You Can’t Make Old Friends

I had a lot of things I could have been doing tonight while my family was off doing other things. But I mostly just sat around, looking at profiles of people on my friends list. There are people that I will never ever delete because I’ll never be able to get them back on my list.

It’s funny, but when things are quiet and I’m alone in SL, my thoughts always drift back to Cen. I still miss her. It’s been 6 years now since she left SL and I still miss her. I miss the easy friendship we had. We were always in IM with each other when we were online, no matter what we were doing. I think we probably saw each other if not daily, then every other day. It was easy and fun and I miss it. I wonder what she would think of all the changes in SL over the past 6 years. When she left, mesh was still 2 years away from making its appearance on the grid. Gacha was something silly you stumbled upon in small Japanese stores. Stores happily gave gifts to not just their free group members, but to everyone by just placing a box at the front door. Our whole group of friends were still strong and together. Things have changed a lot.

But, that’s the way of the world. Things change, people leave. I don’t even know that we’d still be friends if she had stayed. I know my priorities in SL definitely changed over time and I’m sure hers would have as well. It happens. But if she ever came back to SL, I’d hope she’d look me up.

It’s late and I think I’ve reached Grey’s Anatomy saturation point [I’ve been marathon watching for days], so I think it’s bedtime.

Day 147 – It must have been good, but I lost it somehow.

I don’t follow a lot of blogs. I mean, I DO follow them, but I don’t sign up Google Reader follow them, you know? I just use my blogrolls or bookmarks or look at new posts on feeds and plurk. But there are a few that I have put in my Google reader. Did you know that even if they delete the blog, they remain in your reader? I was bored and glancing through tonight and came across Cen’s old blog. And I sat there and I read every post.

I don’t really talk about her much anymore. She left SL in early 2009 and well, 3 years is a long time to be holding on to something, right? But there are times when I really miss her still. Reading her blog, I can see how hard things were becoming for her towards the end, but I guess I’d always thought if she left being Cen, she’d become someone else. After all, she had done it before. That was part of our original bond – we were both “replacements.” Of course, for all I know, she did start over and if so, I know she’s out there having fun and laughing and enjoying SLife as she did before.

But I miss her. I miss our crazy adventures. I miss our long chats about our lives, both first and second. She was one of the better listeners I’ve encountered in SL, which meant a lot to me because I’m usually the listener. When we’d chat, I knew I had pretty much her full attention, as she had mine. I miss how we could sit quietly with each other for hours, barely talking, but there was nothing uncomfortable about it.

I know that things change. I know that there’s the chance that our friendship wouldn’t have lasted. We might have eventually had a falling out, or just drifted apart and became people who were just on each others’ friends lists and spoke once in a great while. Or maybe we’d still be close, running around and laughing, exploring the grid with our men or our friends.

Cen, I have no idea if you still read my blog. If you do, just know that I miss you. And if you ever feel like talking… well. You know where to find me. ♥

Episode 781: The One Where I Show Too Many Photos With Me In Them

Ok, I’m marginally better today, since I can’t seem to hold a grudge or stay too angry for long. lol RLBF did something yesterday that just…ugh. If I were a different sort of person, I probably would have thrown a shoe at him. As it was, I just stayed quiet for the rest of the day, which is probably scarier to him than if I’d just thrown the shoe.

So last weekend my friend Sophia asked me if I wanted a picture done in my new skin. Her husband, Skyhawke Sodwind, does marvelous photos! They bring out the best in everyone, and aren’t post-processed to death like so many SL photos end up being. Of course I agreed right away! LOL Tuesday night, I headed over. Cen and later Brody joined me in bugging the Harlow-Sodwinds. 😉 Ok, so we probably didn’t bug them TOO much. 🙂 What came out were 2 gorgeous photos of me, and fabulous pictures of Cen and me and Brody and me.

The picture of Cen and me was put together with separate pictures because we couldn’t find a 2 person pose that looked good with both of us. And I’m impressed with the shot of Brody and me because in the studio, my arm was totally going through his shoulder. LOL If you look at my hair in that picture, it’s all feathered out and pretty, too. If I wasn’t so adamant about always wearing prim lashes, Sky would have given me lashes! But well, it’s rare I’m ever without prim lashes, so he didn’t get to do that for me.

