I do love an excuse to get naked and new skins from PXL are a very good excuse indeed. The latest offering for us ladies is Dafne and she’s a pouty, pretty thing. I also ended up spending a hefty chunk of time sorting out a pair of prim feet to wear with the new anklets from Studio Sidhe.

Oh, look, its Tuesday again. Life has just piled up on top of me lately. I am hoping this weeks lesson will help perk me up a bit and if it goes like last week, the chance is good.

We stayed with the theme of very controlled turns and straightness without the help of a nearby wall. To start with we worked on weaning the horses off from automatic turns at the corners by riding straight into the corner and coming to a half as soon as they wanted to start turning on their own. Heddvig responded quite well to this, though she did get a little stressed at one point but Ulrika reminded me to make sure to always make it clear to her what she needed to do to get away from any pressure. She made the point that mares often get stressed more easily since they have to think about protecting themselves and a foal, and Heddvig has had some foals as well.

Once she felt we rode the corners fairly well, we added turning in down the center line. The turns onto and off the line were important, of course, and also the straightness of the line itself. Again I had some issues with turning too late to the right at first, but after a while I had the hang of it and Heddvig ended up very nicely balanced. She often gets a little rushed, but her trotting towards the end felt very good. Its probably the best balance I’ve had out of her so far, so that did perk me up a bit.

Rather different from the things I usually dive into, but when this outfit (from elymode) and this hair (from Dernier Cri) showed up on the same day, they really seemed to want to be put together.

The Abyss has gone through a couple of changes of late: a name change for its chief designer, slashed pricing on previous skins (Scorpio line down to L$1000, I believe, and the Steve Law-Dave Gears-Adam Crius set are down to L$1300), and ... brand new male skins! The first release in what I suppose may be called the Identity series, Identity 2043, was too ethnic for my purposes—I always want a skin to fit some particular character from my roleplaying or (on occasion) from literature, and nothing came to mind at the time. But then 1208 came out, and I have to say I fairly leapt on it. Find out why below (and beware—pixellated bits!)

I can’t say I am a big fan of lingerie in RL. Or rather, I like how it looks but I often find it terribly uncomfortable. Fortunately, that is not an issue in SL, allowing me to indulge in such lovely sets as the latest releases from Insolence and Zaara. My skin is also a new release, yet another beautiful creation from Tuli, and I’ve picked out two recent hairs from Exile to go with it all.

So, time for the autumn semester at the riding school. Or rather, it was time for it about a week ago, when I had my first lesson for a while. The second one’s coming up tomorrow.

I rode Heddvig (so far, that’s an “of course”, don’t really have any other options right now) and we didn’t exactly get a soft start, though Ulrika didn’t push us too hard either.  We worked on straightness and tracking by way of turning in across the arena and riding towards the central mirror. Turning onto the line and turning off the line was done with minimal bending so that straightness could be achieved faster afterwards.

On the whole, Heddvig is fairly straight. She throws out her right shoulder a fair bit when coming towards the turn away from the line, so it took a bit of work to avoid making the turn to the right too difficult for her, but other than that she tracks pretty well both at walk and at trot. We also managed some decent cantering towards the end, though I had forgotten which side was her difficult and tried going right at first. That wasn’t so successful to start with.

She seems to have stayed at more or less the same level as before the summer in terms of cantering, though she seemed to tire a bit more quickly. But hey, so did I, and my legs felt it the day after.  As for my motivation…well, its still a bit lacking. I feel pretty directionless with my riding right now and that is very odd because I didn’t really realize I had a direction before either. Not until I lost it.

When it comes to prim hair, my taste is sometimes a bit particular, and up until recently it has not been easily satisfied in SL. You see, I don’t care for bangs. Last time I wore them in RL was ... a very long time ago and it was followed by a frustrated period of growing them out. But in SL bangs are found on the majority of hairs, in part because it has been very difficult to create a neat hairline using prims. However, now that we have tattoo layers that can be worn on the head (even multiple tattoo layers in 2.1, though I am not touching that one with a ten-foot pole), no-bang hairs can be combined with hairbases and produce very nice results. Such as with the latest three hairs from Amacci of which I will be featuring my favourite today.

