Disconcerting things

Well, top of the list of disconcerting things are:

• earache from orange juice (and from a bunch of other stuff, but... long and totally irrelevant story) and
• my daughter (25, brilliant, geeky marketing person) reads my SL blog and I never knew.  Scary. Meaning I can no longer whine about overwork and feeling crap on this blog because parents shouldn't whine. Apparently.
• In a lousy economic climate, and being a freelancer which is not exactly secure, I am ridiculously fortunate to have masses and MASSES of work (but am too scared to say "no" to any of my clients).

Ooops whining. Better talk about SL then, huh?

Ummm. OK. SL. Vent du Sud, even.

No time to do anything but pay rent (whine whine whine) for weeks ... or rather months now because of work and more work, plus major family visit (4 of them, including two teenage boys and oh boy can they eat but I digress already), and the need to go stare into space of an evening, outside.

Summer and all that. Wine and provence and lavender and peace... there are worse thing.

We have bats that drink out of our pool at night. Which is completely irrelevant to anything, but it's fascinating.

However, and not being one to give up (that) easily, I have paid my rent and - is this a sign? - paid some money into SL and it worked FIRST TIME. No snarky messages from either my bank or LL.

This is a first. 

And why have I put money in?

Well... I miss it. I actually miss Vent du Sud like hell. Can I say hell on a family blog?

I do NOT miss bitchy comments and one-star reviews on the marketplace (AGAIN) because something hasn't been delivered (and did they tell me? No).

I am NOT happy about the fact that somebody flagged an item of mine because of "wrong permissions" without telling me (and the permissions were NOT wrong when I did that hellish migration thing but apparently are now).  I have changed it. Gritting my teeth.

But I do miss it. So many things about it.

You may not understand this, dear daughter (if you are reading it). Or you might.  Working for a gaming company, I hope you will. 

So... better get going again, right?

 (Mind, I still need to juggle SL with the work, the vegetable garden, cooking, more work, travel for work, and now and then a little sleep and a little bat-watching).

But I'll try.

Why Vent du Sud is taking a new direction (as in free or nearly)

Short version: I am marking down things at Vent du Sud to 1L, or 50L (big builds such as the one below) for a while, possibly permanently. At the very least until I have lots of new stuff ready but at least until after Christmas. 

But I haven't quite finished yet.  Have a look around, scope out what's there and if it isn't marked down yet, it soon will be (within a couple of days).

Opening shutters, optional extra deck, 50L, incredibly low prim

For example, the beach cabin or the other things shown below (the cabin is already down to 50L). So are the lighthouses, and tree house btw, even if their buy boxes still have their original prices on).

There will be donation boxes (hey, I have a shoe and hair addiction to feed), but no pressure. 


As to the why, here goes  - but it's a little long: feel free to scroll.


My RL job involves travel, constant deadlines and often crazy hours, and 2010 has been a doozy in that respect. But it means that making money out of SL isn't the idea for me - much as I respect people who do build or design to bring in income. I am lucky that I do have a lot of work, and I know it.

SL is my hobby.

I drop in daily, to build a bit or chat a bit, unless I'm on a plane or battling with foreign Internet connections. I  love building and get a whole lot of pleasure out of it. So I always have lots of things in progress. Well, usually...

Seaglass flowerbox, 1L (any time soon)

But this summer, things came to a head a little. I learned a lot from it, including that when I'm overtired and under pressure, the last thing I need is SL turning into misery and frustration.

I got involved in a big project. Got excited about it. And then somehow I missed a vital notecard (I suspect the 'send to e-mail' feature doesn't always work and I'd been away a lot, on and off with patchy connections, or I simply, I dunno, didn't see it).

But that led to me not getting included in the whole thing, and to my frustration showing when I should have sat on my hands. My bad.

Outcome?

Trashing and deleting my whole 'ongoing' file in a stupid (REALLY stupid, self-destructive) moment. All I'd done for the new place went in the bin.

All of it. 

It seemed like a big deal to be left out, you see. I'd cheerfully been building away and trying not to pester for news until suddenly it was too late. And being a group officer and having been the first to originally sign up (but failed to 'reconfirm' on the blasted notecard), I suspected nothing.

Again my bad.

I was then promised the first opening that came up (hope springs eternal). Then one did come up, just the same day, but... it was advertised to the whole group. Another misunderstanding, I expect. When I said I'd love it, as it was exactly the size store I'd signed up for, I was too late. Ouch.

And that triggered the over-sensitive, over-tired, upset, 'I'm useless' click delete.

(Heh, I expect I'll lose my group tag any time soon, now, having already had the officer one taken away, although I'm trying not to sound to sour-grape-ish. At this point I couldn't afford another place anyway given the decision I've taken but I would like to continue sending gifts via the group).

We shall see.

Curve it, seats 5 plus couples poses, several versions. Soon 1L

So after that I mooned around a bit. Simmered over it all. Didn't build.

OK, in fact I shed a few tears over the whole thing. I was also more abrupt that I should have been with a flouncy lady on the group chat. Bad me yet again, but I was tired and upset. Not an excuse though, eh?


Then I finally started a dozen builds and abandoned them.

RL then got particularly difficult too (cue violins).

