Anniversaries and other things

So yesterday was a big day for us! It was six years since my Birdy became MINE! Yep, 6 years ago I had her fall from the sky and if she made it, she would be my daughter. *laughs* Just kidding, but we did do skydiving that night.

It doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but 6 years in SL is an eternity, if you think about how much can happen. We’ve definitely been through a lot of changes, especially in the past 2 years, but one thing stays the same always. My little bird and I are stuck together like glue. And now we have someone in our life who loves us both so much, and even more than that, he genuinely enjoys us just the way we are – silly, bratty, quirky, and all.

In other news, we have been putting in so much work on Bluebonnet in the past week! I’m really happy and excited about it! It’s got such a tiny town feel to it, and everything is in walking distance and I love it!

I knew when we started redoing the sim (sorry, I know Patch Linden wants us to call them regions and not sims, but man, that is hard to remember!) Jeremiah and I definitely wanted to put 7 Seas fishing out. It’s something fun and chill to do, you know? So… the Bluebonnet Fishing Dock!

I just adore how this came out! I do not really think I’m very good at sim design. But I am good at putting together a set. So I’m just putting together sets and luckily, everything is coming together pretty cute! It’s very tiny town. It’s not one of those super photogenic sims, but it’s super cute!

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, our fostering came to an end. Sometimes you can really really like someone, but you just don’t fit quite together as family, and that’s okay. Friendship is super important, too! It’s always been my belief that a very very long trial was necessary when adopting, but sometimes you know fairly quickly that you and the kiddo just are better off as friends. Anyone who has Lyra join their family will be incredibly lucky, and we definitely wish her nothing but love and luck in her future family search.

I think… Yeah, I think that’s it for now. I have shopping and some parcel landscaping to do today (primarily shopping, because that’s more fun than landscaping on a Saturday) so I’m off to go do that!

We Do!

We did it!

Yep, it’s true! Today I became Alicia Noelle Leitner.

We had a small private ceremony with just us, Birdy, and a few close friends. It was so lovely. I know some people probably will feel slighted that they were not invited to the ceremony, but honestly, we wanted to keep it very small and intimate, so I hope people respect that.

We said our vows to each other, and I cried, of course. *laughs* I just couldn’t help myself!

Our reception was also really fun. We had music by our favorite live singer, Wolfie Starfire! Oh, she put on a great show for us! Lots of Disney song requests from us and our guests, so I think she really had a fun time, too!

Right now we’re resting a bit and having some food. Later tonight, Jeremiah and I will be jetting off to our honeymoon! He has not told me exactly where we are going yet, so I’m very very excited to get to see it!

Next blog post will be from our honeymoon!

And Now Another Year

Hey y’all! So this is the last blog post in this blog for 2017. Was I good at updating this year? No. LOL! But this is also the 10th anniversary of this blog, so I wanted to do a post.

Last night, I held the 9th New Year’s Eve Eve party. it was SO fun. I met a lot of people that I have only known through YouTube comments, and it was just a really lovely time. My sister decorated the most beautiful spot, and by divine luck, even Aldwyn was able to attend.

[I say divine luck because it was a Saturday night on a holiday weekend and the fact that he wasn’t working was amazing.]

I think the best part of the party is that I told people that before they left the party, I wanted them to meet at least one person that they didn’t know before and try to make a friend. We bubble ourselves so much at times. Before the party started, some people were saying that they would not know anyone there. I wanted to change that. Especially since at last year’s party, that’s when I met Groves for the first time and a year later, she’s stuck with me. A lot of things can happen in a year.

And you know what? People actually left the party with new friends. So I’d definitely call it a success. 🙂

So. I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore, but I do make goals.

1. I’ve got to get more healthy in 2018. I know, everyone says that. But I’m not saying I’m going to lose 50 pounds or hit the gym everyday. I just want to do healthier things for my mind and body.

2. I need to learn how to manage my time better. Where some people seem to have 29 hours in a day, I only seem to have 7. There’s got to be some kind of balance in there. I’m determined to find it.