I am also showing one of the latest gowns from Wunderlich’s, a versatile dress that can be both modern and more period depending on how it is worn.

Elysium Eilde’s elymode has just turned 1 year old and the anniversary has been marked by a remodeling of the store as well as several new releases. With their airy, tiered skirts, the Pacifica sets instantly demanded my attention. They also persuaded me to finally get that fat pack of sandals from G Field that I had been eyeing at Shoe Fair for about a week.

It has been a while since an update on what we’ve been up to with Ringo (and what Ringo has been up to with us). That’s not so much for a lack of things to report but because I’ve generally been feeling too frustrated with him. Today, that cup just about flooded at the Boxer Championships.

Shows this year have been generally abysmal in terms of his behaviour. First day of My Dog in January was a disaster with him being super-charged and not very friendly towards other dogs. We even withdrew from the second day. At the local special at the beginning of the summer, he growled at the judge. Last weekend in Sundsvall, he had major issues with other dogs, but showed okay other than that. And today he so crazy the judge disqualified him because she couldn’t judge him. He actually behaved very well towards the other dogs, making me think he was in good balance, but then he just whirled around when she was going to check his teeth and feel over his body. Worst, however, was how he got stuck staring at something (I have no idea what) when I was going to run him. He almost dragged me out of the ring.

And that (well, the summer shows, anyway) followed on 10 weeks of obedience training with a very good trainer and some pretty significant steps forward in terms of obedience. We’ve also seen the trainer’s trainer twice during the summer for some one-on-one consultation. Now, I know it will take a long while to sort things out, but I don’t know if I have the energy for it. If I manage to improve on one thing, a new problem crops up. Right now, I feel like giving up on shows and obedience and forgetting all about Ringo being a working dog. Problem is, he really needs the training, but I find it hard to motivate myself to do it if I can’t have the goal of competing him.

I think someone is getting a lump of coal for his birthday next weekend instead of a stuffed toy. ;P Then again, he’ll be looking at me with a sad, wrinkly face all week…so probably not.

This “blogging on vacation” thing has definitely proven rather tricky. My schedule’s been all out of whack or indeed non-existent (and I suppose that’s the point of a vacation), and the days have just slipped away. So fast that, alas, we’re going home tomorrow. So I am in the middle of getting things sorted out for the trip, but a bit of posting seemed like a good break from that. Plus a chance to chip away at the pile of things in my “to blog” folder, which wasn’t exactly helped along by the opening of the Shoe Fair.

Lost Angel has just released the Allure Retro collection of pose props and I just had to have the Music Lounger. I am definitely becoming a bit of a prop addict, not the least since they go so well with other weaknesses of mine, such as skins. So, you’ll be getting a good look at the two new and the two upcoming skin lines from Adam n Eve as I decided to play around on my new lounger wearing only the lovely Karin jewelery from Earthstones.

The outfit from the Summer of Love fair that I am featuring today is perhaps not all that summery, but then again, neither is the weather we continue to have on our vacation. And given all the mist and rain I’ve seen of late (though, to be fair, we’ve been spared the worst of the rain), the lovely Empress & Hierophant sim felt just like home. Plus, it provided a perfect setting to shoot the Madeleine gown from Evie’s Closet in.

Here in Sweden we’re having a typical Swedish summer. Which today included a rather impressive fog which made for some cool scenery down at the beach but didn’t exactly invite to subathing and swimming. So, it seemed like an excellent day for a post featuring a Summer of Love item: the Mosaic Summer skins from Nomine.

The Summer of Love is an event designed to raise awareness about mental health issues. It features exclusive content by a wealth of designers and the idea is that shoppers will be able to browse through what is on offer at the fair location and at the same time learn about mental health issues. The fair is not a charity event, though designers can choose to donate to Hopeline if they so wish.

I hadn’t expected quite such an interruption to regular blogging just from a little vacation, but there you go. Before we left I had a pile of work to wrap up and now that we’re here (here being halfway up the Baltic coast) even typical Swedish summer weather isn’t leaving me with much time for blogging. But, I do want to catch up on covering at least part of the pile of new things in my inventory (including lots and lots of skins!), so I hope that blogging well past midnight won’t produce anything too strange.

