If you saw my intro to Bre post, you caught a few glimpses of the huge mansion that our little “family” share in SL. I thought I’d show you around a bit inside, although I just took down the St. Patrick’s Day decor and haven’t done much Easter or Spring decorating. I started at the entry and got a bit distracted by a sale, if I’m honest. *laugh*
These are taken at the “back” of the house. There is a gazebo and yoga are to the far right, with the fairy circle just barely visible in the middle of the bottom picture, tucked away between hills and trees.
We spend a LOT of time up on the roof. We have a lot of table games; with Rummi, Aught, and Greedy being our top favs (we have less than half of them out right now *laugh*); it is a lot easier to decorate and landscape without making spots that incorporate our games, so I plopped the main ones up on the roof. Tacky and weird, but I get points for creative usage of space. *grin*
This is the front of the house where I just started decorating. And yes, this is one of my favorite outfits, so you have seen this a few times. *laugh*
The bottom is the foyer right inside the doors Bre was sitting in front of. The door to the left goes to my craft room, which I haven’t decorated since we put the mansion back out. Usually it’s a mixture between scrapbooking decor and bath/body product making decorations, to make it feel more realistic. To the right of the foyer is the man cave. Straight in from the middle is the pet room, which is the top right picture. In SL you can have interactive cats and there are a few out at this time, wandering about and asking to play or cuddle when you’re within their range. Damian McIrish and his sister, Zoe, roll around in their hamster balls, but thankfully pixel cats aren’t interested in attacking, so they all coexist well. *laugh* Keiran, Niamh (pronounced Neeve), Lily, Sir, and Bellatrix are the main cats. Z and I both own a lot of other cats between us, but only put a few out at a time nowadays. Through the left archway in the cat room is the massive kitchen I would seriously love to have, which is the top right picture. Around big holidays I rez all sorts of baking supplies and foods, with spilled flour and sugar even, to make it feel like a real home.
The dining room is barely decorated, so you just see a little bit of the table in the background of the picture of my library, where Bre has a little blogging area (just couldn’t resist *grin*) and there is even a book on the desk that gives really creative writing prompts when clicked (I found it during a hunt). The lower two pictures are both sides of the living room. In RL we have a very “cozy” living room, so this huge living room is one of my favorites in the mansion. It is SO beautiful with a huge Christmas tree and decorated packages spilling out from beneath, especially if you look down on the living room from the “sitting area” that runs along the top of the living room, connecting the upper bedroom wings. Through that bottom archway on the piano side is a hall with doors to Z’s bedroom and bathroom, along with an entertainment room with recliners and a tv that we can actually stream YouTube on in world, so we can all share videos and songs. I thought the upper walls of the living room were a perfect canvas for galleries of pictures of some of our favorite adventures. The upper wing on the piano side is Sylo’s private wing, so no pictures there either (the rooms match mine, but we decorate to our own tastes, etc.).
The other wing is split between Luke and I, with me getting the lion’s share, since it’s my house and I hoard pixel furnishings, so I need the room. *laugh*
The left picture is my bedroom, although I didn’t capture my Phantom of the Opera dedicated corner in the right corner. *laugh* I should be embarrassed by how much Phantom related items I have in both lives. Should, but I’m not. *grin* Anyway, the dressing room is the right picture, with my nerdy pictures along the walls, and the weird square in the middle of the room with the candles on it is actually a pose stand. In SL we all get Animation Overrides (AOs), which have movements we prefer our avatars use instead of the weird robotic walk of a new (noob) avatar. Luke has a mobster-ish AO, Bre has around 8 that I have Frankensteined together into my favorite types of movements, Z has a standard male AO, and Sylo has this super feminine and cute AO. All avatars are incredibly fidgety people, seldom ever standing still unless they’re in a pose, so if you want to see what you’re doing (like when applying makeup or making sure the hair doesn’t interact with the clothing, etc.), you must use a pose stand to get your avatar in a static pose. *laugh* Seriously, you’d think we all have ADD if you saw our avatars at rest, when we aren’t making them move. If you’re a new user or planning to start an avatar in SL, a free pose stand is your highest priority.
As you could see in the bedroom picture I have a gallery of pictures as well, but these are top moments during the evolution of Bre, and SL, as well, as technology improved.
This picture I left at full resolution, so I’m sorry if it loads slower, but the gallery is hard enough to see anyway. *laugh*
In the bottom right corner is my very first avatar, then right above that is a double screenshot of one of my first SL friends and I electrocuting our avatars for Halloween many years ago (yeah, I do some weird stuff to my avatar for Halloween. I’m morbid and honest about it LOL), and the two at the top on the right are praying in a beautiful church I found on the Ireland sim years ago and then a group of us doing a conga line while dressed in costumes at my first hangout.
At the top middle is Bre riding on Nessie while exploring one of the Scotland sims many years ago, with the top left picture being my first formal at a Phantom themed formal dance club. *happy sigh* It was so beautiful. Right below that picture is my first dance with one of the Phantom based avatars. The technology was frightful, looking back at it after mesh became the new normal, but my time at Swept Away with a bunch of Phantom fans was a really fun time, and dancing with Phantom, even though it was just some bloke playing him, still makes me smile.
In the middle is a very silly Christmas Elf picture with my third version of Bre and right beside that is when I decided to try out a really tan skin on Bre (my fourth version of her). That picture is when I got a brand new computer that could handle the graphics and there was an explosion of color and realism that I never got to experience before, so I had to capture the moment.
The bottom row are almost all my first couple versions of Bre, including the one in the middle when there was a support group for Spoonies that I got to meet with weekly until the group disbanded due to the owner’s health issues progressing. The fact that you can find other people around the world that truly understand what you’re going through and you can meet with them while avoiding catching anything, or having to try and sit without your customized “nest” to minimize your pain, is an incredible part of SL. Although that group ended there are other groups out there and I just haven’t found the one that works for me. There are tons of groups for shopping, fandoms, religion, and health issues. It is such an awesome concept to me.
Anyway, the bottom right, as mentioned before, was my very first avatar, so let’s compare to around ten years later…
Bre became quite the sexy nerd and we did a lot of growing up together. *grin* Although hangouts, technology, and friends change, SL has always remained a place where I can find others that are quirky too, and all of those experiences are just as incredible as my real life experiences. No matter how bad my health gets my inner self has somewhere to go, has a place to be creative even when I can’t stand or make things in the real world, and I get to spend time with incredible people that sometimes become part of my own family in both worlds. I’m truly blessed to get to have these adventures, but most especially to have found some of the best friends I’ve ever had. And, since I can’t stand to end with being mushy, I get to admire the smexy pixel version of the girl inside my mind. Especially her tush in jeans from Just Because. I have a total pixel crush on this latest version of Bre. *grin*
Also, I avoid specific religious comments usually (even more than political), but want to wish those that celebrate a blessed Easter. To those that prefer to celebrate April Fools Day, I wish you happy pranking. 🙂
Georgia's Pampering 