Reconnecting is so much fun!

Yet another great weekend!

First and foremost, I finally finished my review of Arthas for SQT. You can read it here: Arthas Review. It probably took me much longer than it should have, but it's hard (for me) to do a book justice without rehashing every plot point and saying what I liked or didn't like about it.

Secondly, on Saturday afternoon I finally got Numae (my druid) to level 50. She still has a ways to go before she can get going in Outland, but it's a big milestone for her, as she's been stuck at 49 for what seems like ages. Shortly thereafter my phone rang, and it was hubby saying that the car had died, and thus began the Great Battery Adventure.

Hubby and the kids had gone out to do some grocery shopping. They were in the drive-thru at McDonald's grabbing some lunch when the battery petered out. So they went searching for a pay phone to call me. They finally found one at Meijer, so hubby called me and bought a new battery while he was there. I had to borrow my sister-in-law's car, and headed out there to pick them up. When I finally found them (not setting up a meeting place on the phone was a big oops there), we headed back to McDonald's, where I took the kids inside to get lunch while hubby changed out the batteries.

He got the old one out, but the one he'd bought was different from the one actually in the car (even though it was the one recommended by the book at the store for my make and model of car), and the positive and negative poles were on the wrong sides, so he couldn't hook it up. We all piled back in the other car, took the cold groceries back to the house, then it was back to Meijer to exchange batteries, and off to McDonald's again to get the new one installed.

Thankfully that one worked, and we all made it home afterwards without any trouble.

On Sunday afternoon I got to hang out with some old college friends of mine. My friend Lauren was in town from Chicago for a retreat, and we hung out at one of her friends' house. We were also visited by her old roommate Dania, who I hadn't seen.. probably since they graduated in '01. We spent a couple of hours chatting and catching up and reminiscing, and it was really great. Much laughter was had over old jokes and stories, as well as new ones. The only downside was that hubby had scheduled time for us all to get pictures taken that day, and I completely forgot. Perhaps they'll let us reschedule... oops! :)

Lastly, Mezzaluna and Rhonson made it to 70 last night. They're questing in Borean Tundra right now, looking forward to 77 and flight! I really have to start saving up gold now, I've been doing quite a bit of spending lately on Mezza's trade skills, trying to keep them up with her level. Her tailoring is right on track, but her enchanting is lagging behind a bit. She needs 8 more points to be at Northrend level, and it's going to be difficult to not buy the materials she needs to get it there!

Good morning, blogland! (nice long WoW post for ya!)

I am in a very good mood today. Last night marked my return to raiding with my awesome guild, and not only that, but the guild's first night in 25-man Naxxramas. We kicked some tail in there, and I learned a lot! My DPS wasn't up to par with the other hunters, but I expected that. Most of them have been 80 for longer than I have, and have had more time to get rep gear and run heroics. I am confident that once I get some gear upgraded, I will be up there as well.

We started with the Spider Wing last night, and tore through the first boss, where hubby picked up a new necklace. We had a bit of a hiccup on Grand Widow Faerlina, but I chalk that up to attempting an achievement the first time in. Got her down on the second try, and over to Maexxna. One-shotted there as well, and I got my first raid epic, a lovely belt.

We then moved on to the Plague Wing. Noth was our first (and only) real troublemaker of the night, the AOE from the Plagued Guardians was tearing through our healers and dps. We did finally get him down, and moved on to Heigan. Now that is one interesting fight! I died on the first dps pass through the acid/slime, because knowing what you're supposed to do doesn't make much difference when you don't really know how exactly you're supposed to do it. So I watched from the sidelines, and enjoyed the experience thoroughly. Gained some more appreciation for my GM too, he dragged Heigan around that room and hardly missed a beat. Got him down in one shot. Loatheb was last on the list for the night, and had a good giggle when the spores were explained. The mage CL said "They look like a bit from Tron. You know, the little floating thing that went No No No No No..?" Love that movie. I died yet again near the end, just ran out of things to heal myself with. I got a quick battle-rez from one of our boomkins though, and managed to live through to the end of the fight. Two tier pieces were handed out, though the hunter ones didn't drop. I probably wouldn't have gotten them even if they had dropped, considering every guild hunter was there, and I had already gotten one drop.

Because it was our first night in there, and the first night any of us would be earning DKP, all the loot was handled with /roll, although priority was given, member over initiate, and those who had won one thing were passed over in favor of those who had not yet. It was a good night, with little bickering. We went in, did our thing, and did it well. I hope we can maintain that dynamic.

After raid was over, I did some quick Leatherworking. I made myself a new chestpiece, then spent quite a bit on the AH. I read yesterday that they're adding Frozen Orbs to the crafting recipe of the epic leg armors, so I wanted to make as many of them as I could to store away for later, whether I use them myself or sell them. I spent like 1000g on Arctic Fur and Icy Dragonscales, but I got my LW skill up to 440, and was able to learn the patterns for my two Giantmaim pieces, as well as the Ice Striker's cloak, all three of which will be great upgrades for me. Now to farm the materials!

Tonight will probably be more Naxx, though I don't know if we'll have the people for 25-man or not. I hope we do, I'd like to see the Military and Construct wings go down like Spider and Plague did! :)

Awesomeness in The Eye (WoW)

So last night we raided The Eye. Everyone was in a good mood, we were having a good time, we didn't even get overly upset when the server reset when we were in the middle of Al'ar, and when it came back up, all the trash had reset as well, like we hadn't been in there at all. Thankfully all of the Marks and Nether Vortexes we had looted from them were still in my guild leader's bags. We just buckled down, regrouped, and started over. Got Al'ar down in one shot (I got another axe to match my first one, yay!), moved on to Solarian. The trash in Solarian's room is always interesting, thanks to people getting mind-controlled every so often. But last night went beyond interesting to completely awesome. We pulled the first group, sheeped two of 'em, and everything was going well until.. one of the mind-controlled people dropped a fear, and feared one of the raid members right into Solarian herself.

This had the effect of pulling the ENTIRE ROOM onto us. People were dying left and right, hunters were feigning.. and then someone else got MC'ed and popped a fear, grabbing me and my CL out of feign. I stood up, ran around, and suddenly everyone was red.. I was MC'ed this time! As was my CL and our MT. The rest of the raid dropped shortly after, and the mobs started to reset. And of course, since the three of us were MC'ed, we started to reset as well, which had the interesting effect of healing us almost to full. I was resigned to dying once we reset to whatever group had MC'ed us, but we got realllly lucky. It wore off when we were only partway to Solarian's platform, and we all stopped dead in our tracks. Then we began slowwwwly backing away, and we managed to get back to the rest of the group without pulling anything else. Phew!

Once we all stopped laughing, we got everyone rezzed and went back to work on the trash, where some brave soul discovered that the group we were fighting was immune to fear, so our raid leader laughingly asked everyone with a fear to drop it before they got MC'ed again, and the rest of the pulls passed without incident. We got Solarian down, and hubby got a new wand. After all of that, we moved on to Void Reaver, and got him in one shot. My CL finally got some T5 shoulders for herself.

The only bad part about this was that I didn't realize that the server reset had stopped my combat logging, so I wasn't able to run a proper WWS report. Still, I had Recount running, and was pleased to see that even though I got put into the caster group, I was still top DPS out of all the hunters there. In fact, after experiencing the joy that is a Shadow Priest and never having to use a mana pot except when she was dead (oops).. I might start asking to be in that group from now on... :) FI works on spell damage too, after all!