Favorite Mount

Dog House Systems is having a contest, in which they will pick someone out of the masses who respond with a picture of their character on their favorite mount to receive either a sparkle pony or a winged guardian and a companion pet.  Now, how could anyone pick just one favorite mount?  Delgada has at least tfour.  Here they are in no particular order.

Zhevra from the old Recruit a Friend Program

Cenarion Hippogryph from Outland Cenarion reputation

Ochre Skeletal Warhorse from Brill

Albino Drake from 50 Mount Achievement

If I had to pick just one mount, it would have to be the Cenariion Hippogryph.  So, I will be sending the link to that  in.  What are your favorite mounts?  I'd love to see pictures, even if you don't enter the contest!

What I've Been Doing - October 2011 Edition

Hi!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  Still hanging around this old dump? Well, I cannot promise that the view will change much here, or that the furniture will get moved any, but I can tell you what has been up.  Pull up a chair!

World of Warcraft has not lost its shine, yet.  I will admit to letting my subscription lapse for a week or more at a time, just because I really don't have time for this time hog of a game.  Still, I have friends and I enjoy tooling around on a new alt or three.  It's the way I am.  I had to delete a few neglected alts that weren't being played to make a new one on Proudmoore to play with one of my guildmates on the Alliance side of things.   Another draenei hunter named Minya joined my full stable of alts.  She is at level 20, and I keep forgetting to get her mount.  Oh well, I am enjoying the story through Westfall and Redridge without it, so what is the rush?

On the Horde side of things, I had transferred Delgada, who I consider my main, to the Eredar server a while back to play with a real life friend.  Well, he never promised to stick around, and Delgada has been all alone in this huge guild for a while.  Back when he was still playing and I had a little time to raid, I had allowed the guild to use KNR's server temporarily, until they found one of their own.  Well, here it is the middle of October, and hubby went shopping for a new Ventrilo server.  We let the other lapse, because a)we were broke and it was coming of our bank account, and 2) noone from that guild had even offered to contribute.  A few from KNR pony up on a regular basis, so when the coffer runs out and I need to add in a month or so, it just evens things out, you know?  I wonder if they have found a new host to leech off of.  If any of you on that server read this, well, there it is.  I cannot support two guilds.  We shrunk our server from a 50 to a 25 and moved it to Typefrag.

Hallow's Eve has started, right on the heels of Brewfest.  Delgada already had the achievements for both, so she entered the queue for Direbrew and got her trinket, then gave up on the holiday.  I don't like where it moved to. It's too far from the town.  But I love the holiday.  Maybe if I am around for Brewfest number 5 (is it that many already?) I'll celebrate with the Dwarves.  They know how to do it right.  As for Hallow's Eve, Delgada has her ring, and now she just queues in hope of getting a firey pony. I have her trick or treating, but the innkeepers won't speak to her, they just point at the big pumpkin full of goodies and go back to standing there doing nothing.  Trick or treating and the new dailies are a must, so that Delgada can get her new pets, the Feline Familiar and the Little Wickerman.  There was also a quest chain to get a Creepy Crate, which Delgada happily did.  This puts her just a little closer to the Littlest Pet Shop achievement.  She really wants that Celestial Dragon.  As for other in game things, I am leveling a few alts, and when I do drag Delgada out, it is for holiday stuff or to mindlessly fly over the face of Azeroth, looking for dig sites.

Wizard 101 has been on a side burner. I did recently, at the request of the game and because I would have anyway if I had known about it, vote for it to win the audience award for an online games award thingy.  Well, they won, and as a result I got a new pet, which as of last night was still in its shell. It's a yellow elf pet with a pedigree of 30.  When I have logged into the game, I have spent my time on my garden, which is full of pink dandelions, with a few king parsley, fickle pickle, bell peppers, snap dragons, baby carrots, and laugh o dils.  Rowan Trollstalker is currently questing in Dragonspyre.  I think she is about halfway through it.  When she has the energy, she likes to run her sea dragon through the hedge maze, but usually her garden takes most of the energy, so the poor dragon sits at teen.