3. I really do want to get more consistent with YouTube, but also I want to do the videos I enjoy more than ones that I feel obligated to do.

4. I’m definitely going to balance out the amount of energy that I give people that I really don’t know. I am always happy to make new friends, but I need to learn that not everyone is going to be a friend, and I don’t need to drain my own energy to make strangers happy.

5. Definitely want to get better at my blog photos. Doing photos in SL is one of my favorite things in the world, and I want to get better at it.

6. I really need to clean up my inventory. But uh… I think I said that last year, too. So we’ll see. LOL

I have other goals, but we’ll leave it there for now. Do you guys make New Year’s goals? Tell me some of them!

I’d make the promise that I’ll be more consistent with updating this blog in 2018, but we know that might not happen. I will still try to update once a month, though. Or I’ll start posting my Youtube videos here. I kinda don’t want to do that just so I can save this blog for writing but hey, you never know.

I want to wish all of you a very Happy New Year and I hope that 2018 is an amazing year for all of us! Please stay safe if you’re going out tonight, because I want to see all of your shiny happy faces in 2018! ❤

10 Years

Today is kind of a special day for me. Today I’ve been Alicia Chenaux for 10 years. It’s my rez day!

I don’t usually celebrate it. This avatar wasn’t supposed to exist. The night I made my avatar, I did it a bit out of desperation to just run. If you’ve been a long time reader of my blog, you know that I’ve talked a bit about the fact that I had an avatar for a year prior to this one. I also did a video on my YouTube channel talking about that first year. It’s an older video now, so you have to look for it.

I was really messed up back then. I have apologized for it all before. Some people accepted it, some didn’t. That’s life. Even Second Life. 🙂

But more than being my rez day, it’s actually a more special day to me. It’s the day that I decided I needed to stop drinking so much.

See, back then, I had a problem. Well, I had a lot of problems. But my go-to release was to just drink it all away. Just get smashed, it’ll all be fine! I don’t think a lot of people ever knew how much I drank. Or that I combined it with anti-anxiety meds. I think I was pretty good at hiding it. Other than the path of crazy I left behind me, I guess. *laughs*

The night of the 26th, a lot of things happened. A lot of things were said. I’m not going to say that I didn’t hurt people because I did. Even drinking as much as I was, I knew I had to take some of the blame. Other people did, too, but we won’t get into that. But that night was the worst of it. So I made Alicia.

And then I logged out.

I uninstalled Second Life.

I sat on the bathroom floor really wondering what my life was and who was I even?

If it sounds dramatic, remember that I was pretty drunk at the time. Most things were pretty dramatic back then. :-p

But it was that night while I was on the bathroom floor that I thought, “Girl, you have got to change this shit.”

I threw out the alcohol I had left in the house. I cut ties with people who caused me to drink. I did some therapy. I did not consider myself an alcoholic then, and I still don’t think I was, but I think I was most definitely headed down that path.

Then on New Year’s Eve 2007, I wanted a truly fresh start. I didn’t have a party to go to because any party that I would have gone to would have had a LOT of alcohol and I was only a month sober. Blogging, and starting my “$5L A Day” project was much easier. Or harder. I really don’t know.

In 10 years, a lot has changed. Yes, I still have anxiety. That is a life long thing. I can drink now without getting drunk, but I can’t drink without getting sick off of one drink, so…drinks don’t happen often. 🙂 But I’m so happy now. I feel like had I not restarted the way that I did… I don’t even know what would have happened. I just know that every day, I wake up and I’m happy to just be myself. I’m flawed, I’m introverted, I’m sometimes too loud. I can be unbelievably tacky at times. Sometimes I truly do talk too much. I love people to the tips of my toes. I also refuse to have too much negativity in my life if I can at all avoid it. None of that would have been possible without the last 10 years and the people who have been with me on this journey.

I don’t know if Second Life will still be a thing in 10 years. I don’t know if I’ll still be blogging virtual worlds or if I’ll move into a whole other thing. But what I do know is this. Your Second Life is what you make of it. If you’re not having a good time, change it. If you’re bored in it, you’re not looking around enough. If you’re truly unhappy with it – get out of it. You’re never stuck. You can always do something new. And who knows? One small change you make might change your entire world. ❤

The End of One Year, The Start of Another.

