Feb 12, 2015 | Images, Monday Memes
So I said to myself, “Self, we need to think of something to blog for this weeks Berry meme…”
I’m just ridiculously happy that Strawberry Singh has started up her Monday Memes again. I know I won’t always think of something on topic so I can take part, and I’m often quite late, but I just love going through the comments and checking out everyone’s responses. This week she talks about her blogging milestones. Her instructions:
Share when you started Second Life, when you started blogging about Second Life and talk about any Second Life blogging milestones you wish to share with your readers.
I’m not sure I have any typical blogger milestones. I’m very casual about blogging. I love to write, I do it all the time (mostly on my own where it won’t be seen) and I love my blog, but I don’t post often enough to build up an audience. I don’t mind this, I continue this because it makes me happy, and even if it was a private journal I’d still make posts, just because it’s fun.
I began SL on Feb. 5, 2007, I just passed my 8th rezday last week. 😀 The blogging came much later though. Originally the only thing I had was a Flickr account to post my pictures, and for a few years that was enough. Sometime in 2010 I decided I really really wanted to blog and started on Blogger, mostly with RL stuff and iphoneography, but occasionally an SL related post crept in. After a year or so I lost interest in that and moved on to Tumblr, where I eventually made the same-named predecessor of this blog (I imported most of the original posts to this blog when I started it.) The first post was in February 2012 and was a stand of trees where I’d been experimenting with shadow settings.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the blog, and for a few months I posted very infrequently. There was a small SL community getting started on Tumblr, but I was having trouble finding people to follow. Since my SL blog was a side blog I could only follow from my main account so I’m sure it puzzled SL bloggers who wondered why someone who seemed to have no connection to SL was following them. I enjoyed Tumblr a lot and am still active there, but I began to want a slightly more full featured blog platform because I thought it might give me more incentive to post long things, and I always wanted to play with WordPress, so here I am. Yay!
My milestones are just my little memorable blogging moments. I think my first was deciding to start doing Strawberry Singh’s memes, because it gave me a topic to work on each week, when I was having trouble thinking of something to say. The second was taking part in Vanessa Blaylock’s 30 Days of Avatar Blogging challenge. That not only got me in the habit of thinking about what I could post, it also got me exploring SL more, and it introduced me to a lot of wonderful blogs that I try to keep up with when I can.
My favorite post was in response to a Berry meme, about my best friend, where I wrote about my RL husband/SL partner. I talked about how much fun we had exploring SL, and how much I loved his love of our virtual world. Less than a month after I posted that I lost him to a heart attack. Reading that post is bittersweet now, it reminds me that I’ll never be able to explore the world with my soul mate, but I will always have the most wonderful memories.
These days I’m trying to get myself back into the swing of blogging. I’ll be trying to find time to get in world and think of something to post and trying to figure out what use I will make of my studio at Medici University, while still adjusting to a new job IRL. Might be tricky, I have no idea how dedicated I’ll be. Still, I have lots of things I want to do. I want to post more and go in world more often (I’m averaging about once a week at the moment.) I’ve contemplated breathing some new life into the Tumblr version of this blog and trying to keep up with posting to the Facebook page I created.
I’m not sure how far I’ll get with all my plans, but I’ll try, and if nothing else I’ll continue to entertain myself. If anyone else enjoys this as well it’s always a lovely bonus! Who knows, maybe I’ll even reach a new milestone this year. 😀
Feb 9, 2015 | Chatter, Images
Taking important photos for blog.
This was a weekend of birthdays. Thursday was my main avatar’s 8th rezday, Friday would have been my late husband’s birthday. My rezday was quiet, I logged in, bought myself a couple of presents, and puttered around a bit. The birthday was a bit harder, and will probably always be a challenge, but I keep trying to move forward and be the confident person my husband always believed I was becoming. He is still my muse, silently encouraging me to push beyond my comfort zone, to do more things, follow my dreams, be more outgoing. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I still withdraw into a shell.
I think the Slelfie turned out well!
I’m trying to push beyond my comfort zone this month by taking part in Medici University at LEA23. I was on the fence about trying any new projects, but an IM from Vanessa Blaylock prompted me to go for it. I had such fun with her Avatar Blogger challenge a little over a year ago that I thought this would be fun as well, and so I set up my little studio space and decided to list myself under creative writing. I’m not sure if that’s the best classification for me right now, while I used to write stories all the time, and hope to do so again, for the past year I’ve mostly just done therapeutic writing to help myself get through the days. I’m still not sure I’m in the right headspace for creative writing, but for me writing in any form is good. Perhaps just being part of this will urge me to sit down and do it more often.
MU looking very colorful, with my gazebo in the lower right.
I still must explore the MU campus and meet some of my neighbors. While being around creative people might be good to get me back into a regular writing mood, just being around people might be as helpful. In my offline life I tend to be a bit introverted and shy, but I have no trouble being chatty and making small talk. Online, and in SL in particular, my social anxiety goes off the charts. I’ve never been sure why that is, but any time I have an opportunity to try to work on that I try to take it. Hey, being at a university is all about learning new things, right?
A room with a view.
Besides, how great is this little space? I’ve always wanted a little gazebo studio to write in. The entire sim is full of wonderful spaces, and from my front door I can look out over LEA22 and the colorful build that appeared recently. I’ll have to learn more about that too. 😀
Learn more at Medici University or visit the campus at LEA23
Jan 19, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Images, Monday Memes
Oopsie doopsie.
And I said to myself, “Wait, where’d my house go?” as I was plummeting towards the ground…
Thank you Berry for today’s meme! 😀
Jan 8, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Images, Monday Memes
Wow, it’s dusty in here. I was surprised to see how long it had been since I blogged anything, but sometime in late summer it slipped away from me. I could contemplate the reasons why, but I’ll save that for another day. I’ll just sweep the dust bunnies aside and jump back in! 😀
Of course it was easier to start posting again when I noticed Strawberry Singh has posted a brand new blog meme and will be back with new challenges. Yay! This week she’s asked us to do our best yearbook smile. How could I resist?
It’s always a challenge to make the default smile look somewhat normal, but after playing with my face sliders a bit I think I’m ready to start off 2015 with a cheery smile.
Hooray for new blog challenges! Thank you Berry!
Aug 20, 2014 | Blog Challenges, Fashiony, Images
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
Aug 13, 2014 | Images, Monday Memes, Sightseeing
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.
- 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.
- Which viewer do you use most often? – Firestorm.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
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