ravnsdaughter | Entries tagged with wow

We will FINALLY be getting real internet at the condo tomorrow... good timing too, because Ian has exhausted his bandwidth limit on his iPhone for the month. We'll be going from slower than molasses in January bandwidth (what I could get through tethering my iPhone to my computer) to zoomy-fast fibre optic bandwidth. We can both hardly wait. I told Ian the other day that aside from grocery shopping and possibly going out to see the Harry Potter movie on the big screen, I really wanted to just spend the weekend hanging out at home with him... I'm feeling slightly peopled out lately and need some relax time.

I need a to-do list for tonight, though, since I have a lot to accomplish once I get home from my chiro appointment. Some of this is because I need to get stuff done before Telus comes by to hook up our internet and cable tomorrow, and some of it is because I've decided to heck with waiting until September 1st to start my 101-in-1001 project, and I'm going to finalize my list today, post it, and declare today my starting date.

So, here's my list o' crap what I needs to do tonight:

- Open my computer up and clean out the inside (hopefully this will make it a little less noisy)
- Swap the connection over to my 1TB harddrive, wipe the drive off and install Windows on it (and set my old harddrive as a secondary drive) (and I want to do this tonight so I can start on some of my goals on my list this weekend, and also so I can fix up my UI before tomorrow night's raid)
- ~~Clean the kitchen~~
- Find my prescriptions so I can get them filled (and cancel my doctor's appointment for tomorrow since I don't need it for my back anymore, and would rather not go just to say "I misplaced my prescriptions in the move, can I get new ones please?")
- Clean off the dining table and find homes for all of the crap on it.
- ~~Finish the laundry and put it away~~
- ~~Find my headset so I can raid tomorrow night without having to type out all my snarky comments~~
- ~~Check my stash of flasks and mana potions on my priest and farm up the materials for more if necessary~~

I just had yet another fracking awesome weekend.

(Yes, I'm working my way through BSG and it's showing in my vocabulary; specifically, the use of the word frack)

I had signed up to raid Friday night, as they had looked to be really short on people in general, but in the end wasn't needed, which was just fine by me. Because Ian had a really long, hard week, we hadn't made any plans for Friday night, so we just chatted while playing WoW instead. I was working on questing for my Loremaster achievement, so I was flying hither and yon all over Azeroth (I was working on Loremaster of Kalimdor, but needed to do quests on both continents to find ones that gave me credit for Kalimdor, which was a big pain in the butt). Ian disappeared mid-evening, and I suspected he had headed out for drinks with the guys; he hasn't quite developed the habit of saying "bye, going out with the guys" when he does, so I wasn't sure, but it turned out my guess was right on the money.

Saturday, I did a bit of laundry and housework but mostly kept questing away until just before 2pm, which is when Ian rejoined the land of the living and came online. I had originally planned to go to Lionsdale Champions on Saturday, but decided not to because of my cold. After Ian came online, we did a Zul'Gurub run with some guildies, and then they helped me knock out 6 or 7 quests in Dire Maul (which I had never done in its entirety before, so it actually meant I got the achievement for it as well), and then he headed over so that we could go out to dinner. I had decided that I wanted to go out someplace with a patio and have a nice meal and some drinks to celebrate receiving my Certificate of Discharge on Thursday. We headed out to Yianni's, my favorite greek taverna, and had a lovely meal and split a pitcher of sangria. Mmmm, sangria. I even ended up a little tipsier than usual.

We went back to my place, had a shower, and then laid naked on the bed in front of the fan talking, which was absolutely lovely considering the scorching heat we had on Saturday (and the enormous meal we'd just eaten). We had some really good conversation too, about priorities and goals and things like that.

on Sunday, we lazed around for pretty much all morning, I cooked brunch, and then we played some WoW together. I finally finished up my Loremaster achievement! Boy that was a ton of work. Ian headed out about 5pm as he needed to get some grocery shopping and laundry done, and I decided to finish up my Cenarion Circle rep grind in WoW, which I was fairly close to having done.

And I got some totally awesome news last night, which I will save for my next post as this is getting long enough as it is. :)

Summer colds suck.

That's what I'm assuming my problem is... I woke up yesterday morning with what initially felt like a scratchy throat, but it's not actually my throat that is sore, it's the back of my soft palate. My nasal sinuses are doing something funky too. I'm feeling slightly better this afternoon, so I'm really hoping that it's not going to last long. It just totally figures that I'd get this on the last day of a 4 day weekend.