Big thanks to Sophia, who has truly been my angel the past few months, for asking us if we wanted to come in for photos, and to Skyhawke, who brings out the best in people without totally changing how they look. You both are awesome!!!

Dress Me Up Challenge – Suggestion 4 – And a recipe!!

Yay, back to the fun stuff!!

Suggestion #4 for the Dress Up Challenge comes from my SL bestie, Cen, who wanted to see me as a traditional housewife. Believe me, that really IS out of my comfort zone! LOL!!

I immediately knew I wanted to wear the cute Cherry dress from Ivalde for this challenge. I think it worked out quite well!!

Chillin’ in the kitchen.

Laundry?!

C’mon over, pie is ready!

I paired up this cute dress with some pearls I found on XStreetSL, the pinup heels from Stiletto Moody [you better believe I’m getting use out of those shoes!!!], and Tyra hair from ETD. Oh, that pie was a freebie on XStreetSL.

The biggest problem to this whole challenge was figuring out where I could go to take pictures. Our home doesn’t really have a kitchen [we have a sink, some counters, and a table], and as far as I know, no one else on the island has a kitchen either. We kind of just wait for Tymmerie’s parties to bring a take home plate, I think. 😉 But then I remembered the simply wonderful Vignette sim. I knew there was a house there with a cute little kitchen, so I gathered up my skirts and ran over! The best part about taking pictures at Vignette is that you can drop posestands. Oh it just makes it so much more easier!

Thank you, Cen, for making me look pretty and feminine for once!! 🙂 And because Cen also threw down another challenge where we share recipes, I leave you with this awesome apple pie recipe!

Paula Deen’s Crunch Top Apple Pie

Ingredients
Dough and Filling:

* Dough for a double crust 9-inch pie (homemade, frozen, or refrigerated)
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* Splash of vanilla [this is my addition, because I like it.]
* Dash salt
* 3 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
* 1 (16-ounce) jar applesauce
* 1 tablespoon lemon juice
* 2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces

Crunch Topping:

* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* Dash salt
* 1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Line a 9-inch pie pan with half of dough. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Stir in apples, applesauce, and lemon juice. Spoon apple mixture into pie pan and dot with butter. Cut remaining crust into strips; arrange in a lattice design over top of pie. For crunch topping, combine flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Using a fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle over top of crust. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for about 45 minutes, or until crust and topping are golden brown.

Serve with ice cream because you HAVE to! 🙂

Baking and Fun!

So much went on today!

First of all, sympathies to those who were using their Open Space sims for the intended purpose and are now about to be screwed. It’s as the old saying goes – one bad apple can spoil the bunch. BUT – don’t get all crazy just yet. You all know as well as I do that LL has made some statement on the blog about what they plan on doing and then they change things around later. Hello, ad farming? Don’t plan on the sky falling just yet, is what I suggest.

Cen and I decided to go out on one of our random adventures tonight. Well, it initially started out as just going to Zaara to get some jeans. But after that we headed over to Dreaming Alice to look around, and then we decided to walk around the sim. There were stores there that we’d never heard of before in our lives. LOL By the 3rd one, we decided to be on that sim you basically had to be an unknown. The funniest thing was probably this little hair store we wandered into. The hair was not our style, but it might be for someone else.

Then we took a little rest in a gypsy trailer thing.

The fact that there were beans & weiners in a plate on the table cracked us up. It’s really only funny to us. :-p

After we got bored there, Cen had the idea to check the Showcase listings and we ended up at this SUPER cute place called 7 Days Magic Bakery. Oh my gosh, you guys. You HAVE to go see this place. It’s not just this amazing build that will wow you, but it’s just….CUTE! It helps if you have your sound on because sometimes things talk to you, and the little background music while they talk to you is just adorable. You get to eat things and then you get to MAKE your own food! It’s so fun!!! Take a look at some of the pictures.