Real life has taken the bulk of my time lately.  My father in law was in town a lot longer than expected, which meant a lot of running around.  He bought me a season pass for Disneyland, with parking, so I have been working toward getting each of my kids there with me, one a month.  So far, I have taken my oldest my youngest, and one of the middle ones, with plans to take two of the others close to their birthdays in November.  I keep telling myself I am going to run away and go just once by myself, but really, who am I kidding?  I barely have time to play my games at home.  What makes me think I can drive an hour away to spend a day on my own?  I think this will happen, just not really soon.  Maybe during Christmas break.

One of my step daughters wanted to audition for a musical, and I drove her there.  Next thing I know, I am being pushed on stage to audition as well.  She got the part of Zaneeta, the mayor's teen daughter, while I got the part of Ethel Toffelmeier, the pianola girl.  Bonus points if you can tell me what musical they are from, without Google's help!  We are waiting impatiently for our next practice session, as our leader said she would email us when we would start up again, after the start date had changed from "omg not the end of this month!" to "phew January sounds lots better".

My eldest daughter is sitting on her nest, and will have her little chick near the end of December.  I have to start finding silly baby shower games and start planning the party really soon.  I'm just having a hard time fitting all that in and trying to make myself a steampunk costume to wear at whatever convention I find myself at.  The only convention I have been to besides my one time at Blizzcon was a school food service convention, and as much fun as that was, the cosplay was limited to a few booth fruits (hehe). There is a new convention happening in November in Los Angeles that I am hoping to get to, just to see what one is like.  It looks to have a lot of neat personalities booked, and the price is right at about 12 bucks presale per day.  Hopefully my costume is ready by then!

Well, as for screenshots, I have been bad and not taken any recently.  So, this post will have no pretty picture at the top :(  If you are looking for pretty pictures, I invite you to go look at The Ancient Gaming Noob's site, as he is having a travel poster contest.  Maybe you can even make one of your own!  Thanks for stopping by.  Try not to let the dust bunnies out when you leave...

A Thousand Words, Many Times Over.

I have so many cool screen shots I never let out of my folders, and then my computer breaks down and I lose them forever.  So, I have decided to share a few of them with you, whoever is still out there reading. I may make this a regular thing, like once a week, once I settle in and start writing again.  So, here, I took some pictures.  Wanna see?

Aerial View Of Ironforge.

Somewhere Lost In The Sands Of Uldum.

Run Away!

Profile Of The Lifebinder.

Angry Alexstrasza.

Her Good Side?

Ironman

I saw this challenge somewhere in my feed reader, forgive me if I don;t give credit to my original find!  Psynister has it all mapped out in this post on his blog, but the original idea started with Vrykerion in a tweet.  So you don't have to leave this post to go to the info, I'll paste the basic rules here.  You really should go to Psynister's post on it, though, as there are clarifications and comments from others that have decided to try this out. Starting at level 1...

The Rules
1. Use only white/grey items.
2. No spending talent points. No specialization at level 10. (Regular skill training is fine.)
2. No Primary or Secondary Professions other than First Aid.
3. No means of XP boosting (No Recruit-A-Friend, No Guild, and obviously no Heirlooms)
4. No consumable bonuses (food, potions, elixirs, etc) – Rogue Poisons allowed
5. No enchants.
6. No Groups. (Since clarification was requested: That means no dungeons, no Dungeon Finder, no battlegrounds, no anything that puts you in a group and no grouping up with people to quest or anything.)
7. No Death Knights.
8. No Glyphs


Seems I chose the easiest class to do this with, and hunter really is my go to alt class, even if my main is a priest.  I am still thinking about starting up a priest and leveling her this way on a different server, but for now, meet Ferrolina, my undead hunter.

Not feeling the pinch...yet.