After a 4 day weekend, I came in to a monster pile of dictation to be done. This didn't surprise me in the slightest. This is good in that it keeps me really busy but at the same time... so much for being caught up. Ah well.

I did manage to get some of what I'd intended to do on the weekend done, but not all of it. The bathroom is absolutely spotless, and the kitchen is about 2/3 done, and the enormous pile of laundry is ALL done, but I still have a lot more to do.

An update to my "I'm quitting raiding" post from last week: On Friday night, I finally got a chance to talk to my Guild Leader. He'd spoken to the officer that I talked to on Wednesday, and made the comment that he totally understood that my life had changed considerably lately, implying that I wanted to quit because I had a new boyfriend. I told him that Ian wasn't actually the reason, since he usually works afternoon shift, but that it was just that my priorities had shifted. In the end, he was totally fine with the idea of me being a sort of perma-backup/substitute raider. I'm happy with that conclusion, as it means I will still get to see the end-game instances and raid once every few weeks (I'm hoping for 1 night every 2-3 weeks or so, preferably a Friday so I can not worry about not getting enough sleep for work the next day) but don't have to quit 100%. At the same time, it will be at my discretion... I can sign up when I feel like raiding or drop him a PM on the forums to let him know I'm available, without being kicked for lack of attendance. So I'm getting the best of both worlds.

Of course, this hasn't really impacted the amount of time I'm spending playing WoW... yet. Once I get myself organized, it will, but I played plenty this past weekend. I'm about 150 quests away from my Loremaster achievement now. I've spent way too much time in the past 2 days flying all over Azeroth turning in quests here, there, and everywhere, that's for sure.

Today is my Friday - I've been working longer hours all this week so that I could take Friday off. And now that I'm thinking about it, I've decided to take Monday off as well, provided my boss is ok with it. And chances are really good that he will be just fine with it. And then I'm going to spend my weekend cleaning the everloving crap out of my house.

I was planning to wait until the evil roommate was gone to do it, but the past couple of days, I have been getting whiffs of the scent of cat pee in my room, and the mess in general has just gotten to me too much, so it's time to get it done.

So, I tried to quit raiding last night. I talked to a guild officer other than the GM, and he's concerned that I'm going to go into withdrawal and want to go back to raiding in a month or so. That may well happen, but I will just have to learn to deal with it. I know that quitting is the best for my health and well-being. He said he would talk to the GM and stuff, and I noticed this morning that the recruitment section of the guild's website has been changed to be recruiting a holy/discipline priest, so we'll see what my GM says next time we're both logged in at the same time.

I had a lovely dinner out with

songstress1973 yesterday, even though I ate way too much. Next time, we should go somewhere healthy! Actually, we should do another girls' day sometime in the near future... I would host it and do the invites, but she's horribly allergic to cats and my place is coated in a healthy swathe of cat fur.

This is something I've been thinking about for about a month or so now, maybe a bit longer, and I have finally made a decision. Conversations via email and Livejournal comment with a couple of friends and doing a bit of musing this morning made me realize something fairly major and the solution to the question appeared like a lightbulb over my head.

I'm quitting raiding. There, I said it.

I'm just not enjoying it anymore. Now that I've gotten so many other areas of my life straightened out and so much closer to where I want them to be, it's made me start thinking about the somewhat more "fluffy" areas. For example, I mean things like now that I don't have to worry about where next month's rent is coming from, I can focus on figuring out what makes me truly happy with my life instead.

I got paid yesterday, which means, as usual, my money has started burning a hole in my bank account. To prevent myself from going shopping online and wasting any, I instead went onto craigslist and browsed through the used car ads, to remind myself that I'm saving for one. That did the trick, but then I started thinking, and for some reason, had a bit of a vision of myself buying a car, bringing it home, parking it outside my house and going inside and thinking "ok, now what?" It sorta hit home the fact that once I've bought myself a car, it's not going to be the magic bullet that makes me feel fulfilled. I still want a car, but it's just brought up the fact that I need to figure out what DOES make me feel fulfilled.

So I started thinking about that. After a bunch of pondering and musing, I realized that what DOES make me feel fulfilled, is finishing a project. Making pretty things, and being able to say "yes, I made that, isn't it pretty?" And as much as I like sitting on my arse and being lazy, getting out and exercising and getting fresh air and building up a good sweat... or rather, the feeling AFTER I've done so, is fulfilling. And I'm not accomplishing either of these things by sitting on my butt and clicking buttons to kill a virtual monster doesn't do it for me anymore. It used to, but not anymore.

