Back to work after a lovely 4-day weekend. It was a BUSY weekend, but still lovely all the same! Thursday was pretty much Family Christmas Party day, with my parents and hubby's family, Christmas was Just Us day, at home with hubby and the kids. Saturday was more of my side of the family, we hung out with my brother and his wife. Sunday was "Oh crap, I have to go to work tomorrow" day. The kids went to my uncle's house for yet another family gathering, and hubby and I played some WoW. We finally ran the three new 5-man dungeons, those went by very quickly! They were fun though, and I picked up a couple of purples that I may or may not use. Still pondering that one!
So I got in this morning at 3AM and have been slowly getting through the day. I brought 3 cans of Coke with me, and it looks like I'll need every one! Two are gone already, and I'm about to crack into the third to help me get through the afternoon. The Whistler is in fine form, cursing at a caulk gun he borrowed from Maintenance to repair his scale with. He was struggling with it when I came in a few minutes ago, trying to get the end clear so he could use it. That done, he started squeezing the handle, but nothing was coming out. Somehow he punctured the back of the tube, and all the caulk was leaking out there all over the plunger. Now he's dashing back and forth from the scale to the sink trying to clean things up. I don't think I'll tell him about the stuff he's got on his clothes. See how long it takes him to notice. :)
And with that... it's back to work. I'll be working super-long days all week this week, so I apologize in advance if I don't have a whole lot to say!
I was going to post a video of Peter Griffin doing his "Ding, Fries are done" thing, because I'm still stressed out and am doing my best to preserve both my sanity and the reason for the season. I even had hubby look it up for me while I was at work to make sure it had the audio and everything. Then I didn't get it posted while I was at work, and I've been "helping" get the house ready by folding laundry pretty much since I got home. With the exception of dinner and a couple of random heroics.
ANYWAY.
I heard this on my way home, and it almost brought me to tears. Michael Crawford (of Phantom of the Opera fame) singing O Holy Night. If I had to pick a favorite Christmas hymn, it's O Holy Night. My church growing up had a liturgical dance group who would traditionally perform a candlelit dance to this song on Christmas Eve, and for 15 years or so, I was up there with them. There is something eerie and just beautiful about his voice, and to hear him singing this song... like I said, I was almost crying in the car.
If you need a bit of "reason for the season" yourself, I highly recommend this. HIGHLY.
CHRISTMAAAASSSSSS YEAH!
I'm stressed out from family plans being continually in flux, all the stuff we STILL need to do to get the house ready to have everyone over, not to mention all the stuff we have to do in between family gatherings on Thursday, but I've decided I'm not going to let it get to me. I could sit and wallow and be depressed and angry, but Christmas is for family and love and happiness, and I need to remember that.
So here's a song that never fails to make me laugh, I hope it brings smiles to all of you as well!
The SYTYCD finale was awesome. There were so many amazing dances, I still can't pick a favorite. It was a tie between Jakob and Katherine's contemporary dance, and Russell and Katherine's hip-hop one. Though Russell and Ellenore were great in their paso doble too! I voted for Russell and Katherine... I can't wait to see who wins!
Andy had his Christmas musical last night. Last year every grade got a chance to perform a song. This year they sort of did the Charlie Brown Christmas play. They had five or six older kids playing the parts, and all of the other kids were more or less a chorus. All of the Kindergarten & Preschool kids sang Jingle Bells, but all of the rest of the singing was done by all of the kids together. The first graders all had decorated Christmas trees made out of styrofoam, so they came out and stood in front to represent all the flashy trees at the tree lot when Charlie Brown went to pick one out. Andy had a good time with that, he was dancing and spinning around. That was the only performance part that they got to themselves though, and I was kind of sad about that. There's always next year, I guess!
The scramble afterward was frustrating as well. They had asked at the beginning of the program that only one parent go to collect each child to avoid a giant congested mess in the hallway. So of course, when everything was done, people were leaving the bleachers and heading out into the hallway before the kids had even finished filing out. We waited until most of them were gone before even standing up, and lo and behold, congested mess in the hallway. Leaving the parking lot was an adventure too, people had parked wherever they could find space, and it was hard to get the car out of the lot without hitting someone who wasn't parked in an actual parking space, or was ignoring the flow of traffic to get to the driveway ASAP. Hubby said the parking lot is always like that when he brings Andy to and from school, cars going every which way to get to the driveway before anyone else. It really makes me nuts how selfish and impatient people are these days when they're behind the wheel. *sigh*
After we left, we took the kids to McDonald's for a Happy Meal treat, and headed home for TV time. After the SYTYCD finale, there was a new Gordon Ramsay cooking show. I watched about half an hour of it, but didn't really see anything that made me want to watch it on a weekly basis. Yeah, it's nice to see a side of Gordon Ramsay besides the screaming and swearing one he's shown on his other programs, but he was so rushed, the people he had in the studio were having trouble keeping up with his directions, what directions he managed to give anyway. The thing I like about other cooking shows is that they take the time to show you how to do things the right way. They might not get a whole three-course meal cooked in that time, but you learn how to do each of the steps in whatever it is they're making. He was just "put the oil in, slice the pepper up real thin, put your pasta in, turn it around, go go gogo, how are you doing, ok, quick joke about how his guest celebrity cooks are having problems, put the shrimp in the oil, go go gogogogogo!!" So yeah, not going to watch that again, probably.