I have died a few times to stupid, I will admit.  Ferrolina is too young to have any slowing traps, but Concussive Shot and Scatter Shot are helpful when the mobs get too close, and next session she should have a tank pet that maybe she won't be able to pull off of.  I thought I had been following the rules, but questing in the new Forsaken areas sometimes finds you in a ready made group of npcs, and I think that may have been cheating.  I meant to do it right, I swear!  The plan from here forward is to not do quests like these,  so I will have to check WoWhead to be sure. Of course, there is always the tell tale sign of somebody other than Kitkat following me, but I am not always paying attention closely, distracted forever as I am by the 3 bazillion kids running around this house.


So far, up until today I have not had any group or guild requests. Today, I was hounded by one guild, and asked nicely by two others.  Urtank, no, I do not want to join your guild.  Please, stop spamming guild invitations and whispers, please?  


Other than the nuisance of guild invitation spam, leveling has been much like regular leveling. At 20 I made a trip to Brill and sighed as I looked into her coin purse and found her with only half of the funds for a mount. To make the trip worthwhile, she traveled to the Undercity and bought a few new pieces of equipment.  She then returned to finish out her Silverpine quests and go to the next area.  I love the quest you start with in Hillsbrad, where you hand out quests.  I could do that quest daily, and still laugh. 


I know it isn't much, but hopefully from here on out this will give me some blog fodder.  I leave you with some "baby" pictures of Ferrolina. Later!

Will I ever see Darnell again?

The Dark Lady.

They followed me home, can I keep them?

Another unintended grouping mishap.

Midnight: Silvermoon City

Not many people wandering the streets of Silvermoon at any time of day, especially near midnight.  Still, the Chamber of Commerce tries hard to entertain those who happen to be there on a holiday.  The fireworks spectacular began right on the stroke of midnight, and ended twelve minutes later.  Here you can see a lonely shopkeeper watching part of the finale.

Cerisse Watching Fireworks.

Thank you, warriors, for fighting the fight that keeps us free.  Happy Fourth of July, America!

Sorry!

I have been gone far too long.  I'm still playing games, just not as seriously.  Delgada got out to finally finish School of Hard Knocks, which resulted in finally finishing What a Long Strange Trip It's Been.  (digging through screenshots) Sorry, didn't even think to catch her on her pretty new violet protodrake. You'll just have to trust me on that one.

I do, however, have pictures of the gal who has stolen me away from playing Delgada.  Meet Lulubelle, seer of An'she.

Bunny Ears?

Alright, so the ears don't quite convey how seriously she takes herself.  Here is a better picture.

Bad Dog!

So now we know who really burnt Stratholme down.  She really isn't as bad as that, though.  Here's another picture.

Consorting with goblins...

Kind of a necessary means to the end of getting the skills to pay bills, though.  Tell me you haven't done something for a goblin at one time or another, go ahead, I'm waiting.  While we wait, here is another picture of the highly photogenic Lulu.

She even heals hunter pets!

She is so very kind!  Right after that, she traveled to Silithus, killed a few large worms and Twilight Cultists, and stepped through the handy portal to the Blasted Lands, to report for duty past the Dark Portal into Outlands first horde installation, Thrallmar.  There may be fewer pictures for a while as she is rather keen on looking her best and the clothes that can be had there are well, outlandish.  See, I made a joke...haha!

Lulu is being leveled from scratch with no heirlooms or big sister characters on a new server to me. She is a discipline priest, which I haven't ever tried before, and I am really enjoying it.  I grabbed dual specializations to have a shadow spec, but haven't needed to use it yet, and doubt I'll even change over save to add points every several levels or so.  She is a tailor and enchanter, leveled well past where she should be thanks to the generosity of her guild mates in Integrity. Her leveling has been easy, as the healer queue is rather short.  A few quests here, a few dungeons there, and she is out of a zone not too long after barely wetting her hooves in the shallow end of it.  She is now in Zangarmarsh, looking forward to hitting Terokkar before the week is up. 