Of course, a little strangeness might go well with the two fabulous outfits from Deviance that I’ll be featuring today, together with sneak previews of two upcoming Adam n Eve skins.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to beta test Candy from PXL and when the skin was released Hart Larsson very kindly sent me some review copies. As far as I can tell, the feedback he got during the beta period (not just from myself) was applied very well to make a good skin even better. With each new release, PXL skins continue to improve and Candy is certainly no exception.

It’s not often that I buy boots with a modern flair to them, but a new entry from Lucy in Disguise (run by the delightfully-named myvegancookbook Bolissima, who also owns the Adjunct store for men) broke my willpower.

It has been a while since I featured something from Tekeli-li. In part this is due to Tekeli Tantalus having been kept busy changing many of his releases to take advantage of the scripting improvements introduced some months ago. This means that although still fully colour change, the updated sets of jewelry, hair, weapons, etc now use much less memory and won’t be a problem when script limits are introduced.

With all the updated of old sets finally taken care of (some older sets were retired, and some of these will be remade and rereleased at a later date), yesterday saw the release of a new full set of full-prim goodness: Flora.

It was a gown that first brought me to Adam n Eve soon after I started out in SL. I saw the Venetia gown on a blog and knew I had to save up for that. Lately, sachi has been busy with skins, store rebuilds and various other projects, so it has been some time since she last released a gown. This week, however, she’s rectified that with no less than three new gowns, each with multiple skirt options and some great sculpted details.

On Saturday, I attended the Harem Nights fashion show, where four designers (Fantasia, Haven Designs, HonourBound and Sakinah) presented clothing inspired by the modern Middle East as well as the more fantastical Middle East, and I’ve got a couple of new acquisitions to share with you. More may follow, I definitely have a weakness for this kind of clothing. Plus, it goes so well with the two prefabs from NotSoBad that Ran and I purchased a while ago.

Saucy little outfits are definitely not the only things on offer at Sn@tch, but the dress I decided to wear for this post most certainly falls into that category.Its called “Almost Off” and I don’t think I need to explain why. ;)

I would also call the fabulous boots I am wearing quite saucy indeed; they’re the newest release from Damen Gorilla of Adam n Eve and you really ought to be joining the Adam n Eve group for these to take advantage of the group discount offered by the new vendors.

Taking a little break in the Midsummer eating & drinking (well, eating, anyway) before it is time for the cake, the whipped cream and the strawberries to write a short concluding post for this semester at the riding school.

For our last lesson, the weather was a bit windy and chilly, so we rode inside. We had the option of riding bareback and I gave it a go on Heddvig. I did last year too, on Murphy, but that worked a little better as I actually managed to canter then. On Heddvig I could feel when I tried it that while I might manage the canter itself, the transition would likely see me on the ground. Other than that, I was able to ride her pretty efficiently at a walk and at a trot while bareback, so that was still very good. I was just as amazed this time with how aware it makes you of how you sit on the horse, and I wish I had the opportunity to do it much more often. Heddvig seemed to like it too.

Now she gets a lighter workload for some weeks and then a complete rest for 3-4 weeks. I expect her to be rather round in August… For my own part, I don’t think I will get a chance to ride anything before the lessons start up again around mid-August, though perhaps I will see about arranging something. I will busy training Ringo, though, so that might have to be enough. I am hoping I will feel a little better about it next semester, too, though it might take longer still to get my heart really back into it.

Last night, I had an IM from Siyu Suen of Illusions. She wondered if Ran and I would like to blog her upcoming release (its actually out now; we ended up having to sleep before getting the photos done). Having seen some teasers on Plurk, I couldn’t say yes soon enough.

With that, we present Corvus, for men and women. Read on for further details and take a good look at the photos of this amazing release.

I have been blogging fairly infrequently lately, in part because I have been busy with other things than shopping in SL (like…bunnies) and work in RL, in part because I have started to feel rather bored by the process and the results. So, I have decided to start testing some new approaches. I’ll definitely be messing with the picture format, and perhaps also with the writing and the credits. I hope to redesign the website this summer and after that facelift I am thinking of emptying out the blog and starting fresh with whatever approach I like best.

