Old Raids and New Pets

One of my favorite parts about the new patch is the ability to enter raids even if you're just by yourself. No more trying to wrangle guildies into a raid group or messing with a free trial account but instead you can just waltz right into a raid instance. One of my other favorite parts is the introduction of new pets to old raid bosses. I just had to start farming for them right away.

The first place I went to was Naxx. I love Naxx but I think part of that is nostalgia for my first raid. But it's still an amazing place with some really unique bosses. I went to the Construct quarter first because the boss I thought I would have the most trouble with was Gluth. Patch and Grobbulus and Gluth did give me a bit of trouble. I attempted to kill him as frost because I wasn't sure I could do more dps as blood than Gluth healed  but it also meant my survivability wasn't as strong. My first two attempts I didn't kill him but I got close enough I decided to shift a few points in my talents to see if I could get just a little more survivability and dps. It managed to be just enough and was a pretty close fight. The rest of Naxx went fairly well and I got some 'shrooms to drop. A pet 'shroom anyway.

After Naxx I thought I'd take things easy and went to the Molten Core. It went fairly quickly and I managed to gain a Blazing Rune and a Mark of Flames. I was pleasantly surprised to get two pets from one raid and I'm really glad I didn't stop after getting the first pet.

I figured since I was close I'd give Blackwing Lair a try. I wasn't sure if the first boss was possible to solo or not. I've heard it was impossible but that Blizzard had made some nerfs to make it easier to solo so I figured it was worth a try. I headed to the orb and realized I wasn't attuned. So I needed a quick trip to Upper Spire and you can't go to Upper Spire without killing 50 Whelps.

Atunement accomplished I headed into Blackwing Lair and made my first attempt at the first fight.

And than tried again.

And again.

And just once again.

I decided to call it quits for the night. But overall it had been a pretty good run. 3 pets, several achievements, and a nice haul of transmog gear from Naxx.

Oops!

My family has a saying, "It's only lost until you replace it or it's no longer needed." And lately I've noticed that I seem to have lost quite a few things. My sewing scissors, the installation disc for my printer, my ipod, and most recently my authenticator. I was pretty excited about the new patch but it seems I won't be playing it for awhile. I've done a very though search of my room and it is now incredibly clean but haven't managed to locate it. So I've decided I might as well just begin the process of removing the authenticator from my account. It's supposed to take about 24 hours to 2 days before I'll hear anything more about it from Blizzard.

So I guess I'm stuck watching Doctor Who and sewing and wondering when these items will decide to make a surprise appearance.

Heard back from Blizzard and I'm able to access my account again. Although the authenticator is still missing.

Been awhile

I haven't written in weeks and I keep feeling guilty for not writing so I put it off. Procrastination gets me every time.

I haven't been doing much on my main but have instead made myself another death knight. Three weeks ago I saw that laid-back raid for last Sunday was to be a horde firelands run and I was excited until I remembered that I would have to go as a druid since Arita was my only high level hordie. So I made a death knight. I had a half-baked notion that I would get her leveled in time but I should mention that I don't have any heirlooms on that server. I figured I'd give it a go and if I made it it would be great and if I didn't I'd still have the druid. I'm happy to say that Tyledres made it to lvl 86 in time for the Firelands run. While we didn't get Ragnaros killed we did get to see the fight. It was further than I've been before. And she managed to blow up several times rather splendidly.

So now I can confuse people by being Tyledres the human or Tyledres the undead. The dead undead that went splat. She's still got a few levels to go but I'm not in a rush to get to 90.

NonWow discussion

I decided I wanted to edit this a little bit. After some thought I realized I had told a tale I wasn't really comfortable telling to a rather unknown audience. So I decided to remove the tale and replace it with a different one.

I didn't play much Wow this week. And when I did I wasn't spending much time on my death knight main. I guess it's a bit of a slump. Instead I've been spending my free time cross-stitching and milking cows.

So a bit about the stitching first. When I was younger my mom taught me how to cross-stitch and it's a hobby I've enjoyed since then. Typically I work on stitching while watching movies, tv, or listening to music and I find it peaceful. But last year when I moved from the dorms back home I put my latest cross-stitch work in a tote and I haven't found it back. Until last week. Finally finding it back I've been obsessed with stitching. And I finally got half-way though the pattern. It's a fantasy sampler and I think it's really gorgeous. There's a lot of mixing threads, quarter stitches, and metallic thread. And the designer of this pattern is one of my favorites as well. The works are so beautiful and detailed. This is my second one of her works that I'm working on. The other was a dragon called the Guardian. It was the second one that I started and it took me more years than I'd care to admit to finish it. The fantasy sampler is coming along much faster because I think I'm better organized, faster, and have a better understanding of what I'm doing.

Fantasy Sampler

The Guardian

My other unusual activity has been milking cows. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this previously so I'll just say that I grew up on a dairy farm. I'm still working on the growing up thing but I haven't had to milk cows much since I started college. It's well known in my family that I don't enjoy milking cows and it's one profession that I've never considered pursuing. So as long as I was spending more time away from home than at it I was exempt from milking. Recently my dad has decided to get robotic milkers which will be amazing but they are still three weeks or so away from being ready to use them. In the meantime we're still milking cows in the old double-eight parlor. Which is fine except that my uncle who does the afternoon milking got injured recently and now my dad is doing both milkings along with my uncle's chores and making sure everything is going well over in the new addition. He's been pretty busy and he's been wanting company for some of the milkings. I think he said there was 50 milkings left. So I've had to help with some of the milkings. I'm more company than help. But one of the things we talked about was all the crazy stuff cows get into. My dad claims a dairy farmer could write a book about their crazy antics and no one would believe it except for another dairy farmer. I'd think he was exaggerating except I was there for some of the stuff that has happened here.

One of the earliest things I remember was the cow who got her head stuck in the truck's wheel. My family had gone to our timber, the hollow,  for a bonfire and we went to explore some caves. One of our pastures is in the hollow and we had a small herd of heifers there that day. When we came back we saw the herd around our truck and one of them was making a lot of noise. And then we saw that her head was stuck in the wheel well. My mom took my older sister and me away so we couldn't watch but it sounded pretty ugly. Thankfully my dad was able to get the heifer's head out without harming either the truck or the cow.

Cows aren't the only troublemakers in the barn. Cats can be as well. One place the barn cats love to hang out is on top of the pipeline over our heads. Usually they'll snooze up there and wait for milk to spill. One cat, however, would fall into a really deep sleep and when he did that he would sometimes fall off the pipe. One time he managed to land on my dad. I'm not sure who was more surprised my dad or the cat. 

And geese are even worse than cats! We found two domestic geese on the farm one day and since no one would claim them as ours we left them alone. One day my dad realized there was only one goose wandering around. He went about his chores and then discovered that the missing goose was stuck in the manure pit. While he was trying to figure out how to get it out the other goose fell in. He grabbed some rope, made a loop, and managed to snag a goose and pull it up and than repeated with the other goose. Both geese made it out unharmed and still as unfriendly as ever.

I've been fairly busy but I think my stitching fever is wearing down and I'll be feeling like playing some more WoW next week.