Tonight I think we'll be playing a little Rock Band with hubby's sister, and maybe his sister-in-law as well. It's a good way to unwind and have fun, and the kids can play a bit too. Andy likes singing "Living on a Prayer", or "Living on a Planet", as he says. Emily likes the drums, so we put it on No Fail mode and just let them go nuts. Should be a good time!
We sent through a big order on amazon.com last week, and the first two packages arrived in the mail yesterday! It's like Christmas early, even though I know none of the presents are for me, it's still awesome to get to open them all and see what's inside.
Not much else to report. I did some herbalism on one of my death knights last night. Hubby leveled one of his up to 80, and spent some time running random dungeons. After that, I watched some TV. ABC has a show called "Find My Family" that I've been watching. I missed last week though. They help people who have given kids up for adoption, or been given up for adoption, or just have lost contact with someone important over the years. It always makes me cry. I've been working on an application to be on it, too. I don't know what the odds are that they'd be able to find my birth mom (if they even chose my application), or even that she'd want to meet me if they did find her, but I figure there's no harm in trying. (For information on my search so far, see this post)
That's about all. Tonight is the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and I can't miss that! Anyone out there who watches it want to venture a guess on who will win? I haven't really picked a favorite, but I loved Mollee and Jakob's waltz last week, I'm so sad she didn't make it through!
Our WoW time this weekend was dedicated to our horde Recruit-A-Friend druids over on Hakkar. When we started, they were level 38. As of the end of play time last night, they are level 54. All through questing too, we didn't run an instance all weekend. The next time we play them they'll be heading for the Plaguelands and level 60. Once they hit 60, we'll probably be switching to our alliance pair, which are back on Cenarion Circle and in the same guild as our main characters. This will be good, because one of the times I logged on to Facebook this weekend, a guildie from there sent me a chat asking where the heck we have been for the past few days.
We have yet to run the new dungeons that were released with the last patch. It seems strange, but I'm not really in any hurry to either. The day after the patch dropped, one of the guild death knights ran random heroics ALL DAY. When we logged off for the night, he had accumulated over 80 Badges of Triumph. Call me crazy, but I am just not that into the whole rush for the best gear RIGHT NOW thing. I am certain that within the next couple of weeks I will have accumulated enough badges through heroics to keep my gear up to date. From past experience, I know that the only thing that you get from that kind of badge mania is burnout. Besides that, I've been having too much fun running around Feralas with my hubby.
On the "druids are OP" comment, I have to cite an example. We both specced feral for leveling purposes. Hubby's spec is a bit more "bear", mine is a bit more "kitty". So if we end up in a bad spot, he can switch forms, and I can keep up the DPS or pop out to give him a few heals. We've also got two points in improved stealth. So yesterday we had pretty much run out of quests in Feralas, at least to the point where going back after getting our new class skills would be a waste of time better spent in a more quest-rich zone. So we hopped over to the Hinterlands and picked up every quest we could possibly find, and there were quite a few!
One of the quests we got was to kill Vile Priestess Hexx, who sits at the top of Jintha'alor. Jintha'alor is a multi-tiered area, and each level is crawling with trolls of all shapes and sizes. We stealthed through the whole place until we got to the mobs we needed to kill. Just getting that one quest done would have taken three times as long if we'd had to fight our way up there. And we knew when we got to the right level because druids in cat form can track humanoids, so we just had to check our mini-map to see what sorts of trolls were around. We killed what we needed to kill, re-stealthed, and hopped our way down out of the area, then headed back to turn in all the quests that we had done. No other class could have done what we did. A pair of rogues could have handled the stealth part, but a rogue can't heal another rogue through an accidental pull of five or more mobs. Crazy OP. And don't even get me started on flight form herbalism. Where does the bird put the herbs after they've picked them? I don't see any pockets underneath all those feathers!
There's a bit of wondering going on in this battered old brain of mine, but before I get into that, can I just say CURSE YOU, Random LFG, for giving me Oculus as the first flipping dungeon? *shudder* We got through it without too much difficulty, just one wipe on Eregos due to losing both DPS dragons to the first phase shift. Saraabi got her Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement out of the deal also. But STILL. I hate that place. It was a good thing I had hubby around to guide me through, because I've only been there twice before. He's got much more situational awareness than I have. A good portion of my miraculous tank saves have been in large part due to him pointing stuff out to me. So thank you honey! :)
On to the conundrum.
There was a Ventrilo meeting of the "officers" of our guild last night, of which I am one, and hubby is now another. There are a few of us with gear that's a level above the sort of raiding we do on a regular basis as a guild. Quite a bit of our lack of "progression" is due to new 80's wanting to come along on raids, so we zerg them through Naxx, or the first few bosses in Uld, so they can see raids and feel accomplished to have been there.