Sorry I have been rather absent.  I am thinking about changing the name of the blog here soon, as when I started it I had no idea there was a large site called the Escapist.  that, and some people, seeing my URL, think it is Escapists Crawl.  No, I'm not crawling like a baby, I am scrawling like a teenager who is late for turning in their homework.  Barely legible, but hopefully good enough for a passing grade.  I'll keep the URL until it expires, which is next year, but I may find another to direct here, or just move over to my other blog that I'm not using yet, Seven Kids - One Bathroom, which is much more like me right now.  Either way, I'll post something here when the change is made.  Thanks for stopping by!

In My Comfy Jeans

Everyone has a pair of comfy jeans.  Mine make me feel like I can do anything.  They make my butt look smaller, go with almost everything in my wardrobe, can be worn with my ugly day off flops or with my nice sandals.  I am usually in my best mood when I'm in them.  If I am not, it's because I put them on a few seconds ago and their magic hasn't taken effect yet.

Anyhow, I have some friends I like to play with, that no matter how little I know about what we're gonna do, help clue me in and make me comfortable and successful.  I smile when I am running instances, raids, or just farming reputation with them, because I don't have to worry how badly I am performing.  They'll tell me, helpfully, what needs to be done, and we all set out to do it.  They're my in game comfy jeans.  I'd rather hang out with them than anyone else.

Delgada got swept into raiding without having finished doing the regular instances, or even the heroics.  She is not in comfy jean territory.  She has something to prove, and that makes my game time with her frustrating when things feel off.  They tell me I am doing fine, but I feel wrong.  There are a couple who have the potential of being part of my comfy crew, giving me helpful hints and advice, but there's still an itchy tag, a seam that is just a little off, and frankly, my butt looks way too big in them.

Carlotta is just 83.  Her friends know she can sorta kite, but fails at crowd control.  She is a beast mastery hunter, running around with several underage pets.  Last night, she took out her devilsaur, who was a sad, neglected level 79.  After running Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides, he caught up with her, and was named BazookaJoe.  See, I can show off my bad pets and quirky shot rotations with my comfy friends, because they just shrug it off, knowing I'll get better.

Back to making my point.  The sad part of comfy jeans is, they wear out.    You can't wear them as much because they have holes, then the holes connect and your jeans are held together by thin threads.  You have to break in a newer pair of jeans to replace the other ones.  Sometimes, you can patch your favorite jeans and make them last longer.  Still, they eventually wear out.  Just like raiding and instance groups, right?  You might be able to patch in some new blood, but the patches wear around the edges and you end up in the same place, trying to wear in a new pair, or patching the same area again.

So, I am breaking in new comfy jeans.  How is everyone else doing out there in this post-Cataclysm world?

Too Busy!

I wonder sometimes if anyone is still reading this oft neglected blog.  Life has thrown me a curve ball, and I'm dealing with it the best I can, which means something had to give.  As I am unwilling to give up my fantasy world I escape to daily, the blog has suffered.  I'm not going to quit, but I thought you all should know that updates are going to be rather scarce.

Into the Bastion of Twilight

If you have visited the main page, you'll have noticed my character feed for Delgada is broken.  Yipes!  This is not horrible, and I will fix it shortly. I ran up against the problem of too many priests and not enough tanks in my main guild, KNR, so I server transferred Delgada to Eredar to hang out with an old flame.  The new guild, Wrath and Redemption, is a great one, and have whisked me into raiding, despite my low gear score.  Last night we downed Halfus in the Bastion of Twilight and got in several good attempts on Valiona and Theralion.  I'm sure that we'll get it tonight.  Just before our last two attempts my client disconnected, and when I logged back in, all my key bindings were gone.  I healed our last two attempts from the spell page!  Still, I think we got them down to 80%, so I am looking forward to another fun night tonight. I am more prepared than I was last night (who knew they would drag my lowly butt into a raid so soon!) as I now have Deadly Boss Mods installed and my other mods updated.  Tell me, any raiders reading this, is it still necessary to be running Omen? I have it installed, but I find I'm not using it. 