My health is also really becoming a priority in my life, as well, and getting a full night's sleep EVERY single night is a big part of that. And I can't do that when I raid til 10:30 or 11pm and want to be up at 5am so that I can swim or go to work early enough to be out of there before my office turns into an oven (which it starts to do around 2pm). My body requires 8 hours every night.

This is not to say that I'm quitting WoW altogether. I still enjoy playing video games... and can't spend ALL my time crafting. I'm even looking forward to trying out the Star Wars Old Republic MMO. It just means that I will no longer HAVE to be glued to the computer for hours at a time on certain days of the week.

I'll be logging on tonight to talk to an officer and let them know about my decision, though I suspect that they will ask me to help them out by raiding for a few more weeks until they are able to recruit another holy priest, and because I'm nice, I will. But I won't be going 3 days a week, that's for sure.

And with that decision made, I feel a huge weight lifting itself off of my shoulders.

I spent all day yesterday feeling like it was Friday, because my boss was away. Usually when he takes time off, it's just Friday, but this week he took both Thursday and Friday off. I have to say, I like having a boss who is mentally half-retired already.

Ian's on his second of five weeks of dayshift, and I got to see him on Wednesday night this week! Seeing him during the week makes it easier to not spent the entire weekend with him, and not feel like I'm missing out on something. This weekend he's insanely busy, and we have a dinner & a movie date planned for tomorrow night, but that's it. The rest of the weekend, he's busy.

This means I get all of tonight at home by myself (and I'm scheduled as backup for my raid, which I'm thrilled about, and I hope I don't get switched to active between now and 7:30 - ETA: dammit, I'm being swapped in after the first boss), most of tomorrow (I won't be seeing him until around dinner time), and all of Sunday. As much as I adore him... I could really use some weekend time to myself. As of right now, the plan is to get a bunch of housework and laundry done, but knowing me it will probably be more like copious amounts of gaming.

I finally made it to archery practice again last night. My computer chair at home had broken a week ago (and it was less than a month old - I think the plastic base was brittle or something) and I ended up spending the weekend sitting on the one I'd had previously, which had no hydraulics in it. This totally killed my back, so I was in too much pain to go to practice on Monday. Yesterday's practice was great though. I've improved my form a bit more, and most rounds were pretty decent - I'm even getting to the point where my arrows are grouped, albeit loosely. My arrows are WAY too heavy for my bow though, which means I'm having to overcompensate a TON when aiming. I can hardly wait to get some wooden arrows.

Current Mood: bouncy

Eeeeeeee 3 more hours til my sweetie's flight lands! He's been in Las Vegas all week on vacation, and I miss him something fierce. Of course, I'll still be at work at that point, but he's heading pretty much straight out here and will be either meeting me at work or coming to my house shortly thereafter.

I have a raid tonight, which I've been signed up for for a while now, and there are no healers who could sub in for me, so I will be attending that out of necessity. We just want to have some time together anyways, so I will be making a pretty simple dinner of caesar salad and cheese tortellini with pesto sauce tonight, so we can get lots of snuggle time in this afternoon before my raid.

Tomorrow night, we're going to be attending the Reik Felag viking group's annual pub night fundraiser, and Ian will get his first introduction to viking costume and my rowdy viking friends. I'm really looking forward to it.

And crappity crap crap, I just realized that the upcoming Terminal City Rollergirls bout is the same weekend I had planned to go visit my grandparents. Well, it's a good thing I hadn't run it past my grandparents yet, as I really want to go watch the bout. The trip to the island can wait an extra week or so.

Happy Friday everyone!

I think I've figured out the source of my antsyness. I was doing so well the first two weeks of my new job with the exercise and crafting and music, and this week I haven't done any of that, and have been spending all my spare time playing WoW, trying to get my alliance toons as high as possible before my RAF bonus wears out.

I'm not going to change that too much, since I really do want to get the toons as high as I can, but I feel better having just figured things out.

Barring anything else going on that weekend that I need to be in town for, I think I will take the Friday-Sunday of Easter weekend and head over and visit my grandparents. I could use a few days of relaxation and spoiling and Gramma-hugs. The office is closed on both Good Friday and Easter Monday, so I will already be working 4 day weeks for both of those weeks, and if I come home on Sunday, I can have Monday for laundry etc. before I get back to work on Tuesday.

