Busy Busy Busy

Oh my, it’s been awhile since I last posted. It’s not that I haven’t been playing because I sure have! I just haven’t found anything new and exciting to post about, really. Other than this, which I had been dreaming of since Sunwell was current and I was a newb who’d never even raided before so had no chance in Azeroth of attaining it and its magical dream of not having to carry around ammo anymore.

Last week I was on vacation for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I took advantage of both the WoW Anniversary and Pilgrim’s Bounty to get some leveling done and get extra bonus rep on the world quests because of the world quest weekly which is so wonderful. Juna who is pictured up there getting her now-obsolete bow was the first one I worked on. She managed to finish the world quest weekly as well and is now flush with resources and working on her campaign. Kerick also finished leveling, albeit not until Saturday or Sunday I forget which, so he didn’t try to finish the weekly, but he also got work in on his campaign. He hasn’t been to Suramar yet, Juna has. I have a more hate than love relationship with that place. Juna did find it nice and easy to get over to the eastern part of the zone though with her network of Eagle aeries. She went there to do the other Murky world quest. I didn’t even know these existed, but she’s the only one so far who’s done Murky’s quests in northern Highmountain, so they didn’t show up for Oranis. She got an achievement after finishing that third one. It’s always fun getting achievements that you don’t even expect. Then when I cleaned out her bags later I found this Mrgrglhjorn toy in there. Neato!11111111111111111

Pets and Fun

What a great week last week to have the pet battle bonus event. I managed to pick up and level 3 of the 4 new falcosaur pets, plus some others that will make some of the world quest achievements easier. Why only 3 and not all 4?

PSA Make sure your pet journal is not capped when you go to get these. I found and fed the Orphaned Sharptalon, but my journal was maxed so he wasn’t added to it. ‘No sweat,’ I said to myself, ‘I’ll just cage some of these dups I’m sitting on and try again.’ Yes, well … because of they way they did it, where it goes right into your journal instead of into your bag, means that once it’s done, it’s done, the quest to obtain it is complete and if your journal is full you are SoL. The only way around it is to do it on another character. SO .. I guess getting another alt to 110 moves up my priority list. I have a couple at 106 so it won’t take too much, I just need time to do it.

One of my favorite world quests is the one in Highmountain where you turn into a creature and get back at the hunters. The cat is plenty fun, but my favorite is getting to be a moose and butting them into oblivion with my antlers.

Also fun was this new transformation when getting tricked at Hallow’s End. I didn’t go out of my way this year but the characters that were in Dalaran hit the one in the Legerdemain. Look out peeps, this spider’s got a gun!

Also, that Kosumuth thing is up this week. I’m still clicking orbs, and I think once I finish that I have to go kill him inside Eye of Azshara to unlock the world quest. I’m not quite sure how to accomplish that because I’ve only done dungeons through LFD. Time to do some research.

Thankfulness Challenge

One of my favorite authors, Faith Blum, is doing a Thankfulness Challenge this month on her blog. Now I’m pretty terrible at having to come up with something every day to fit a specific topic, so I don’t usually participate in these types of things. But I do have something I’d like to share which fits the theme.

I drive pretty much the same route to work every day, even though there are many different ways I could go. Creature of habit and all that. My regular route takes me past a school, which has a 5-way intersection where everyone has a stop sign. During the school year, there is a crossing guard here in the morning. I’ve been going past this intersection for a little over two years now and it’s always the same lady. One morning as I pulled up to stop, I happened to catch her eye. So I smiled and waved and she smiled and waved back. Now, I don’t know her from Adam, and she has no idea who I am … but we recognize that our paths cross daily and so we share this little bit of connection when possible. Some mornings she’s sitting in her car or facing another direction. But at least once a week, we share our little greeting. And you know, it’s amazing how much of an impact that one simple kindness can have on how the rest of the day goes. Just starting off smiling and happy because someone else was smiling and happy and acknowledged you in this way is HUGE. And, sadly, this type of human interaction does not happen often enough these days. We’re too busy being wrapped up in ourselves or our cell phones to notice anyone around us. Try taking a moment to look around you and see if you can find an opportunity to connect with someone else. You will find that your whole attitude changes in that moment.

So, I am thankful for this crossing guard, whose smile and wave set my mornings off with a bright and positive attitude, and thankful that God put her there so that I would have this opportunity.

Holy Cow! Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!

Man, I never thought THIS day would come. I’ve been a Cubs fan for 30 years. Now, I know some of you have probably been fans even longer, and that’s awesome; I’m just pointing out that this is no bandwagon I’m riding on. It’s more of an old, broken down but faithful plow horse that somehow manages to keep staggering along.

I didn’t grow up in Chicago. Heck, there was an entire state between us. When I was about 12, our rural community finally got cable TV. Now, it wasn’t like it is these days. We got about 20 channels. Probably 8 of them were home shopping or paid programming. Out of the remaining dozen channels, two of them were the big networks WGN in Chicago and TBS in Atlanta. A lot of times the choices were limited to baseball on one of those channels, or soap operas. Now I’ve always been a tomboy so the choice there was clear. I have nothing against the Braves, or at least I didn’t at the time, but their broadcasts were a bit bland compared to the eternally enthusiastic fandom of the iconic Harry Caray. So it came to be that while other teenage girls were putting up posters of Tom Cruise and John Stamos, my walls were adorned with the likes of Ryne Sandberg, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark Grace.

I admit, as I grew up and other things took up my time and interest, I didn’t follow baseball that closely anymore. (I still have my card collection from the late 80’s though.) But I never wavered from the Cubs being my team. Living in Western New York now, it’s not the greatest spot to BE a Cubs fan. I mean, come on, they had to play the Mets in the NLCS last year, and there are plenty of Tribe fans since we’re closer to Cleveland than we are to NYC. But that’s ok. Because right now, everything is awesome. The only sad part is that it didn’t happen while Harry Caray was still alive to see it.