Delgada has been spending the rest of her time on the server doing dailies and digging for artifacts.  She has found quite a few interesting things, even if they are mostly toys.  She has uncovered a dig in Uldum, however, that is bringing up pieces of a ring!  I might be a little more excited about this if it had some spirit on it. Still, at this point in the game, Delgada is behind the gear curve and ahead of the raiding curve.  I don't think I have ever raided so early in an expansion!

While doing dailies, Delgada has managed to make friends with a few other people in other guilds, who seem to have the same altaholic tendencies as I do.  Eredar is shaping up to be a friendly and more evenly balanced server than Smolderthorn could ever hope to be.  I'm a little sad that KNR has to be there.  Thank goodness for Real ID.  I'd probably never have even thought of transferring had I not a way to chat with them after the move.

My Favorite Pet Spell, Ever!

In other news, My wizard Rowan Trollstalker is closing in on the old level cap of 50, and has finished Mooshu!  She spends most of her days in her garden, since I haven't got any crowns to unlock Dragonspyre yet.  I may finish out Grizzleheim before I head out there, just because I have some areas unlocked there that I haven't touched. 

Dress For Romance

When we think about outfits for Valentine's Day, the usual items and sets come to mind. Here is a bulleted list of what the unimaginative will be looking for this season.

• Lovely (insert color here) Dress
• Elegant or Easter Dress
• White Wedding Dress
• Haliscan Set
• Tuxedo Set 
• Black Tuxedo Set

We have imagination, we have vision!   Throw aside these boring examples of Azerothian date wear and open yourself to the possibilities!  First, I have for you Buttercup and her Farm Boy.

Pretty much any farm in the early areas of the Human and Undead zones will do to roleplay this fantastic set. Buttercup is wearing a Simple Dress.  Farm Boy is wearing Blue Overalls paired with your basic axe.  Sorry, the log is a prop only available to non player monsters.

How about something straight out of the Arabian Nights? These outfits, perhaps paired with a flying carpet ride, would be great for a desert or oasis meetup.

Her dress, the Robes of Insight, look like the Vestments of the Shifting Sands, Robes of the Battleguard, Robes of the Guardian Saint and Robes of the Triumvirate.  You might have to have a little luck finding them, but they are well worth saving when found!  His outfit consists of Verdigris Leggings, Abjurer's Cloak, Crimson Silk Vest, and a Spellweaver's Turban.  The leggings are a reward from a low level Alliance quest, so you Horde out there may have to find something different(any plain pair will do).  As for the turban, only the models above level 59 have the feather.  Here is a list of alternatives, with and without feathers.

How about Explorer meets Native?

Our troll princess is wearing the Tribal Worg Helm with an Aboriginal Robe and carrying an Aboriginal Rod.  The explorer, begging to keep his head, is wearing a White Swashbuckler's Shirt with a Moonglow Vest, Twill Belt and Twill Pants and Simple Linen Boots.  You could do this in about any tropical setting, but it's especially fun in troll ruins and active troll areas.

How about a damsel and a swash buckling pirate?

 

Our damsel in distress is wearing a White Woolen Dress and Cross Stitched Sandals. Our villainous pirate is wearing a Swashbuckler's Eyepatch, White Swashbuckler's Shirt, Slavehandler Jerkin, Swashbuckler Sash,  Coven Britches, Crimson Silk Cloak, and wielding a Cruel Barb.  Sadly, if you want that sash, you have to have had it before The Shattering.

These are just a few ideas for outfits that can lead to wonderful romantic roleplay, or just some fun while sitting in your favorite spot, doing whatever you and your Azerothian lover enjoy doing together.  If you have any other suggestions on outifts I might be able to dig up, please leave a comment below!  

Next up, places to go now that you are all dressed up!  Exciting, breathtaking, fun filled vacation spots sure to please even the most picky of partners.  Stay tuned...

Oops! Was That A Heroic?