Today's BPAL is Jezebel. The official description: Biblical witch, priestess of Astarte, and general troublemaker. A true role model for today's upwardly mobile Modern Woman. A gloriously decadent blend of honey, roses, orange blossom and sandalwood. While I love the description, it's not quite right for me - I tend to prefer fruity/foody/spicy scents, I'm finding. This is a VERY aged imp, it came to me from someone who's had it for at least a couple years. I'm smelling mostly the roses and sandalwood, I think, and those two in combination just don't seem to do it for me.

As of this morning, I've shaved about five minutes off of my morning commute in under a week! I had a really good train connection - it was pulling up as I stepped off the elevator, but most of the time reduction was me walking faster.

I'm seeing a bit of blue sky out my window today, and I'm hoping that it clears up a bit more as the day goes on. That would be really nice. I'm quite looking forward to my evening tonight. Yesterday was crazy hectic, and I didn't get much time to actually relax. Tonight, I'm going straight home from work, and I have no raids tonight. My intent is to do a bit of tidying up when I get home, do a bit of piano practice or possibly pull out my harp, and then spend most of the evening either doing lampworking or sewing. I'm heading over to a friend's place on Sunday for sewing and movies, and I'd like to get the machine-sewn portion of my outfit out of the way so I don't have to drag my machine over to her house, and I can just sit and hand-stitch.

Geez it's grey outside. A bit of a downer after the gorgeous sun we had yesterday afternoon. Actually, yesterday's weather was a little schizophrenic - we started out with a bit of sun, around 9:30 it started pouring but stopped fairly quickly, and then eventually it cleared up to almost totally clear skies.

I'm wearing BPAL's Carnal today, but you'd almost never know it... apparently my skin eats it. There's one to add to the "pretty but don't order a bottle" pile. Ever since I started my new job, I've actually been remembering to put on jewelry and perfume. Next thing you know, I'm going to end up wearing makeup. Actually, after reading

moukin's posts lately, I'm getting tempted to order some samples from Everyday Minerals.

I slept like a baby after all my exercise yesterday. In fact, I was extremely thankful my raid ended early, as I didn't sleep very well on Sunday night and was absolutely exhausted by the time I went to bed last night. I was in bed by 9:30 and probably asleep by 10, and would have slept through to 6am this morning if my damned cat hadn't been whining at the window to be let in at midnight (she darted out when I opened the door to let Onyx in, who had snuck out earlier when I put recycling out, and I hadn't even noticed him being gone).

We had an EXTREMELY good raid though... it only took us maybe 5 or 6 tries total, and we got our guild-first kill of Sartharion + 3 drakes. This means I now have my Twilight Vanquisher title! No new gear for me, but I was thrilled to see one of our officers who I really like get the special mount, instead of one of the jerks that have joined the guild recently.

I had originally been on backup last night, but they decided at the last minute to have 7 healers instead of 6, so I was pulled in. My original plan had been to pump ventrilo (the voice chat program we use while raiding) through my speakers so that I could listen in while I sat at the kitchen table doing lampworking, but when I pulled out my supplies, I discovered that it had been so long since I've done any that my bead release was completely dried up. Thankfully it can be reconstituted with water, so I just added some and sat at my desk shaking the jar and periodically adding more water to get it back to the right consistency to be usable. So I will be able to get back to my torch tonight! I have plans for a new set of beads for myself to go with the new outfit I'm making, plus plans for some other stuff as well. And I'm seriously thinking an annealing kiln is definitely in my future.

holly
Originally uploaded by madylynrose

It was snowing when I got up this morning, and it was snowing when I got home from my date. I am SOOOOO sick of snow!

I took this picture while I was waiting for my bus on the way out this morning, and I'm rather pleased with the way it turned out. Ok, it's touched up a bit in photoshop, but I still like it.

My date went... ok, I guess. I met him at Main St. Skytrain, we bussed up to the restaurant he'd suggested but they don't do lunch, so we ended up at a pub called The Reef, which specializes in jerked meat. I had a jerked pork eggs benedict, which was yummy but I wasn't expecting the jerked meat to taste a little bit sweet, so that was kind of odd.

Afterwards we went to a jewish deli where he bought bagels and cream cheese, then we walked up to my favorite yarn store but they're closed for the holidays. After that, we hung out at his place for a while. I haven't decided yet whether or not I want there to be a 2nd date.

I've now spent a small fortune on making my glacial set for my priest, so that I'm ready for my guild's raid on Sapphiron on Monday. And I haven't even gemmed or enchanted it yet. Oy.