But, enough with such ramblings, just expect things to be in a fluid state for a while. For now, on with a look at an ethereal white creation by Silent Sparrow, some lovely new jewelry from Dark Mouse and one of the latest Exile hairs. I am also featuring poses from Glitterari, picked up at the awesome sale going on there right now.

Warm weather and World Cup madness have put me in mind of showing off some examples of swimwear I have in inventory, along with a brand new hair from the terrific creators over at Shag!

This week we finally got to jump out in the field and we all had a great time. There’s not a lot of jumps, just a few logs, but that was plenty for Heddvig. She has shown herself uncertain about new jumps indoors and logs in a field were clearly very scary. I had quite a few refusal and it took a bit of work each time to get her over the logs. However, her actual jumps were rather wonderful, with no effort spared. She has very quick legs and tucks them in nicely, not exactly what one would expect from that kind of horse. I was certainly pleased that I didn’t find myself at all unnerved by her being a bit skittish and that I was able to firmly tell her what I wanted her to do.

And, for extra fun and games, someone was there with a camera…

In case the log wants to eat me, I will jump waaaay above it.

I look good, but my rider needs to straighten up.

I couldn’t help but to feel sad that I didn’t get a chance to do this with Murphy though, as he would have loved it so much.

Compared to when I started out in SL, it seems like silks—at least as they looked then—have become quite a bit less common. That does not mean that Gorean fashion has disappeared, however. But it looks like it has changed and diversified, and now it includes saucy little numbers like this Panther outfit from Haven Designs.

Of course it rained during the day when we had planned for some jumping out in the field. So, more dressage and more counter-cantering, though at least we could ride in the paddock. Usually its too dusty by the time its warm enough to be outside, but the rain made it just right.

To get us thinking about riding for counter-canter, we started off riding the horses bent against the curve in corners and on circles. I think it worked surprisingly well on Heddvig; I probably concentrate more when doing it the opposite from “normal”, which would account for some added efficiency. But that’s about the only advantage I get from doing anything reversed. The rest is…confusion.

Left and right is not something I handle well as it is and I can easily confuse myself about just which leg do I sit down on in a rising trot (not only do I suck at sensing it, I also find it impossible to see if I am sitting down on the correct leg so I usually think of it as rising with the opposite leg instead) and how to tell which canter I’ve got (again, I suck at sensing this). Imagine what happens when I am asked to make the inside the outside and the outside the inside, to keep sitting down on the correct leg (which is now the opposite of what it normally is) and to ask for counter-canter.

So, yes, not only am I trying to do this on a fairly hot-headed draft horse (albeit of a fairly light model), I am trying to do this while being confused about what is what. Given this, the result wasn’t too terrible, but it still annoys me that anything like this gets me so confused. The best part was probably after Ulrika helped me sort out how to ride Heddvig before canter when she’s getting really charged up; I could really feel it when I found the right balance.

With thanks to Tanith Lee for the title, which fits so well on this post about the new metallic skins from Adam n Eve. The girls got Gold and Chrome last week and today the boys got not only that but also Black and White. And, of course, those colours will be coming out for girls quite soon too.

The latest releases from Silver Rose Designs have been impressive dress collections with a rather amazing set of options and Ekaterina, a somewhat Russian-inspired gown, is no exception. It offers everything from a ballgown to a bathing suit.

Last Tuesday’s lesson was one of those that didn’t necessarily deliver any “wow” feelings during the lesson, but I guess I did alright anyway. When it came to cantering Heddvig, I assumed that she would manage fine. I used the whip to just tap her on the shoulder during the canter to keep her going, and didn’t get all worked up about keeping her going. I just rode and expected her to manage.

And for the regular canter, she did. She really is capable of keeping it together for quite a while now.

Then we got to the counter-canter, and this week Ulrika told us to just ask for counter-canter without the aid of a circle or a turn that would make it more like asking for regular canter and then ending up in a counter-canter. It felt like a tall order, and it was, but I did try and on a few occasions Heddvig actually managed. Afterwards, Ulrika told us that she had asked us to do something too difficult on purpose, just to see if we’d keep riding decisively. I’d say that worked pretty well for me.