Delgada in her Tabard of the Achiever

 I played a long time yesterday.  I finished Deepholm, which also finished the Cataclysm Loremaster achievement.  I did my first round of Twilight Highlands dailies, and found the only two dailies in Uldum. I fiddled around getting the 25 tabard achievement.  I logged in my bank alt and sent 1300 gold to Delgada so she could get the ultimate riding achievement.  I even managed to kill C'thun (with some help!) and got my AQ40 achievement.   I figured, I can do all that, I might as well try one of these super hard instances everyone is talking about.

The End of C'thun

So I loaded up the looking for group tool, making sure I had selected only DPS, and pulled out my fishing pole.  I fished for about 30 minutes, and was whisked away into the Stonecore.  I'm guessing I was a replacement, because there were some dead mobs where I zoned in.  Not having run the instance before, I kinda guessed that we weren't at the entrance, because there were no npc types handing out quests.  So, I buffed up and followed the pack, carefully doing my job of dps and nothing else (well, I did dispel a couple things off the tank, but you won't tell?  Good.). 

Pre-Dungeon Attire.

The first boss I encountered was a dragon, I think.  This is a little fuzzy because it was at night yesterday, and I may get things out of order.    Anyhow, seems this guy does this aoe thing, you can see his cast bar ramping up to spin it off, of crystal shards.  Before he does that, he does this aoe where stalagmites drop from the ceiling.  This actually come in handy for the second aoe, as you can use them to hide behind.  Not too bad a fight, and we were off to the second boss.  Now, I'm pretty sure this was the second boss I saw, even though it may be further in, because I was a pinch hitter.  This rock guy does that shatter thing we all love from back in Burning Crusade days, but he has this other aoe I couldn't see.  So, after the shatter was about done, I sat there spamming my shield, or dissipate if it was up, to avoid as much damage from that attack as possible.  We got through that fight, then it was on to the next. Trash fights in between seemed rather straight forward, stay out of bad stuff, don't aggro, don't aoe, follow the tanks lead for kill order.  Well, I did aoe in the room before this next boss, to get rid of a bunch of non elites in the middle, then we turned the corner and saw our last boss.  This lady was fun.  She threw rocks at you, which you could totally avoid by getting out of the dust forming around your feet.  She also put up void circles, which were also easily avoided because of their obvious targeting ring before they appear.  The boss called non elites out, usually when she ran away to her stage, which were aoe'd down rather easily.  Oh, and if you grabbed enough aggro, she had this choke hold thing, I think it was even called Force Choke. So, we didn't get her down on the first try. Or the second.  Then, the tank, healer, and one dps just up and quit, leaving me and another hanging around.  We decided to wait for replacements.  She (might have been a guy, but was in female form, so you know, you are what you wear in this game to me) told me this was her first heroic, and that is when it hit me.  This is a heroic?  Here I just thought that the instances were that hard, and I was lucky to be able to perform at all in them..  Replacements arrived, and my partner in crime ate the dust, but we finished the boss, getting me a heroic and regular run of Stonecore all at once.

So, the heroics are hard?  The instances are hard, too?  Well, it's just more of the same we already learned...stay out of stuff, don't let stuff fall on you, and for gosh sakes pay attention! Now, to start planning my next several runs...

Starting Fresh? Some Tips To Make It Easier.

Totally Unrelated Homage To Sylvanas.

 As I have said before, I am trying out new class/race combinations, and I am making them on servers where I haven't played before.  What does this mean for my new little toons?  It means they are responsible for their own finances, their own professions, everything.

