Taking a Holiday break

I am Thankful at this Thankful time of year, for a wonderful family. And wonderful in-laws. Who are coming on Wednesday to spend the holiday weekend with us. The guest room hasn't been used since their last visit, a year ago, as a guest room. It's a storage room. So I've been working on changing it back into a guest room. Likewise the dining room hasn't been used as a dining room for a year. Instead it's been sort of an office/homework room. So next up is that room. And then my husband REALLY wants to paint the sun room, which has been used as a playroom, before his parents come. So....

No soup for me...until next week!

I love you all.

Have a happy Turkeyday.

Theo and the gang.

Sure is pretty here

I'm not even sure where this is, some town on the way to Venomspire. But it sure is pretty.

I love the north. I love the look and feel and quests and story. I love how leatherworking has been simplified. Most things just need leather. Lots of it, but no more running around looking for a vendor selling thread. I adore my new guild. The leaders are just delightful.

The only thing I don't like are the crowds and the queues.

So when it's crowded I have to play elsewhere. On our new realm of Grizzly Hills.

But it's so full of real actual noobs. I try to help people, these new and young players. Like the 11 year old Tauren warrior, who at level 6, didn't know how to charge or even how to train up his new abilities. Or the 17 year old Tauren hunter, who at level 6, politely asked me, at level 10, to escort him all the way to Orgrimmar. At level 6? Or the teenager playing another level 6 Tauren who wanted to know if I was really "a girl". So no more Grizzly Hills for me until after these children are in bed.

Grizzly Hills

No, not the area, but the brand new PvE server. Yesterday afternoon I was questing along in Howling Fjord, just hit lvl 72, and had joined a group to do a group quest when the lights flickered and then everything went dark. A power outage had swept our neighborhood. For the next few hours we huddled around candles and then went out to dinner.

When we returned, the power was back on and Kilrogg had a Queue of almost 900. Darn. Darn. Darn.

And every server where we have made alts had a Queue as well. Darn. Darn. Darn.

But here was a realm that was "recommended": Grizzly Hills. Nice name.

So mom and her little guy rolled a Tauren Druid and named her Thanahoof (Thanatos is greek for death, so this means — what? Hoof of Death?)

Wonder of wonders, the Tauren starting area was packed. Lot of trial accounts. And folks questing together (Recruit a Friend?). I just had to play. And this morning I got back on our newest addition to level up fishing. What a kick to have fishing buddies.

The Queue

What a great word: Queue. Good word for Scrabble.

Anyway, we're in one this evening at 9 p.m. est (6pm pst).

It was at 600 and now it's only at 337 with an estimated 31 minutes to go. /sigh

The mother in me thinks I should get out of line and either go play with a character on a low population server or jsut go to bed and then play early in the morning. All those kids who had to wait until the weekend to play their new expansion weighing on my mind.

Okay, how would this be... what if I just did a lower level character so as not to add to the insanity in Northrend. I do hate crowds.

update: I got in, finally, but went to the Outlands to avoid the crowds in Northrend. How pleasant to farm those last few motes of air in the Throne of elements with no stupid Night Elves around. I hate Night Elves, even though I have a few.

Enjoying the ride

We had some technical difficulties yesterday. The new iMac, the machine that gives us Northrend is glorious color and scope and dimension, refused the launch the game. Somehow the file for the the game had been corrupted. So we had to delete and reload everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. That took most of the morning. The afternoon was spent being the "soccer mom" chauffer, except in our case it's piano and acting, plus groceries and a trip to the bank. Then time to make dinner. Somehow I found time to reload the addons I can't live without.

But by this time, given how little sleep I had the night before (none), I went to bed. I did try to log on, but there was a queue of almost 400.

Sleep is good.

But I was awake at 3:30 a.m. And there was no queue. I hopped right on and did a few more quests while baking some muffins for the family. The boys got up and watch as Theothana avoided some orcas, caught a few manta rays, snuck onto a pirate ship and grabbed some treasure. I've got a pilates class this morning, and then I'm going to try to get to level 71.

I want to stay up with the pack so there will be lots of chance to run instances and see end game stuff. But I really don't ever want to level the coastal area of Howling Fjord. It is so lovely.

North, Miss Tessmocker...

Last night I was feeling crappy — sore throat coming on, aches and chills. So I went to bed early. Then I was wide awake at about 20 minutes to 12...midnight. Oh No. What should I do?

Well, this mom quietly got dressed so as not to wake the sleeping husband and kids, and slipped out of the house and into the car. Thirty minutes later I was back, sipping hot tea, and upgrading one of our accounts to Wrath of the Lich King.

WooHoo. Then I stayed up all night playing. I love, love, love it. I started Theothana in Howling Fjord because she could pick up skinning and leatherworking there. I think she was pretty close to getting a server first in skinning. And she got invited to run Utgarde Keep. Very nice. Not much loot in there if you have stuff from Kara and so on.

The place is beautiful.

And not too crowded.

The only issues came when a bunch of folks were all waiting around for the same NPC to spawn. But we formed groups so it wasn't too bad.

People came in waves as midnight hit each time zone. Kilrogg is a west coast server and I'm on the east coast. So it was really uncrowded at first. Although I guess people could all start playing at the same time (12 a.m. e.s.t), stores on the west coast weren't going to sell the game until midnight. Or at least most of them weren't.

Anyway, mom had fun, but I'm a little beat now. I'm going to need some time to recover before I plunge back in. But it is just lovely.

Two 70s and an 8!

By working nights into the wee hours Mom has managed to get finally hit 70 on our second Hunter, Danishu the troll hunter. And by playing a 20-30 minutes after dinner, our little guy (age 6) has leveled his male Gnome warlock, Bobositous, all the way up to level 7, and getting close to level 8. His side-kick, Weslinn, the female gnome mage, is at level 6. Weslinn is played by the big brother (age 8). Watch out for this killer combo on Cenarion Circle. In the middle of the push to get to 70 before WotLK, Mom made and level a dwarf priest named Thrayan up to about level 10. She took up mining to earn a few gold to buy her kids some bags and a couple of wands. See Dad's off in the war, so she had to go off to work to support two adopted gnomelings in their magical undertakings. Hmm, think I could get into this Role Playing thing.