Epic WoW Marathon! (plus news.)

That was some weekend. (Warning LONG post ahead. There is some news for the non-WoW-minded down there, if you want to skip to the end.)

We spent Friday night playing Rock Band with hubby's sister, and stayed up waaaay too late. Saturday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to get the house in shape for Emily's party that afternoon. After the party, the kids went to my parents for the rest of the weekend, and hubby and I buckled down to level our last pair of characters before our Recruit-A-Friend time ran out. It's important to have goals, right? :)

We started questing at first, mostly because our friend had not logged on yet. After a while hubby queued us for a PuG, just to get our Stockades quests done. We ended up leaving before it was done. It started out well enough, it seemed like the tank knew what he was doing, but he just kept pulling, no matter how many times the healer asked him to stop so he could get some mana. So the healer left. We pulled in someone new after a bit, but the same problems continued, so we left. We went back to questing, and finally a different friend of ours said he would run us, so we met up with him outside the instance, and were joined by an alt of our guild leader's wife. We finished that in short order, and then he ran us through Gnomeregan. I believe we called it a night not long after that.

On Sunday morning we were level 31 or 32. We quested in STV most of the day, with a couple of breaks to PuG two wings of Scarlet Monastery and RFD. Hubby got a few nice pieces from his Satchel of Helpful Goods, not so with me. Some "of the Bear", some "of the Bandit", only one "of the Sun". I did pretty well in the dungeons themselves though, so I can't really complain. We had some interesting adventures in STV though. It was Fishing Tournament day, and about ten minutes or so before that started, we headed up to a little island off the coast to discover it for a quest. On the way, we passed the Horde town, and I must have walked a bit too close, because I got flagged for PvP. Oh well, right? It'll wear off and nothing will happen, it hasn't before. Apparently the undead shadow priest we passed not long after had different ideas. He followed us for a bit, and as I was jumping into the water, he struck, and down I went.

I was a little miffed, to say the least. We played our druids for 60 levels on a PvP server and never got ganked once, and here on our "carebear" server... POW. Hubby came to my rescue though. He logged on his level 80 druid and came down to STV to avenge me. I was concerned that the priest's flag would wear off before hubby could arrive, so I went looking for the priest again. I found him, and wandered past like I didn't see him, then "accidentally" encountered a crocolisk and started fighting it. I was hoping he'd attack me again and refresh his flag. Sure enough, down I went again. But this time I was laughing. He was probably thinking, "what a stupid mage!" Little did he know what was in store for him.

Hubby arrived shortly after, and we set out to find the guy one last time. By the time we found him, my flag had worn off, so I was able to watch without fear as hubby tore the guy apart. Revenge was sweet! He waited a while to rez, and took off like a bat out of hell as soon as he did. Not so fun when you're on the other end, is it, Mr. Priest?

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We took a break and went out for dinner (steeeaaaaak YUM). When we logged out for the night we were level 45. Fifteen levels to go and one day to do it, as our shared bonus would run out at 7 PM on Monday. We technically didn't have to get to 60 by then, because that account is paid for until some time in March, but we wanted to see if we could do it.

I had Monday off at work, and the kids were still with my parents, so we had the whole day. We got up around 7AM, determined to be 60 in the next 12 hours. We did a lot of questing, and by 2 PM we were 52. We gathered as many quests as we could for BRD (except one, oops), and started talking about getting someone to run us together so we could get everything done in one run and not spend the whole rest of the day in there running each other. But nobody was around. Then it hit me. I read quite a few WoW blogs, and a few people out there have done RAF accounts on their own, and dual-boxed them. So I decided to see if I could do that as well. I put my mage's session in windowed mode and opened up another one to log on Saraabi. It worked, and soon all three of us were in a group. I set my mage to follow hubby's rogue, and clicked over to Saraabi's window and started killing stuff.

It was weird but awesome at the same time. I would clear a room or a path, and then click over to my mage to pick up loot for quests and whatnot. It was awesome because we were getting triple xp for all of the mob kills, AND all of the quests we were able to complete within the dungeon. The most awesome part was at the beginning, when we did the quest to find Kharan Mighthammer in one of the prison cells. So we found him, then we were supposed to head back to Ironforge to talk to the king there, then return to the dungeon to save the princess. Normally we'd trade off summons and take turns doing this, but this time we had my mage, and she had a portal to Ironforge. So hubby summoned me first. Then I opened a portal to IF, and we both went through. We raced to the king, turned in our quest, and then I accepted the summon, which took me right back to Kharan's cell. I summoned hubby back in, and ta-da, quest complete and we still got our triple xp for doing it.