Starting out fresh isn't as hard as it used to be.  Most areas have given you an 8 slot and a 6 slot bag for quest rewards by the time you are level 10. I believe every level 10+ area has a multiple profession trainer just waiting to load you up on every possible profession you could want. Mobs are dropping less garbage than they used to.  This all adds up to making it that much easier to follow my first tip:

1. Make a buddy for your intended main character.  Level it to 10, get professions that you are likely to use or that complement your main's, and send it to a major city.  Even if you are a mage and are able to port yourself to a main city, bag space will always be an issue.  This way, you can use mailbox space as storage, as well as the little bit of bank and bag space of your buddy toon. Make sure this buddy has your favorite auction house add on loaded when you log them in, and use them at least once a week.  Many will tell you that Friday before the kids come home from school is the best time to put up auctions.  I believe that so long as you post before you crash Friday night, you will grab a good portion of the weekend crowd, who spend more on the auction house.
2. Sell everything!  Being new to a server, it is best to grab two gathering professions. Now that you are able to track more than one item while you are in the world, you are no longer limited to having one tracked and adding skinning. During the lower levels, I am finding that herbs sell better than ore, probably due to the high cost of converting Cataclysm herbs down to usable low level inks.  There are lots of people out there leveling alts now, so no gathering profession is a loser.  By selling everything, I mean everything.  If you must level your cooking, do it, but try and send raw meats to your buddy when they are no longer a guaranteed skill up.  Gear, even if you think it has good stats, I would send away, too, and live off the quest reward gear.  Don't discount the value of a grey item!  If you are a rogue and pickpocket items with flavor text or that you can read, send them to auction!  If you are on a role playing server, even the grey clothing items could sell.  Sometimes even the starter clothes are worth selling. If you don't want to bother with auctioning grey items, that is fine, but make sure you at least get vendor price for them.  Nothing is sadder than throwing away money when you are scraping together money to train.
3. Buy bigger bags, ASAP.  Nothing hampers questing, and money making, quite like small bags.  You should be revered rather quickly with your home faction.  Near the flight master in each major city is a quartermaster that will sell you a 16 slot bag for 2 gold when you are revered.  This is a large upgrade for a small amount of change.  When you can, upgrade all your bags to netherweave bags (or, if you find them at a good price, traveler's backpacks).  These right now are running as low as 6 gold all the way to as high as 20 gold per server. Look for good deals, and replace when you can. If you hit revered with a second faction before you can afford to fill all your bag slot with 16 slot bags, go to that faction's quartermaster and grab their bag, too. Oh, and don't forget your buddy.  Throwing him a bag every once in a while won't hurt, and will make selling you mountain of loot faster.
4. Be prepared.  If you are starting the day, the dungeon queue, or a long quest chain, empty your bags.  Make sure you have the food, drink, and other items you must have, and repair. Running out of water, bandages, food, and bag space all just slow down your momentum, which slows down your money making.
5. Take a break.  I roll up a buddy character not only for banking, but to level.  Their main base is a main city, but they quest while the main is gaining rested experience.  It helps me keep from tiring of the main character, which is a big help.

That is all I do. Doing this, I have been able to upgrade to 16 slot bags on my hubby's toon, my main toon, my bank toon, and send 100 gold to the guild bank, buy glyphs for both my main and my bank,  train them both in professions and skills, buy mounts for my two toons, and even buy a few materials for my bank toon (who is an engineer), to make a few items she could not gather for herself.

I didn't follow my rule completely on my new server, and I am sure I lost a lot of profit by using the herbs the priest has been gathering to level her alchemy.  I also have lost quite a bit by not selling all the raw ore my engineer is using.  Nevertheless, I am not feeling the pinch, with 16 gold in my bank's pocket and all mounts and bags taken care of with only glyph purchases in the near future, and several auctions waiting to be sold. If you count the bags, glyphs, guild bank gift, and mounts, I have made almost 500 gold on this server, with one toon at 33 and the other at 26. Imagine if I had followed the rules and not decided to level crafting professions?

Busy Busy.

     Sorry Folks.  Seems I fell off the blog posting wagon a few potholes in the road back.  Holidays when you have kids, are busy times.  Throw in the no money for gifts for extended family, and you can get even busier!  The week of Thanksgiving break my usually dependable wagon that holds all of us (miraculously) decided it needed a new transmission, so last minute plans were made to change the venue of Thanksgiving dinner for me and my sister to my house.  Since my father was instrumental in making sure our family still had wheels after Thanksgiving, I wanted to at least make a token of my appreciation and have it ready for Christmas break, when we went down to his house for an early Christmas/late Thanksgiving dinner.

