Category Archives: Life Style, Home and Garden

The Arcade brings sunshine and flowers

Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.

I was looking for a quote for my pictures and came across “Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.” It was attributed to Walt Whitman which struck me as bizarre. It does not sound the least bit like Whitman. Whitman wrote things like “Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling!” The internet is good for many things, but it’s been a disaster to those who want proper attribution for quotes. Thankfully there are those who are combatting error like The Quote Investigator.

The Arcade has arrived and with June comes sunshine and flowers, not just outdoors, but even on the wall.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.

I shot these pictures in the small attic bedroom at the top of Scarlet Creative’s romantic Daisy Weathered House at The Arcade. With ivy and moss on the walls and roofs, delicate floral wallpaper and so many gables it would make Nathaniel Hawthorne jealous, this house is everything.
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Rescued

“Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.”

My great-niece recently rescued a couple horses from a kill pen, the third generation of horse rescuers in my family. Kill pen horses are usually sold for pet food because they are considered problematic, untrainable, vicious and dangerous. They usually require a level of training most people just will not invest. In time, though, they can learn to trust and be trusted. If you want to see the evidence, see my great-grand niece cleaning this rescued horse’s hooves just two weeks into training…and the foundations for a fourth generation of rescuers begins. It was thinking about them, the work they are doing, and that two other nieces are doing, that I thought I might take this month’s house from Barnesworth for Collabor88 and set up a farm. I tinted it, one of the things I love about Barnesworth homes.

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The Arcade closes at midnight, do you know where your gacha is?

“ that fragrance which fills the soul with optimism and faith, the fragrance of the crushed beans beneath the jet of boiling water curving from the kettle, the smell of coffee.”

“…that fragrance which fills the soul with optimism and faith, the fragrance of the crushed beans beneath the jet of boiling water curving from the kettle, the smell of coffee.”

In Halldor Laxness’ extraordinary book Independent People, there are well over 150 references to coffee, most of them reverent. That is as it should be. Laxness was Icelandic and they are among the world’s greatest coffee consumers–along with all the other Scandinavians.

http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_1038_coffee_consumption_ver2.pdf

Although Swedish-American, I am closer to real Swedes in my coffee consumption. When I was a kid, I put coffee in my milk, sometimes now I will put milk in my coffee when I get a latte, but usually drink it black. There is no perfume in the world quite so warm and evocative as the smell of coffee.

So I was thrilled by the coffee shops at The Arcade. I took some pictures outside the other day, but today I am shooting inside where I combined elements from the RH Designs Coffee House and the PLAAKA Coffee Factory.  The building is from PLAAKA’s coffee factory. I just fell in love with the look of the crumbling old factory being repurposed to serve coffee. The broken down wall and patio appeals to my love of things old and worn.

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“In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel is a rare gift indeed.”

“In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”There is so much happening in Second Life right now that it’s sometimes overwhelming. Consider this single post which features a casual outfit at a local coffee shop. But underneath, out of site, there a lot happening. Here are the bullet points.

  • Monthly Events Collabor88 and Hairology
  • Quarterly Event The Arcade
  • Annual Events Shoetopia and Skin Fair
  • The New Realism: Slink Dynamic Hands with idle animations and poses
  • The New Realism: New Facial Expressions for Lelutka Bento Heads

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Casual Country Comfort

“Sometimes, when we cannot attain the freedom we are fighting for, we free ourselves by carving a new path to freedom.”So, I love to laze about and read. This lovely Boho bed from DRD at The Arcade is big enough for lots of layers.

“Sometimes, when we cannot attain the freedom we are fighting for, we free ourselves by carving a new path to freedom.”My lazing cottage is the Daisy Cottage from HIVE for The Arcade. It has a lovely window that is perfect for some plants or pillows if you like hanging out front. In the background you can see a gramophone from Contraption, some artwork, a lemon tree, and The Secret Stores gorgeous vintage desk.
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Lazy Days with Collabor88 and The Arcade

“Sometimes, when we cannot attain the freedom we are fighting for, we free ourselves by carving a new path to freedom.”It’s a good think I got this gorgeous rare bed from the DRD gacha at The Arcade because it’s perfect for lazing about and so are some of the new releases from Collabor88
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I am alive, and drunk on sunlight.

“I am alive, and drunk on sunlight.”I am loving the outfit released by Zaara for Collabor88 this month. The February C88 showcased folk designs and how appropriate that Zaara release something representative of her country’s traditional, and still current, fashions.

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Välkommen

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It’s All About Headspace

Cajsa built us a gym on our islands, which really feels even better than my converted bathroom for working out. There is something to be said for getting away from your life and selfishly focusing on yourself for a little. It calms me, it helps me better at focusing on other people when I get that time away. It makes me WANT to get back inside my own house and I feel a little joyful about it when I’ve put everything into a hard work out.

I love it.  Continue reading