By the end of the dungeon we were level 56. Turning in quests got us to 58. So we ran Stratholme the same way, this time with my hunter in the lead so she'd be able to pick up Baron's horse if it should drop (it didn't, of course). We didn't get nearly as much xp from that run, but we hadn't picked up any quests for it either. My mage got quite a bit of loot from both runs, hubby only got one thing. There just wasn't much loot on the tables for rogues back in the day I guess. After Stratholme it was back to questing, because I was getting strung out from maintaining both windows in an instance with a lot of patrolling mobs. We had an hour and a half to get a level and a half. We ran around to cauldrons and through Andorhal time and time again, frantic to beat our deadline. Then suddenly, with about ten minutes to go, I looked at my xp bar, and the two quests we had to turn in, and noticed that we'd only need one to make it. We went back to Chillwind, turned it in, and DING! Total time played, 1 day, 9 hours. I couldn't believe that we made it.

OK NON-WOW PEOPLE HERE IS YOUR NEWS.

I have got a lot of non-WoW stuff going on right now. Not all of it is good, and no I really don't want to talk about it. At all. I need to make some changes in my life, and I can't be here posting like everything is fine when it really isn't. So... cue radio silence. I'm leaving here, Facebook, and pretty much every social on-line thing I have. I'm keeping my weight loss blog up, because I still need the accountability of seeing my weight in print every day to keep me going. But that's about it. It's been a wild ride, but you have to get off even the most fun rides once in a while or you'll vomit all over everyone. I don't like to vomit. I may or may not be back. It has been wonderful getting to know you all, thank you for spending this time with me.

Goodbye!

Not a whole lot of progress on the rogue/mage last night. They're level 15 now, waiting for a run through Deadmines. A guildmate of ours said she'd run us through, but by the time we were ready it was raid time and she had to go to ICC. They're trying to get the boss down for the weekly raid. Two days so far and no luck. So instead hubby and I queued up for a couple of randoms. I was on Caelatria at first, but the queue was taking quite a while, even though I was grouped with hubby's tree druid, so I logged on to Saraabi. We grabbed a DPS from guild (a warrior) and hit the queue, BAM, instant Heroic.

We ran Nexus and got a hunter and DK, everything went well, no hiccups, though the DK tried to ninja-Need the Frozen Orb. Hadn't been watching the rolls as well as she should have though, because I hadn't rolled yet. I've read too many stories on other blogs about people dropping Need on the Orb at the last second. So I hit Need also, and won. She dropped group, and I offered it to the rest of the group on a free /roll. Nobody wanted it though.

Next up we grabbed one more DPS from guild (a ret paladin) and got Drak'Tharon Keep. The pug this time was a hunter. Who... stopped to drink a few times, even saying in party chat that he needed mana. Odd, considering that Aspect of the Viper regens mana, but I guess he didn't want to hurt his DPS or something. *shrug* At the time I couldn't think of a way to mention it without sounding like an ass (L2Viper NUB!), so I held my tongue and finished the run.

By that time they were done in ICC, but it was too late to stay up and run Deadmines, so we'll see if we can get in there tonight. I chatted a bit with the ret paladin before logging out, because he was doing crazy DPS the whole run, and I was just astounded. Like 4k even on the trash, pushing 5k on the bosses. It turns out he has only been playing for 4 months, which is just nuts. That good at his class in 4 months. Yikes. I'm going to get him to teach me how to play Ret so Saraabi can run as OT from time to time without feeling useless! XD

Pair Two is retired!

My dwarf warrior and hubby's draenei shaman hit 60 last night. I have a new appreciation for the warrior class, though I have to say the rage thing got on my nerves a few times! If I could get a charge in before starting a fight, I had a good rotation and I could more or less keep threat from hubby's shaman. But if I got hit unawares, it was often quite a struggle. Odds are there are some abilities I wasn't using that would have helped in those situations, but I never really read up on warrior skills the whole time I was leveling.

Once she hit 60, I respecced her to Fury from Arms, just to play around with Titan's Grip. She looks pretty sweet with her axe and sword crossed on her back! But she's going into retirement now, until I can afford to transfer her from the new account to my main one.

We had thought that our recruit-a-friend time was up today, but I looked it up again last night to double-check, and it turns out we have until Monday. What? A whole weekend of time before it's over?