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! Today marks the 9th year of this blog! I started it at a time in my life that wasn’t great, and I wanted to just … start over, be someone else. I don’t know exactly. But what ended up happening is that I became more myself than ever. And that’s a good thing.

But we all know my backstory at this point. If you don’t…I dunno, go watch this video and it explains it all. 🙂

So, 2016.

This wasn’t my Best Year Ever. But it wasn’t all that bad either. On the RL side of things, I didn’t lose anyone, and that makes me enormously grateful. Considering the 2016 that some people have had, the fact that all of my loved ones are still alive is basically the only thing I could have asked for.

In SL, I’ve definitely had ups and downs this past year. But more ups than downs. I love my partner of over 5 years, and he is always so patient and supportive of me. I love my little girls. I love the rest of the family. I love the life we’ve created and I’m so thankful that we’re going into yet another year together.

This year in SL, it even took me to a new place – YouTube! I never ever thought that I would be vlogging on YouTube. I didn’t think that anyone would want to watch a random SL avatar doing mostly non-fashion, almost always non-trolling things. But they do! And not only do they watch, they interact with me in a way that I never would have expected. It’s amazing and sometimes a little scary [like when people just show up in our house just to “look around.”] but still something that I am just loving to do.

What astounds me every year is that SL always seems to have something to teach me. Just when I think I’ve learned all the lessons possible, it puts another one in my lap. Not just about photos or how to do things. But just life lessons. This past year taught me that I do have to know where my boundaries are. I have learned when to pull back when I have given as much as I could, and not to try to give more when it is not making me happy to do so. I often put myself last when it comes to what I want because I so badly want everyone else to have what they want first. This doesn’t work in the long run because I become resentful that my needs aren’t being met when it’s my fault that I didn’t say what I needed in the first place. That’s definitely a lesson I’m taking with me from 2016 – for both my worlds.

So what’s coming up for me in 2017? Well, more videos, obviously. I want to learn more about my chosen editing program, and make more content that people will like to watch. I’d like to be more social, and maybe make a few closer friends. Or at least one. *laughs* And of course, I want to keep on with my blogs. Yes, even this one, although I think vlogging will take priority over this blog. I guess I could update this one with my videos when I put them out? We’ll see.

But most importantly… I think I’m going to give myself a rest this 2017. Not take a break. But just give myself a rest from this constant fight I have with my body, and this need to compete against everything and anything. I live my days in this near constant state of anxiety because I’m always attempting to do the perfect things that I feel like I’m supposed to do, and then everything overwhelms me so quickly because I know I can’t control everything. Emotionally, my mind is exhausted. Physically, my body pretty much is, too. Maybe if I were kinder to myself, things that I want to accomplish would just happen in their own time if they are meant to happen. I’d kind of like to find out.

Thank you all for sticking with me this year! I hope you all have a very safe and happy new year’s eve, and just an amazingly wonderful 2017! ♥

Your Heart I Will Choose

Oh God. I can’t even give an excuse as to why I haven’t posted in here. *laughs* If you follow me on youtube, you know I’ve been doing more videos than anything lately. I need to really find some dang balance with everything.

But anyway… Guess what? We just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!! Isn’t that CRAZY?? Well, Aldwyn says it’s not really crazy. But still…crazy!

We did laugh, though, thinking about some of the people who said that I was just the “flavor of the month,” even though by the time they said it, we’d been together for almost half a year. I’m still the best flavor, suckers!!

Instead of having a big party or anything, all I really wanted to do was hang out with my little family. It was actually kind of a big night for us!