It was just too fun. We kept running back to the machines to make more food. LOL If you’re looking for a cute way to spend some time that doesn’t involve shopping and hunts or going to some club, I DEFINITELY recommend this place!!!

After Cen logged off, I hit up the Mudhoney hunt with 3 of my favorite ladies, Emerald, Sehra, and Nikki. I still haven’t really looked at my items, but I did do a little posing on a stool that was out there. I think I look good! 🙂

Combined with an awesome long conversation I had earlier with one of my favorite people in the whole entire world, and the fact that I got new ETD hair, Monday was a pretty great day. 🙂 But now I need some sleep so I can see what Tuesday holds!

Challenged!

So after I plurked that people aren’t blogging enough and I have nothing new to read, Cen threw down a challenge that from now until Sunday, we all have to post 2 comments a day to blogs, and one should be a blog where we’ve never commented before.

I’ve done my 2 for today, but I can’t say that I did them to blogs I’ve never posted to before. This challenge is actually going to be really hard for me. As much as I write, I STINK at commenting. When people plurkmote their blog posts, I am more likely to comment in their plurk. Or I just talk to them in world about what they wrote.

Another bad thing is my not-so-secret guilt in that I also stink at reading blogs. If you’re on my blogroll, I’m reading you usually. If you’re not, then you sure as heck need to tell me you’re blogging, because I might not even know. LOL A lot of the time, I go to Cen’s blog and look at her blogroll, since it seems to update more quickly than mine does for some reason. Once in a while I see a blog there that I check out, but more often than not, I stick to the same ones because those are the people I feel a bit closer to.

But, I like a challenge, so I will try. The big problem is that I can’t remember where I’ve posted and where I haven’t. And I usually don’t have a LOT to say in response to blog posts. So if you get a comment from me and it’s lame… yeah, sorry about that.

Thinking about friendships

I was laying in bed last night thinking about Cen’s post on invisible friendships. Go read it if you haven’t already and then come back. I’ll wait.

Done? Ok.

I was thinking that most of my friendships in SL are invisible ones. There are VERY few people that I see on a regular basis. I see Cen, of course, but there are many people that I consider friends that I only see at the Wednesday parties, or maybe possibly if I bump into them when I’m out shopping. There are people on my friends list that I only IM and have met maybe once or twice in world. There are people in my group that aren’t even on my friends list.

And that got me thinking. Why am I such a hermit? LOL It’s not like in the real world where I think the way I look keeps me from fitting in with people. I know that as far as SL avatars go, I’m nice looking. It’s not my clothes, because although many of them are freebies, I can keep up with the Armidi crowd as well as anyone else. It’s not even that I think I’m dumb, because I know I can keep up with any conversation really. It all boils down to one thing.

I am, just like in my real life, really stupidly shy.

I know what people are probably thinking. How can you be shy? You help newbies. You DJ and people can hear your voice. You’re a blogger, for pete’s sake!! I know, I know, I know.

I am a big mass of insecurity, which would probably surprise most people. I always think my problems are less important than others. I always think that other people are much busier than I am. I always think that I’m going to bother someone. Even when my friends do IM me, there’s always that tiny thought that makes me wonder if it’s because they wanted to IM me to chat, or if they felt sorry for me.

This is NOT a plea for people to IM me and tell me how awesome I am, or leave me comments about how I rock. lol Nothing like that. I know it’s up to me to leave the island and see people. It’s up to me to stop being so shy and IM people with a hello. What I don’t understand is why I can talk my head off in my blog, or hold people hostage and talk while I’m on the air, or even hop into a few plurks and banana dance, but I can’t IM one of my girl friends to say “Hey, wanna come to a sale with me?”

Anyway…those are the thoughts running through my head today. I have a few hours to myself this afternoon, so I’m going to clean my RL house. Cleaning my SL home is always so easy. This RL cleaning stuff is not fun.