Enter Pair 3, my gnome mage and hubby's human rogue. It's a bit awkward, playing one melee and one ranged, but so far we haven't had too much trouble. They're level 11 already, after only two hours or so of playtime last night. It'll be a race to the finish to see how far we can get them by Monday night. Even then we don't have to stop, my account is paid for until March. We'll just lose the 300% xp bonus. My only problem now is having enough room on my main account to transfer all of these characters over! We're also talking about bringing over our very first pair, Mezzaluna and Rhonson, to Cenarion Circle from Malfurion. They're so close to 80, it just seems silly for them to sit over there not doing anything!

One thing at a time though. All of these transfers won't come cheap!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl!

Happy 4th birthday, Emily! I love you!

Hey!

I'm still alive :)

Last week was very, very busy. I was covering someone who was covering someone else's vacation... and I didn't have a whole lot of time to myself while I was doing it. There were many times when I felt like every time I'd have a minute to sit down and rest, I was getting called back out onto the floor for something. But I made it through, and I'm back to a normal schedule for the foreseeable future. There are no more vacations on the schedule until February, and that's mine. An extra-long weekend for my birthday. I'll be 32, which seems kind of unreal. I don't feel like I'm in my 30's most of the time!

On one of the worse days, I came home and started looking up Glee songs to cheer myself up. I was getting frustrated with the fact that none of them seemed to have video from the show to go with them, when suddenly hubby popped up behind me and had the Season 1 DVD in his hands. Happy Early Birthday to me, yay! I was super happy! So the rest of the week we had that on, to catch up on the episodes that we missed, and listen to the songs.

We have also been scrambling to finish out our Recruit-a-friend time in style. We got our alliance characters to level 51 over the weekend, from 32 on Friday. Most of that was done on Saturday, we ran some heroics and did a couple of mount runs on Sunday which cut into our leveling time a bit. We're working on getting all of the quests for BRD, so we can run that tonight or tomorrow. I really hope we can make it to 60 before our time runs out! I'm mostly enjoying my warrior, though it gets frustrating to have to work up rage if I can't charge into battle, instead of having mana or energy already available to do what I want to do right out of the gate. She's leveling Arms now, so if there's anyone out there with playstyle or rotation tips, please feel free to leave them in the comments. Her spec is a bit of a mishmash, but I tried to keep up with talents that would boost her DPS and rage generation. It's hit or miss right now.

That's about all, I'd better get some work done before the day gets away from me, my boss gave me quite the list of stuff to do now that I'm back to my normal schedule!

Edit: OMG I can't believe I forgot to mention this, because I about died when it happened. Guess who won the Kal'uak Fishing Derby on Saturday? You bet your sweet bippy! Camped out in Sholazar a few minutes before it started, and hit up one school in River's Heart, then had to go hunting for a second. The second catch from said pool... BLACKTIP SHARK! I couldn't hearth fast enough, and now have a lovely heirloom ring that I sent to my warlock, Rootbeer. AND... Caelatria is one rare fish away from her "Salty" title. Not half bad, eh?

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I'm a bit late, I apologize. :)

We had a pretty good New Year, I got a kiss at midnight from the best husband in the world, and ended the night outside making snow angels with my son and my sister-in-law, giggling like a little kid. Yes, I'd had a bit to drink, but it was still fun!

Yesterday was back to work. Bah. I'm covering someone ELSE this week, so I still have to get up early, though not as early as I was last week. Still, things are pretty busy for me, so I hope you all will bear with me until I get back to a normal schedule and can post like I would like to.

I also want to mention, since the New Year is a time for resolutions, that I've decided for the third or fourth time that this year I will be working more to get healthier, if not totally in shape. My weight has gotten to a point that I'm no longer "ok" with, and I need to get something done about it. To that end, I'll be posting more on my weight loss blog (I bet most of you didn't even know I HAD one!) It's been two years since I tried this, but I really mean to stick to it this time. You all can help keep me accountable, ok? :) Seriously, leave me comments and yell at me if I don't weigh in!

 I am going to try very hard to weigh myself every day and post it, so I can have a record of how I'm doing right there where I can see it. I'm sure I'll stumble quite a bit on the way, but like I said, I need to do something now, before it gets even worse.

SO... it's back to work now, I'll catch y'all on the flip!

I found this absolutely hilarious.

Got an email from my hubby this afternoon about the next movie that we're due to get in the mail from Netflix. Through some strange warping of the space-time continuum, I was able to reply before it was even sent!

Spooooooooky email from the future!

I did not miss this one bit.

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!

Yeah, it's another video.

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.

Watch Michael Crawford - O Holy Night (1993) in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

It's almost here!

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!