no time limit on grief. That I should take as long as I need and not worry or apologize for it. Sometimes I think I’ve taken this advice a bit too much to heart, though, and I’ve been using it as an excuse to sit at home, lost in thought and memories, and hide from the world.

Sometime I will have to think of rejoining life again. Sometime I’ll pick myself up and begin making my plans to rebuild my life, to go out into the world, to accept my “new normal.” Sometime I’ll begin to accept that grieving the loss of my husband doesn’t mean spending the rest of my life as a hermit.

But it’s just so easy to sit in the house and let time pass.