     I have been following some crafting blogs in my reader, which before the middle of this year was mostly populated with blogs about gaming.  For any interested, Dollar Store Crafts and One Pretty Thing are the big two I have found most of my ideas from.  Dollar Store Crafts focuses on the inexpensive, and sometimes recycled, end of crafting, where One Pretty Thing aggregates crafts from around the internet and posts them with pictures and links. which makes it so easy to just window shop!

     So, I have the crafting bug.  I found a project I knew I had materials for, and I ran with it.  Have you ever been given a book you knew you weren't going to read?  Here is a great fix for that.

 

     I took my inspiration from here , but I did mine a little different.  I cut the end off the top of a case of oranges, then cut a circle the size of a cd out of the middle.  This was the backing.  I ripped pages out of a Jude Deveraux novel then folded them down to square shape, but did not trim them.  I then rolled the cone shapes, gluing them in place, and worked my way from the outside toward the middle, folding down the cones a little more as I got toward the center, gluing them in with my glue gun.  The final layer of pages I wrapped under the frame, to cover the cardboard.  When the wreath was done, I let it hang around the house forever, then added some spray adhesive and shook some fine glitter over the finished project.  The bow is not needed, and I only put the ornament that is hanging in the empty space behind as an after thought.  Imagine how stunning that would look on a dark colored wall or door!

     Christmas was still weeks away, and hubby was saying how we needed new ornaments.  I found this on the Dollar Store Crafts site, and had to make them!  Working in a kitchen, I come across a lot or recyclable items, and one of them happened to be the tin pans needed for this project.  The dollar store has them in multi-packs for cheap, if you don't have a way to find recyclable ones.  Here is what they turned out to look like, after the kids painted them with my nail polishes and added their own embellishments(template is here).

 

     Not bad! I still have quite a few pans to make more for next years tree.  Unfortunately, we ran out of nail polish (never been the girly type, and I only had 3 bottles!).  Yes, the dollar store carries nail polish, too.  

     That only explains part of my absence.  Over the holidays my house is bursting at the seams with the addition of my step children.  This makes my escape to video game land much more important than updating my blog, for sanity's sake.  Since the Shattering, I have been busy leveling new characters through the new lands, gathering archaeology finds with Delgada, and tending my plants in Wizard 101.  I will end this post with some screenshots of my new characters and Rowan's garden in her new massive fantasy castle, while she tries not to dirty her princess gown and pretty pink shoes!

Bittsee Emptypockets - Priestess

Vessper - Witch under Sylvana's Command

Niranjani - druid in a boat with a hunky Tauren (yum!)

Rowan's Garden - mocking her.

The kitchen.

The Trophy  Room.

The floating graveyard.

The bar.

The sitting area.

The bedroom.

There is a dungeon, several places to enjoy the view, a dueling area, a Doodle Doug video game, and lots of grass and water in this place.  I leave you with the front view, and Rowan telling you to get off her lawn.  Yeah, she's an old lady, at 44.  So, humor her and get off the lawn!

The Latest Screenshots For your Viewing Pleasure

It's an emergency maintenance day!  Which means, I should probably write something, but I have Christmas cookies to make, a house to clean, and guest to entertain.  So, I'm posting some random screen shots for your viewing pleasure.

Blue Steel.

Dearbre was falling off the whole ride.  Glitch, or too small hippogryph?

The spirit of Shadumbra. Wasn't Shadumbra a black panther?

Darkshore Twister.

Queen Azshara

Boo!

I promise not to bite again.  Let me go?

Look at the roses and the clover.  How sweet, and sad.

Take two potions and call me in the morning.

This post brought to you by Dayquil, Diet Dr Pepper, and Kleenex.