I was actually offline all of Friday & Saturday and most of Sunday because I was camping with my brother and his family. As children we put in plenty of time doing the whole primitive camping thing, so now we enjoy a camping trailer with a slide out for the living room, a full size bathroom and shower, mobile satellite tv and most importantly, air conditioning. Yes, we spend more time outside than inside and we still light campfires and cook outdoors, etc. But it’s nice to have the best of both worlds. It’s also nice to know you can sleep inside comfortably and not outside where you find things like scorpions.

That’s actually the first ever scorpion I’ve seen out in the wilds, so it’s not something to really be concerned about here while camping. Now copperheads? That’s another story. Lol. But actually at the campground we were in I was more concerned about what type of people frequented the place once I saw who some of the playground equipment was reserved for.

But the point is, now I don’t ever have to DK again. I can just fly around and gather ore and cut jewels. Though to be honest, I may at some point decide to do more with her. I started off hating melee fighting. I like to stand back and throw things from a distance so I can see more of what’s going on instead of having my face in someone’s crotch all the time. But I will admit after actually running a few dungeons on her to make 88 – 90 go by faster, I got to where I kind of liked my face in someone’s crotch. Errr… wait… you know what I mean. So maybe one day I will decide to do more end-game stuff with her. But for now it is time to work on another lowbie alt. I think I’ll start on my baby Shaman.

In other good news, being done leveling and getting new gear constantly meant I could finally assemble the transmog outfit I gathered while questing in the Outlands. It’s red … SURPRISE!

Thanks, Grace. For the pets, the mount and the friendship. And thanks also to our friend More, who entertains Grace and I in vent and in game. He actually spoiled me with a Cinder Kitty several months back. You guys rock! Your generosity and the fun we have ALMOST makes up for the fact that you’re filthy hordies. ALMOST.

I had also been recently working on finishing all the Lorewalker stuff and I knew I only had like 3 scrolls left to find so I tabbed out to WoWhead, looked up the coordinates of the ones I was missing and took off to finish that up and get my Red Flying Cloud. A few short minutes later, I finally hit exalted with The Lorewalkers and purchased another mount. I immediately mounted it. That’s 4.

As you can see, I got very busy last night. I mean was very busy. I mean …. nevermind.

Sidenote: I love screenshots and when I know that I will be getting an achievement I usually get the camera adjusted and get the scene all prettied so I’ll get a great screenshot when the achievement pops. Unfortunately, for the achievements I got last night (Note: The Lorewalkers exalted also caused me to get 30 exalted reputations), I took the time to set up the shots and then got photobombed both times. Sigh.

Last Friday morning as I was derping around in game, two of my guildies asked me if I would join them for a Heroic Scenario. I hadn’t ran one yet because, as usual, I was convinced I would fail. But there was no one else logged in and they were willing to drag me along so I let them. I died once because I didn’t move out of bad fast enough, but other than that I don’t think I dragged them down too much. Luckily I had the quest to complete a heroic scenario in my quest log so as soon as we finished it, I got to go turn it in and get some 517 shoulders. Woot. Plus, we all looked really cute as goblins.

Now that I had new shoulders, I needed to enchant them and once again my guildies were there for me and I was immediately sent the enchant I needed. Being in a great guild makes all the difference, I tell ya. I tried to insist on paying and was denied, but I finally got him to admit he would allow me to send him some Outland herbs to help him level up an alt in alchemy. Me being me, I immediately went to the Outlands and started flying around all the zones picking up all the herbs. While in Terrokar Forest I decided to stop and fish from the Highland Mixed schools of fish for a few minutes because I had never gotten the Magical Crawdad box from Mr. Pinchy. In fact, I believe I had only caught Mr. Pinchy once in all my years and he didn’t give me no damn crawdad. But lo and behold, in less than 5 minutes I had fished up a Mr. Pinchy. My first use was just the health increase blessing. Then I had to wait 4 hours to make another wish. I finished up gathering herbs and mailed them to my guildie, then I logged out and took a nap. Obviously, when I logged back in later, I got my Magical Crawdad. It was a damn good day.

Either way, yesterday I decided to head over to the Arboretum and do a couple of the dailies to increase my rep a bit. “The Sky Race” was available so I hopped on my serpent and away I went. I had never done it before so I just took off and flew through as many of the cloud rings as I could, not because I realized it gave me a debuff but because it reminded me of all those years I played Sonic the Hedgehog. My brain could not do anything but concentrate on the rings. Apparently that’s a strategy that works because I was surprised to cross the finish line and see I had finished in first place and had a debuff stack, both of which earned me an achievement. The bonus VP was awesome too.

