It’s not that I can’t believe I’ve been on Second Life for 2 years today – it’s that I can’t believe it’s only been 2. I started forming a post a few days ago and was going through pictures of my avatar taken in the last 12 months just like I did last year and I was amazed at how much has happened… how many memories had… how many friends lost… and how many friends unfortunately never gained.

In a virtual world where things change completely over the course of 24 hours, you never really have the chance to slow down and look at the big picture – until of course it’s suddenly your rez day and it all comes whirling into perspective. Instead of pictures, I thought I’d recap on just some of what’s happened in the last year thanks to my constant blogging.

July 19, 2010 – My first rez day. I spent the majority of the day with a man I’m no longer allowed to be friends with and haven’t been for about 11 months now (he and his wife decided on new rules). The evening was spent dressing up as an Avatar with Xavion and running around Pandora inspired sims.

July / August 2010 – My “main” computer broke in late July and I spent much of August trying to gather money in order to fix it or purchase a new computer. I held an open donation drive and was incredibly surprised and humbled by the results. I began a role played pregnancy with my SLister Aponi and Anubis who I’m no longer friends with.

I lost the Lionheart Chamber of Commerce election to Clover Windlow in late August. I was rather heartbroken and perhaps a little bitter about the entire scenario.

September 2010 – I began blogging my SL pregnancy experience rather late. Like real pregnancy, it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and things were very much up and down. On September 4th, I “gave birth” to our prim baby, Elias.

More importantly, on September 10th I officially accepted the role of Account Executive at Lionheart Estate. I’d been asked a few times to become staff but had declined the offer because I wanted to run the Chamber of Commerce. Since losing the election at the end of August, I decided to accept the offer and became staff instead.

Other occasions of note… Phoenix Viewer came out that month. I celebrated my 25th real life birthday. Avatars United was closed down. I celebrated 6 months of living at Lionheart Estate.

October 2010 – Early on in the month, I accepted a job with 2ndhub.com as an Associate assisting with site promotion, advertising and spreading the word about 2ndhub throughout the Second Life community. I loved that job. I already spent so much time on the website (still do) and was really excited and passionate about seeing the community flourish.

Clover resigned as CoC Chairwoman and the community elected me as her successor. Less than a week later, I was filling her shoes and conducted my first CoC meeting. By now, I’d piled my virtual plate and was juggling quite a few roles – in addition to my own business.

November 2010 – I decided to try my hand at the club business again and opened Opaque, a small club really just to have on the weekends for the group of people I was hanging around at the time.

November is also the month I started the Mad Props Challenge which I unfortunately didn’t see through. Even I couldn’t keep up with it. I tip my hat to Luna Jubilee for keeping her 52 weeks of color challenge going strong. I was promoted this month at Lionheart Estate to Account Manager.

Other occasions of note… I had a sleep study that month. I’d been having a lot of problems with being tired all the time despite getting plenty of sleep. We celebrated my daughter’s 4th birthday.

December 2010 – This was a terrible month for me socially. I lost quite a few people who’d once been very important to me – some more than others and some I’d honestly talk about in therapy. I lost someone I’d have considered to be one of my best friends although in retrospect, was never really a friend at all. Second Life teaches you so many lessons about people. It’s the greatest social network at all and yet it still surprises me how the social interaction can mold you.

At the end of the year, I revisited all of 2010 and found it surprising even then.

January 2011 – SookieSlafford.com celebrated its first birthday! Ironically, I wasn’t enjoying blogging much any more. I was still running the Mad Props Challenge and I felt like all I ever did any more was that even tho it was only once a week. And so in February, I didn’t blog at all and that break continued through May as I was working on another project.

February / March 2011 – Jolly Farm officially closed just shy of its first birthday and Alia and I opened Kitty Cattery together – a business dedicated to all things for KittyCatS. In early March, we established our online presence, KittyCattery.biz which kept me busy and blogging there instead of on here.

Other occasions of note… Xavion and I got back together after being broken up for 7 months. I quit my position at 2ndhub.com due to differing opinions.

April 2011 – Kitty Cattery did a lot of charity work this month including Project Fur Japan and our own Light it up Blue for Autism campaign in which we raised just over $200 USD for Autism Speaks.

May 2011 – I got into “The Wonderful World of Meeroos”. But the big news for that month is that Kitty Cattery came to its close. SookieSlafford.com received the gorgeous face lift you see today.

Xavion and I broke up for our second and final time.

June 2011 – My time as Chamber of Commerce Chairwoman came to an end. But more importantly, the biggest and bestest announcement ever was posted – the plans for the return of Jolly Farm.

July 2011 – And here we are in mid July. Jolly Farm isn’t yet open officially although it recently participated in the Mee & Roo Festivale. I moved in real life a couple of weeks ago and have been extremely busy.