I’ve mentioned the SL adoption-to-birthing process before in a previous post. Not in really great detail or anything, I’m sure. But as simply as I can explain it: Some parents in SL choose to “birth” their adopted children. It’s a symbolic thing more than anything else. The child is not considered adopted anymore, but a true born child of the parents. Now most parents who do this, the mom goes through the SL pregnancy process – belly bump, labor, and all! Even complete with a prim baby in most cases! But this was not something I was interested in doing. I didn’t want to look pregnant [blogging would be difficult!] and I didn’t want to do the labor thing or have a Zooby baby of the girls. *laughs* I just didn’t. BUT, the whole symbolic thing appealed to me. Because well…they just feel like ours. So I felt like it was time.

I made a video for the girls. [It’s private, but I’ll share one day.] They loved it! Then I presented them with new birth certificates, and the whole family with rings with a Z on them. I actually want to get proper signet rings for everyone one day.

After that, we went on a mushroom hunt! It was the neatest thing. We got to hunt mushrooms and make potions that sometimes made mushrooms grow from our heads. It was soooo cute! We also carved some pumpkins as practice for next month!

It was really a wonderful evening, and the best wedding anniversary. ❤

Six Years

So back in 2010, Aldwyn and I were just hanging out. A lot. Neither of us were looking for anything, we just simply enjoyed each other’s company. But then we decided, hey…why not try this? Why don’t we see what happens?

A year after that, he proposed. And a few months later, we were married. Then came the kids. And throughout everything, we’ve remained strong. ❤

Today is our 6 year anniversary. I can't believe he's put up with me for 6 years! Believe me, he's probably been tempted to go out for cigarettes and not come back more times than he'd ever say. *laughs* But we stay together, and every moment we get together is wonderful.

Six years. Who would have guessed?

Celebrate endings – for they precede new beginnings.

And so we come to the end of another year. 🙂 We also come to the 8th anniversary of this blog. Hard to believe, huh? I started this blog out of desperation, honestly. So many things had changed in such a little time. I was so desperately trying to change my life – both first and second. I wanted to be someone better. Eight years later, I think I’ve achieved that. Or at least, I’m not as bad as I was then. I no longer feel useless, or sad, or like I’m a disappointment to anyone. Could I be better? Of course. We could all be better in some way. That’s just part of being human. But I feel good and I love this journey that I’m on. Yes, it’s a journey. We don’t reach the end. We just keep moving forward.

I spent the evening with my family and a few of our close friends. It was the 7th annual New Year’s Eve Eve party. It was a much more low key event this year, which is how I wanted it. Not that I don’t love big parties or anything but you know how it is. Sometimes you just want to be in your bubble. And it really was exactly what I wanted. Lots of music, laughter, and silly conversation. Perfect!

2015 has been a pretty great year for me in SL. I feel like my photo skills have gotten better. I definitely want to learn more on how to make things look better next year. Now that I have the new video card, I feel like if my pics aren’t good, I can’t blame the computer anymore. *laughs* Now it just is up to me getting better skills!

My family life has been amazing this past year. I really kind of feel bad that I didn’t blog as much in this blog because there were so many things that we did that I didn’t really talk about. So that’s definitely one of my SL resolutions for 2016. More blogging in here about my SL and definitely more pictures of the family. And of course, part of what made 2015 so great is that our Oleander side of the family moved to Bluebonnet! That really was one of the major highlights of my SL this year. I love that we are all together on the sim. Bluebonnet has always been my SL home, but it is even MORE of a home now that we are all together.

I hope that 2015 was good for all of you! Thank you so much for sticking with me in my very sporadic blogging over on this blog. I know that some of you enjoy my SLife stories more than my style blogging, so I do appreciate it that you still read me for whatever reason you have. 🙂 If 2015 wasn’t too hot for you, well, hey, the year is over! It’s time for a fresh start and 2016 can totally be your year! If you go out for New Year’s Eve, please be careful because I want to see every one of you in 2016! ❤

Sometimes You Take A Chance

On October 18, 2006, someone I was close to at the time said, “I’m sure you’ve heard of this before, but there’s this thing called Second Life and it’s like The Sims, but you play with other people.”