That's all well and good, but some people are getting tired of doing the same thing over and over, and feel that if we put together a solid team, we could probably venture on into bigger and better raid instances. All of us have alts that are at 80 as well, so we'd be able to use them to continue running Naxx and the like. They want to have a dedicated night (not always the same night, but just say one night a week) when those of us on the "raid team" would get together and work on some solid progression.
I'm not sure how I feel about being part of this.
On the one hand, I'm flattered to have been included. It's nice to be recognized as someone who knows more or less what they're doing, and can be a solid contributor to the guild. I like the opportunity to see more content, even if it means bashing our heads against a boss over and over again until we figure out what we're doing. I want to improve my characters, without having to run random heroics all day every day to grind out badges.
On the other hand, part of what got in the way with my last guild was the hardcore progression mindset. For the most part, I enjoy raiding. But I don't like feeling like it's a job, or, at the very least, obligated to be there each and every week. I'm concerned about the schedule as well, they're looking at running until 8:30 server, which is 11:30 here. Granted, it's only one night a week, but that's still pretty late in Carrie-land. I like to be in bed by 10.
I guess the best thing is just to wait and see when the first few get scheduled, and join in or not as my schedule allows. If they run some on the weekend, and some during the week, and there are enough people to cover the ones run during the week, it might work out. As long as I stay conscious of my personal priorities to my family and my job, and don't let myself get carried away... we shall see.
I am a zombie... hurrrrr..........
Not really. It's just like going on 1AM and we did quite a bit of shopping today. A good portion of it was online, but there are some things that even amazon.com can't sell cheaper than Wal-Mart. Sorry amazon.com. I love ya, I really do, but that extra two or three dollars will really come in handy when all the presents are bought and we actually need, like, food and stuff.
We're actually almost done too. There are a niece and a nephew who still need some rounding-out, but if it's not in the amazon shopping cart, it's in the bedroom waiting to be wrapped. Oh, except for one thing that we have to go back to Wal-Mart for. We also did grocery shopping tonight. On the way out to the car, hubby kept saying under his breath, "Christmas only comes once a year."
Earlier in the day he was a bit more in the Christmas spirit, and he put together the following video. I made the background image. :) I'll leave you with this, I hope it brings a bit of the spirit to you also!
I am still in shock, seriously.
A few weeks ago, wow.com held a contest to give away 25 wireless headsets. It was like a screenshot scavenger hunt. They gave clues to five locations, and the entrants had to take screenshots of their raid/group at each of the locations. Then they would do a random drawing from the entries who had their screenshots taken at the correct locations.
They announced the winners publicly yesterday.
You can read about it here.
And if you couldn't tell from the post title...
That's my devilsaur in the foreground of the picture.
THAT IS MY GUILD AND WE WON.
/dance
The past three days I have been getting up at 2AM to go to work, thus the lack of actual posts. I barely recall what I actually did on those days. I think there was some WoW, and dinner, but the rest is a fog.
I remember last night though! Last night after dinner we put up our Christmas tree. I wish I had pictures, but our camera had gone missing, and when we finally found it, it was broken. So I think that's where my Christmas bonus will be going this year. It's not right to have kids and no way to take pictures of them when they're decorating a tree. Hubby kept saying "spread the decorations around, so they're all over the tree", and Emily kept putting every ornament she picked up in the same area, or right next to one that Andy or I had put up. A little sneaky reorganization left us with a relatively balanced ornament distribution. :D
We bought new lights this year, after discovering that both of the strings we already had did not fully light up. One was half dark, the other was dark in the middle. I managed to fix one of them, but we decided to just get two new strings, and use the one that I fixed around a window or something. Yay new lights! We have a nice compromise when it comes to the lights. I like blinky ones and hubby likes the steady light, so we have one string of each, and they both wrap fully around the tree. It looks a little sparse when the blinky ones are off, but it makes me happy to have blinky lights on the tree. We also put tinsel on, which begins the month-long struggle between us and the cat, who thinks we just covered the tree in sparkly cat treats.
We managed to keep him away from it while we were awake, but first thing this morning when I was getting ready for work, I stepped in a sparkly puddle of cat vomit. This perpetuates the opinion that we all share, that the cat is a moron. He KNOWS he's not supposed to eat the tinsel. We know he knows because while I found the vomit, the cat himself was nowhere to be seen. He ate the tinsel, and he knew he wasn't supposed to, and sure enough he threw it back up, and so he hid in the vain hope that when we found him we'd have forgotten about it. I expect this scenario to play out at least three times a week until Christmas. We try every year to hang it so that he can't reach it, but every year he manages to find some to eat anyway. I guess I shouldn't expect more from him, he thinks plastic bags from the grocery store are the greatest thing ever too. He'll chew on any bit of plastic he can get his teeth on, no matter how many times he gets yelled at for it. *sigh*
My blog is worth $41,211.42.
How much is your blog worth?