Pirate Party & Pictures

Pirate party went well tonight. Aisuru made a fabulous party boat for us and we had a good time. It was a little hard for me, since this is the first party since…you know. 😦 But I remain grateful to my friends, who have been so incredibly kind, and let me talk when I need to and be quiet & alone when I need to.

So, here’s some pictures from tonight. Not a lot, since I can’t always grab a lot of pics when I’m DJing.

You can see more pictures on Asha Brim’s Flickr page.

But it was a fun party, went a little long because I had a lot of requests and suggestions, and of course Bone wrapped it up by coming late. In fact, if we’d ended right at 10 like usual, he’d have missed the whole thing since he was 10 minutes late. lol Poor Bone. It was also odd to see the Darwin part of the Thorne-Darwins without his better half there. We missed you, Tymmerie!!

Next week’s party is going to be at Sai’s store land and is an Asian theme, so that should be fun.

Oh yes, those pictures of me, if you can tell, show me with red hair. Cen and I went to the Frangipani sale on Tuesday night and she said I should try red hair to go with my “Back off, leave me alone” tough girl look. lol It’s definitely a different look for me. I was barely used to the brunette hair that I’d started wearing. Thank goodness for that Frangipani sale. I get to try lots of different hair colors for cheap.

Anyway, before the party tonight I was fooling around with my costume and playing on my new pirate ship and threw together these pictures.

Different, huh? Not bad or good, just different. I think I’ll always still be a diehard blonde in SL, but it’s fun to play with my hair color.

Anyway, my left eye has been kind of sore today [my allergies have been acting up really badly] so I’m going to go rest now. Goodnight everyone.

Bits of stuff

First, happy 2 months and 1 day anniversary to my sister Cen and my brother-in-law Dyami!! If you go to their blogs, you’ll see a couple of sweet posts to each other. So cute. 🙂

Last night’s hump day party was fun!! Lots of fab costumes, as usual. I didn’t get pictures, as usual, but you can check out some pics on Levi’s Snapzilla. I’m so lucky that he always manages to take pictures, because I really end up missing a LOT of the cool costumes because I’m buried in other programs. Cen had even recorded a message for me to play during the party, which was kind of cool. 🙂 I know there’s a way you can dual DJ with Skype and SAM3, but the instructions I’ve seen so far are complicated, so I guess I’ll never dual DJ with anyone. LOL Although that would be fun.

Yesterday on SLX I found some full permission noobs. LOL It was so funny, I had to pass it out to people. Then I played with them at the pit. I danced around some, and I put one to work passing out landmarks. I even had one at the door of the party ball, sporting a party hat, a Blingis!, and a Hasselhoff sign. I forgot to get a picture of that one, though. I need to go back and do that.

I think it’s time for a shower and some food [finally!], so I’ll wrap this up for now.

Oh wait. LOL I wanted to thank the people who had time to IM and comment positive things on my double relationships post. It really means a lot to me that so many of you were understanding, and it made me feel good as some of you have told me that the post makes you feel a little less alone. There are many many many of us out there in these kinds of relationships and it does work for us. But I do agree, it’s nice when someone speaks up and says, “Me too!” 🙂 So thank you for understanding, and for reading. 🙂

Occupying Time

Today I had some hours alone, so I had to occupy my time.

I started out by building a posestand for the group. I used a free script and my lame building skills, but it works. 🙂

Then I went around looking at a sim where there were some houses for rent. There were also horses and a see saw. But well…I don’t think see saws work very well when you’re by yourself.

At least…this doesn’t look right to me.

I even cleaned up our skybox. It looks sad without all our stuff. 😦 I am sad about leaving it. I’ve spent more time in the skybox than anywhere else. It stopped being my skybox and became OUR skybox in April. We’ve had so many conversations there, and so many other memories. 🙂 But I know wherever we choose to go, it’ll be wonderful.

Still, sad to see it empty like this.

After all of that, I still didn’t know what to do with myself, so I went to the library.

Just shows how awesome SL is if a girl like me can go to Princeton. Even if I do look totally bored.

Of course, Cen is always good at distracting me a bit, and we giggled and were boxbots.

Then I no longer had to occupy my alone time because I was no longer alone!