I was in a really bad place in my life at that time. A few days ago, I was looking over some things I’d written in the couple of years before I joined SL and it made me sad at how damn hard I worked at proving I was fine. I wasn’t fine. I was deep into my eating disorder [numbers were my thing – counting calories, carbs, Points. If I could count it and play with the numbers, I was good]. I was drinking like a fish. Things were bad. So I came to SL, lied about some things, got caught up in a life that wasn’t mine, and hurt people who hurt me, too.

But I’ve talked about all this before. No use rehashing. Let’s just say that grief makes you someone you don’t recognize if you don’t allow yourself to grieve. And eventually, it comes out no matter what you try to do to push it away.

Nine years, though. That’s a heck of a long time. But in many ways, it’s not that long at all. I discover new things all the time. SL changes, we get (hopefully) better at it. It’s all good and there are a lot worse things I could have been doing in the past 9 years, that is for sure!!

That all being said, like many milestones in my SLife, I’m starting my technically-9th year with the possibility of a new adoption. Or at least, we’re hoping to match with the little girl that I mentioned in my last post. We put up a panel at Heritage tonight so we could Like her panel. I’m hoping that we match with her. If we don’t, hey, no harm, no foul. As I told the girls, they are more than enough to make me happy and I am very very happy with our family. And there are a million reasons why this girl would not work out. The times could be all off or she could be rude or she could look at our panel notecard and think, “LOL NOPE.” I know a lot of prospective parents IM the kids once they like their panel, or sometimes even before, but I don’t want to push it. Sometimes you just take a chance and let the chips fall where they may. If she sees and likes our panel and we match, I’ll know my feelings on this were right. If not… whatever. I’ve still got 2 great kids. 🙂 Either way, I’m a winner!

Six Whole Years

I’ve been a fashion blogger for over 6 years now. The 6th anniversary of my fashion blog came and went last week. I don’t usually celebrate it. I know several bloggers who make a big deal about their blog anniversaries – parties, free gifts, etc., but I’ve never felt the need. As much as I love it, I don’t find it to be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

I never set out to be a fashion blogger. On my old avatar, I was kinda getting started doing it before I left. I had a great mentor as far as blogging goes and I still do many of the things she taught me back then. [Like, you know, actually WRITING about things and not just showing a pic and credits.]

When I started this blog, fashion was so so far from my mind. I wanted to just write about my SLife, the things I did, the things I saw, the people I talked to. But as I gained a bit of popularity [lifestyle blogs were bigger back in 2008-09], people started sending me things to blog. I am still not quite sure why. I wasn’t on any feeds and this wasn’t a fashion blog and I’m not particularly fashionable. Also? My pictures suuuuuuucked. SUUUUUUUCKED!!!

I mean, they still kinda suck, but they suck a lot less these days.

But after a while, I felt bad about blogging things on a non-fashion blog that wasn’t on any feeds. So I opened a second blog in 2009. I highly suggest you do not go looking for the first post. It ain’t pretty. And my friends back then obviously weren’t loyal because I was as skinny and orange as they come and no one told me. Rude.

After 6 years of doing this, I feel like I know the ins and outs of blogging. There are things that I see the newer bloggers do that make me shake my head and roll my eyes. Like then they don’t write anything. When they don’t credit properly. When you look at their pics and you haven’t the slightest clue what they’re showing. When they’re constantly naked for no reason. When they say that they’re “accepting sponsors.” When they call people “sponsors.”

But it’s the same with designers, too. The ones with the crazy blogging rules, especially when they haven’t earned the right to have crazy blogging rules. The ones who act like their store is the ONLY store. The ones who behave like because they gave you $2 worth of items, they own your entire soul. I shake my head and roll my eyes at them, too. And refuse to blog them.

But I also realize that blogging is not static and maybe by this point, I’m a dinosaur with my actual love of writing and my belief that you should put SLurls and not call people sponsors. There’s room for all in the blogosphere, even the naked people. [Although I prefer not to see their boobs more than I see my own.]

Six years is a long time to do anything, especially in Second Life. But I do love it. I love when I get accepted to events or someone contacts me to blog their items. I love putting things together and taking pictures. I would not do this if I did not love it. Who knows… maybe I’ll even do it another year. 🙂