Then, fortunately (!), I had a stand-up row with a close friend and superb builder. I lapsed into the 'poor little me can't build and nobody loves me' number. He doesn't pull his punches and had issues of his own without me wallowing in self-pity.

To cut a long story short, we made peace and I came out of that actually believing I could build. He told me to get on and start lining up prims again once I was a bit less tired.

And it did me a power of good. He is a great friend.

And I am building, but it will take a little time to get some new stuff out that I like. It's coming, though.

Bathtub planter, click to change plants. Soon 1L

(Get to the point, woman).


So, the bottom line is...

... it seems logical to do what I like. Build for pleasure and count myself fortunate that I can afford to pay tier on my part of the sim and not count on covering it by sales. Make my stuff accessible to even the tiniest of budgets.

So that is what I shall be doing.

So once again, my stuff will be for the taking, for a token 1L except for the big builds at 50L starting now but gradually covering everything at my Vent du Sud store. 

I hope people enjoy it, and will drop in regularly (also to see the stunning things offered by my friends there, who deserve lots of recognition: all original creators including great fashion by Rett or Menthal's absolutely remarkable smoke and water masterpieces and other incredible gadgets, or Robin's superb photography).  No, these will not be free or virtually so, but worth a look.

And on a last note, a little publicity for somebody else who helps people without big budgets on SL - Enky's dollar store. Some of the great names on SL have donated things, and it's an absolute treasure trove. It's owned by Enktan Gully, who makes stunning footwear, and run by Agade Lefavre, who is a walking encyclopedia on SL fashion (and a great friend).

Check out the blog here. http://enkys.wordpress.com/
Visit the store here.http://slurl.com/secondlife/Orbiuna/213/120/357

This is one of the dresses on sale, and my first (and last) modelling experience. Heh.

Enough rambling. Hope to see you very soon at Vent du Sud. 

Watch out for highlighted items over coming weeks too, including Christmas things!

Flouncing, mawkishness and a pretty bad photo

Back to mundanity after a highly utopian and self-indulgent post about ideal days on SL. Still into this idea of more blogging, however.

Scroll warning: I am going to be somewhat mawkish (good Scrabble word that, by the way) and talk about leaving, and why I'm... not.

Like a lot of people on SL, I've threatened to leave. I even did so, I'm ashamed to say, on my blog.

I understand the pull to leave. I understand people leaving. I understand people saying they're leaving so they can goodbye to friends. And yes I even understand that it's probably a very good thing to leave for some people, at some points in time, either permanently or for a while.

It's a bit like television in the old days ,no? People insisting that the 'off' button should be used more because it was BAD. They didn't succeed, mostly, eh?

I rarely watch it because... I prefer SL . I don't want to get rid of it, though. Mind, if you had French television, you would probably be on SL (even) more too, although we have fewer commercials (and fewer channnels). Mind, the dubbing in Stargate, as an example, is unspeakably bad. And the woman who 'does' Meryl Street sounds like a constipated duck.

Ooops, digressing.

So, back to leaving.

I get highly irritated with some people who threaten to leave places - SL, forums, groups - but only when they do it with a FLOUNCE because something's irritated them and they clearly want to do the 'poor little me' thing and get sympathy. And they're usually back pretty damned fast.

(And yes, I probably wanted sympathy but I'd like to think it was also because I was overtired (thanks, RL work) and feeling a bit lost - it wasn't even as interesting as a Big Argument or a Love Affair Gone Wrong).

I don't get irritated at all when people need to leave for their own personal reasons and I appreciate them telling me (and the world, if they want). And I'm happy to say I've kept in touch with a few who did wipe SL off their computers.

I just hate the flouncing-to-get-sympathy, you know? Mind, when you're brought up by parents who felt that flouncing was even worse than wearing those awful things called jeans or slurping your soup in the list of terrible social sins no young lady should commit, it sort of figures.

I suppose a good flounce can be fairly cathartic, but do it in front of your cat, or write it and then leave it as a draft until you've slept on it.

(Should I leave this as a draft? Probably).

And no, I'm not targeting anybody here. I've seen a whole lot of non-flouncy 'I'm leaving' or 'I'm cutting down' posts that have brought tears of sympathy and understanding to my eyes recently - even if 'weeping in public' wasn't approved of in my family either. Mind, my cats were sympathetic. They're great public.

To them, I'd say do what you have to do. I understand. And personally, selfishly maybe, I'd add 'please leave the door open'.

To those who try and put the entire blame on others for quitting, I'm less sympathetic (you're so MEAN, you have RUINED MY LIFE). Personally, one person who made my SL a misery tempted me to disappear a couple of times in the past, but the good friends I have were more than worth staying for (this is the mawkish bit here, and coming up).

When things go wrong, blame is never really 100% on one side (although in that particular case I'm not prepared to accept more than 20% and I consider that to be generous, so there).

So, I'm grateful - hugely so - to people who've said to me, when I've whined that I should leave: 'do what you have to', and even more so because they were around to prop me up when I didn't... but went around whining even more.


OK, enough of the mawkish.

Ah.

Rumour has it this blog is on a homes and gardens feed, from which I could justifiably be kicked off, and I wouldn't blame them as I did say I was (mainly) on topic. Really, I won't mind.

But... look.



It's free in my subscribo. The table anyway. It does actually have four legs but at least the entire table is on the photograph.