It has been quite a while since I last updated my blog. A lot has happened in the past six months, some of which has kept me far away from my sites. I’ve lost the motivation work on websites and play in graphic programs, but I hope it will return soon. In the mean time my sites have been left as is.

I have however recently started to look into things again and installed both graphic programs and Dreamweaver on my laptop, so at least I’m taking baby steps to get back into things. To show that updates and changes are happening and that I’ve not fallen off the face of the earth I’ve updated the blog with a new template that I quite like

Awareness is important. AIDS and HIV do not only affect homosexuals and drug users as some people seem to believe. Nor is it only not an African disease. It exists in every continent and religions. Men, women and children all get it. It is assumed to have existed the past fifty years, even though it was not until the 80s that the first cases were discovered. Millions had died before it was discovered and many more since as there is no cure for it. Millions are affected and most of them live in South Africa. Economical conditions are important factors. Low income people seem to easier be exposed to the virus and because of the high numbers of affected citizens it will limit the country’s economic growth and therefore also its ability to fight AIDS. It’s an evil circle that it is hard to get out of and it is important that medications and spreading awareness is financed by other countries, institutions and organisations to help aid the country’s fight against AIDS. Important medications to decrease the mortality is not even available in all countries.

The best way to prevent this is to not be exposed to the virus. It spreads by sexual contact, infected body fluids (such as blood) and from mother to child by pregnancy, childbirth and breast feeding. It does not spread by casual contact and it is not dangerous to have friends who are infected. False conceptions such as it only affects Africans, Homosexuals and drug users makes it more difficult to prevent exposures. Unfortunately there are also beliefs that open discussion of HIV and AIDS will lead to a higher rate of infected people. This is making it even more difficult to raise the awareness of how to prevent exposure. It is only by making people aware of how to get exposed and how to avoid the infection that this virus can be fought. Discrimination, rejection and avoidance will not cure AIDS.

If you’re interested in more information on AIDS then Wikipedia is a good resource. Put a red ribbon on your site to show your solidarity with HIV-positive and those living with AIDS. Today is World AIDS Day - help spread the awareness.

I have made my own ribbon using an outline from Iddy Pixels. Please do not copy or save it without permission.

Yesterday I woke up to realise that Winter is upon us. The thin white blanket of snow outside removed the final bit of doubt and there is no longer any point of living in denial. Summer is gone, autumn has sneaked by and the year is drawing to an end. The cold mornings earlier in the week severed as a warning of what was about to happen. (I have also changed the wordpress theme here to reflect the season we have just entered.)

It is beautiful though, the first bit of winter. The peaceful blanket of undisturbed snow and the fresh cold smell. An evening after it has been snowing all day is my favourite part of the year. The dark night suddenly seems brighter and the street lamps gives the surroundings a special glow. It has to be more than a little bit of snow. About 15 centimeters is perfect. The sound of walking outside, looking at the beautiful white covered landscape and smelling winter. Especially beautiful if it is close to Christmas. Seeing the light glows in the windows and trees decorated with lights outdoors. Hopefully it will be a day like that close to Christmas this year.

These days with the fresh blanket of snow are magical and I wouldn’t trade if for anything. I am already looking forward to the first of these days this winter.

To cheer my sister up a bit and let the fishes have another playmate, my sister and I went to the store last Wednesday where she got to pick out a fish and then name it. I was unable to grant her the first wish as the fish she chose would not go together with my current fish or water conditions, so after a lot of “hmm”s and “I dunno”s, she finally chose something she liked. The fish is easy to recognise as its got a long tail at the back, and not the usual fin a fish would have. The decision on what name to choose was not as hard as the choice of fish as my sister adores the film Ice Age. Therefore the natural choice of the name for the new fish is: Sid. Here is a photo of him making friends with Nemo and Petra:

My trip to the local pet shop today ended in the purchase of two friends for Nemo and David. One is a blackmolly that has been named Tor (after the Norse God of thunder and lightning). The other one has unfortunately not yet got a name. She looks like a punker with a red mohican haircut to match her black spotted yellow body. Below you can see photos of my two new fish (I’m sorry that the second photo is blurry):

And here is a photo of what the tank currently looks like after the fish has decided that my decorations weren’t good enough, hehehe :P.

Although the estimated date of return had been set to a few days ago I didn’t get a note that it had been fixed until today. With not much time to spare I rushed to the repair place to collect it. It was only a quick formality to get it back as everything is covered by the guarantee. After a quick test I can happily announce that the track pad on my laptop is finally working. Now I’ll just have the fun job of reinstalling everything. Oh joy… heh…

Finally! I have a new pump which hasn’t got it as a mission to give me a headache and drive me insane! After visiting a different pet shop and talking to someone there about the problem I had with my aquarium and explaining about the not so helpful lady at the other shop, I regained hope that it could be an easy solution. She told me that surely the other shop should be able to provide a replacement pump to test out and that I should avoid the lady I had spoken to last time.

I then went back to the shop I bought the aquarium from and talked to a very helpful man. He thoroughly tested my pump, but as the problem is mainly when the pump is sat in its place in the aquarium he couldn’t see the problem. However, he gave me an identical pump to replace my current one and gave me some advice as to what other parts of the tank could cause different noises. With loads of anticipation I then went home to test it.

The first attempt didn’t go well. However, the sound I was getting was slightly different to what was coming from the old pump. After trying to adjust it slightly the noise was only half as bad and after another attempt it was suddenly peacefully quiet. My aquarium is back to normal and I should finally be able to sleep again. What a relief!

I have seen all these lovely doll images on many pixel sites and I am in awe of some girls’ talents. I figured there is no way I’d manage to colour a doll to make it look even half decent, so I never bothered trying. My muse is back with a boom though and yesterday I purchased a base pack at Faery Pixels. Heather does some really great stuff there and her dolls were a major inspiration why I even bothered buying a pack to try to colour my own.

After working on it all morning, I completed a doll that I am very pleased with. It gave me tons of inspiration so you’ve made several signatures with it. The base and doll outlines are from Faery Pixels and the frame outline is by Roxane’s Dreamland. And believe it or not (wouldn’t blame ya if you don’t as I hardly do lol) I actually coloured this! Yay me! Here are three examples with different colours and different hair.

I bought some new tubes last night and I only just received them. I have been wanting them for over a week, but I was reluctant to purchase them as it’s been so long since I made anything pixel wise. However, I finally bought them and they are lovely. Once I get around to making a few more they will be added to the pixel shop. This is the first signature I’ve made with the dragons:

Tubes by Andrea’s Lil Pixels, Sparkling Dreams and myself

It has been quite a while since I last updated my pixel area. The last addition was months ago and since then I’ve not had the motivation to create anything, or when I did want to make something the absence of time made it quite difficult. Ever since the last update I’ve only created two signatures. One (first one below) was a few weeks ago, but I never added it as I figured it would be silly to only add one. The second one below I made today, but as winter is just around the corner it is a little late to start adding autumn signatures. I wanted to show them off though, so I thought this would be a nice place for it while letting you know that I hope there will be actual additions soon and that I hope to start making Christmas and winter signatures within a couple of weeks.  Here are the two sigs:

Tubes from Sparkling Dreams, Snowdrop Design and myself