Anyways, I’ve been playing around in SecondLife and ended up abandoning my life as a mermaid and replaced my beautiful underwater reef with my own lil’ floating boutique on the water. I already designed 2 complete outfits a pair of boots in 3 different colors (which I may design over because the sculpted leg warmers need a little more work.), 7 different eyes and a cute tunic shirt available in 4 different colors, inspired by my favorite store Body Central!

My first design was recreating my prom dress. Which was a pink 2 piece satin gown with a sheer overlay that hung from the halter top top that exposed my midriff. My dress was a one of a kind creation which cost my mom over $400 (More than my wedding gown!). – I love my Mom .

At first I only wanted to design the dress for personal use, but once I finished designing it I really loved the process and outcome. With that said I decided to make more clothes and open a little boutique of my own with an aquatic theme.

Come shop at this floating shop in the middle of the sea & watch sea life beneath your feet! Offering womens apparel at reasonable prices, including: evening gowns, shoes, skirts, eyes, etc. – My Location Description

I hear that a lot of people actually make a living off of selling clothes, skins, etc., on SL. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that level of sales where I am making a living off of it, but for now, it’s something I want to do for fun to put my design skills to use in a different way. Making clothes in SL will help me with learning how to shade better and to take my Photoshop skills to another level.

I have so much work to do to fill my shop up. It looks pretty bare right now lol. I have four walls to cover with clothes and accessories. I plan on making about 3 items a week to add to the shop and each month I plan on updating the current designs to make them look more realistic as I get more experience.
I really like designing eyes too. They are very easy to create, but the possibilities are endless. You’ll be surprised with all the beautiful color combos you can come up with!

Another plus, is my hubby and sister always wanted to start their own clothing line , so I guess you can say this is a cheap inexpensive way to make their dreams come true lol! If you play SecondLife, drop by my lil shop(Body of Water Boutique Slurl). Regardless if you buy anything or not, I’m giving a free gift out to all my visitors that will change every month. I may start making the gift available to only group members, but until then it’s available to everyone!

My laptop wouldn’t do a System Restore or a System Recovery. After speaking to the tech the second to last time she advised me to do a System Recovery and I had her walk me through it. When I got off the phone with her my laptop was in the process of doing it until I checked on it a few minutes later and saw an error message on the screen. I then called Toshiba again and I was told it was something to do with the hardware and my computer needed to be sent in for repair – DUH! Thank God, my warranty doesn’t expire until February, but it really sucks that my computer is acting like that and I haven’t had it for a year. I’ve already made plans to purchase a desktop once February hits. To make matters worse I tried to restart my computer and my computer now fails to start. Instead I get this message

BOOTMGR Missing

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart

When I did that my computer failed to load Windows and would go back to a black screen displaying that message again. Now I can’t even use my computer at all. This really sucks because I just started a new project called: Mermaidiaries.com.

I decided to create a SecondLife role play saga in my spare time and my hubby and I already played out the prologue just the other night. If you’re interested in reading it visit my newest addition to the network: Mermaidiaries.com.

Last, but not least, if you noticed my site was down earlier, it was because I asked Hostgator to switch eternally-me.com to my primary domain name. I still have over 200 days left for Sweetvanillasugar.com, but I plan on letting that domain expire and moving our wedding website to a sub-domain under eternally-me.com.

There was a time when I was actually considering giving up SecondLife because of all the perverts online. People are so sick that they even take their perversions into the online human simulation world of SL and I was getting unwanted solicitations. Ever since I decided to explore the world of  the mystical mermaids all that unwanted perversions cease to exist and from then on I’ve experienced pure serenity when I’m on SL.

I went to holiday masquerade on Wednesday and it was jam packed with merfolk from all over SL. It was so packed that they had to open another Sim for the merfolk that couldn’t get in. It was good fun and I was able to meet other merfolk on SL.

I’ve also introduced some new friends to my reef. This black tipped reef shark actually has AI, and will approach you in curiosity. Don’t worry though, he only eats fish and sometimes crabs lol.

I’m considering adding a sea turtle to the mix, but I don’t know yet. I have to see how my reef shark works out first. She seems to love my cave, Yes – I made her a female .

It took me about a week to get this reef design just right. I first went off a pic I found on the web, which didn’t go very well in the digital world so I tried this style out and it worked out perfectly. I really want my reef to look as natural as possible. Some merfolk waste their lindens on furniture made for mermaids, etc. To me if you actually want to play the role of a mermaid you must let go of human things. Beds, chairs, tables, etc. are too human for my taste. Instead I live in a reef and I sleep inside a cave on a coral covered rock. I think that’s appropriate role play for a maiden of the sea.

My 1st attempt

2nd attempt. I love this design

Well enough of my created fantasy – lol I have to tend to RL matters such as cooking dinner.

Well I have to be off to update some GrowBlackHair.NET.

I’ve also decide to show you some more pics from SL:

This is mee at an amusement park Brian(Laureate) and I went to. As you can see I recently bought a new skin that looked more like my skin tone than the previous one.

Brian and I at the amusement park again.

Brian and I at the Zen Springs.

I have some model shots too that look really good, like an actually model photo, but I haven’t downloaded them to my computer yet so I’ll add them later this week!

Second Life is similar to The Sims, but better. It’s an online community created by it’s residents and it takes social networking and instant messaging to another level. You can create an avatar which is your form of self expression…(Mine looks as much like me as possible. I express myself with the clothes I wear, not her looks.)  You can also buy hair, clothes, accessories, and skins to make your avatar unique. If you’re good at PSP’s you can make your own hair, skin, and clothes, etc.

I used to IM Brian a lot on Myspace messenger, but since I created a SecondLife account, normal IM isn’t where it’s at with me or him anymore.

The above pic is Brian (Laureate) and I(Samara) at a beautiful garden called Apollo that has that Rome look and feel. We’ve already been to a party and out shopping together almost every day, etc.

There’s so much free stuff you can get from the malls, but 4 bucks will get you $1000 in SL money to spend which couldn’t hurt because if you really want your avatar to look a certain way 4 bucks is all that is needed to buy the perfect skin and hair. Free clothes are abundant so you don’t really need to buy clothes unless you see something in one of the malls that you really like.

Of coarse SecondLife has many perverts, people that are vampires, strippers, even slaves! Just last night I had a guy asking me to be his mistress. That was really weird. You can also own your own business(even making real money), find employment, have sex, etc. The possibilities are limitless.

Besides some of SL perversions it’s still an interesting social network/game that keeps me occupied in my spare time.

This is a photo I took of Laureate and I in my house that I built.

In other news, I will be adding the second part of my story “The Voice of an Unbroken Spirit” sometime this week.