To make my evening even better, after I wondered away from the Arboretum and herbed my way across the Jade Forest, I happened upon a sparkly and BOOM! Another achievement!

But I went anyway. I did all of the necessary solo instances and unlocked the beginning of the dailies and I’m back again today doing them. I haven’t had any extra trouble killing mobs. In fact, I’m realizing I was doubting my abilities for no reason – something I also struggle with in real life. So I’m having fun again instead of feeling dread about doing those same old dailies I had been doing. Yes, I will be tired of these eventually but my hope is I won’t have to stay in this area long before I move on to the newer stuff.

Plus today I got the surprise bonus of an achievement. I spotted the gold chest and almost didn’t click on it because I thought “I don’t think I’ve picked up a key here”. Luckily, I’m very curious so I clicked on it anyway. Hooray for achievements!

This worried me. I love that content is coming out fast, but I hate the fact that I cannot catch up to it. Part of the problem is that in addition to being mostly casual (and constantly distracted) I am also a completionist. Not a good combination in a game with this many things to do. I never moved on to the Isle of Thunder when it became available because I wasn’t finished with some of the original MoP factions. I’ve never been good at doing dailies anyway so it was slow going. Now we have more new stuff and I am feeling overwhelmed.

In order to try and speed myself along a bit, I had asked my guildies Tuesday night if they had any suggestions on which reps I should concentrate on more than others. I mean, finishing up Shado Pan is probably not going to benefit me at all gear wise but maybe Operation: Shieldwall would. Rather than looking it all up myself I decided to ask them because they are raiders and all current with content. Also, I am lazy. They were completely helpful as usual, so I set off immediately to the areas they suggested and decided to skip over some of the (now) less important things.

But then today at work, I decided to read the patch notes for 5.3. Yes, I realize you all did that weeks ago but I didn’t bother because I knew I wasn’t ready for it. However, I’m glad I looked them up tonight because while I was perusing the site I came across this article which basically lets me know I should skip straight to the Isle of Thunder to help myself catch up. Admittedly, it will bother me a bit to have skipped so many things but I’ve heard such good reviews of the Isle and of the new 5.3 stuff that I think getting a bit caught up and seeing the awesome stuff will outweigh the disappointment in leaving things unfinished.

The reason I’m mentioning it here is because it will be useful information to have for anyone who is trying to get alts caught up and are tired of grinding out Klaxxi rep and the like. Straight from the horse’s mouth – going straight to the Isle is the most efficient way for a fresh level 90 to get caught up.

Guess what happened when I decided last week I wanted to become Master of all the Ways? I totally had to buy ridiculous amounts of vegetables and meats. I also had to spend lots of hours fishing so I could bundle them into groceries and trade them in for IronPaw Tokens to buy Soy Sauce and all the veggies and meats that were not available on the AH. I was able to grab some stacks of ingredients from the guild bank and I’m very grateful for that and hopefully payed generously enough to compensate for them, but I still had to come up with a lot of the ingredients myself. My in-game money averages around 15,000 gold (seriously, i have GOT to be better at doing dailies and running dungeons) and while I did accomplish what I wanted to accomplish by the time Saturday afternoon had rolled around, my 15k had dwindled down to around 6k. I feel so broke. But it was worth it to get those achievements and finally have that all finished up.

Now I just need to learn to be more dedicated to spending my time in game wisely. I get so easily distracted. I do seem to be heading the right direction though as I made myself buckle down and finish up my Klaxxi reputation by doing those dailies very regularly over the past week.

Maybe the fact that I’m really, REALLY, loving my Death Knight and now have her at level 86 and questing in the Valley of the Four Winds will inspire me to do dailies more consistently. She kicks some serious ass even though I’m merely facerolling my keyboard. I think dailies with her will go much quicker. Plus, she’s now mining ghost iron ore so she can help Elfi transmute living steel without having to pay for mats. It’s actually a little concerning to me that I seem to take down mobs in the Valley faster with my lvl 86 DK than I do with Elfi who has an ilvl of 480. I guess the real test will be if I ever brave up enough to take Morrissa into dungeons. Because I’m playing her by facerolling my keyboard, I’ve been hesitant to do any grouping. I’m such a sensitive little thing sometimes. I don’t want any big, bad internet strangers mocking me. But aside from all that, she seriously kicks ass.