Year in Review - 2011

2011 has been a roller coaster of a year for me.  I hit bottom (not rock bottom, I think I still have a couple feet to go) and have been helped back up with my friends and my guildies.  I discovered Blog Azeroth and the WoW Blogger Twitter Community.  So, let's go back shall we?

I started off 2011 as a fresh level 85 resto druid.  My guild was preparing for our first raid, which happened on January 19th, 2011.  We wiped all night while people were getting used to the new healing model and all that.  (Plus, our healer core at that time was myself and a resto shaman.)  We ended up having to add another healer, a holy pally, who was also in our guild at that time so we could continue.  The idea of having to 3 heal everything really sat wrong on my shoulders because my resto shaman buddy and I used to be able to HEAL ALL THE THINGS and now the two of us were barely doing half of the holy pally's healing (together).

We slowly progressed through Blackwing Descent, struggling up hill, in the snow lava both ways.

This is when I got upset enough that I decided to start a blog.  My plan was to use it to be sarcastic and bitter and mean about my guild.  But I decided it would be too hard to do this and keep it a secret.  I wrote one post back during ICC days, which ended up deleted when I actually started my blog.

Now, I can't talk about my WoW year without talking about a few health problems.  In March, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea.  Not very severe, but bad enough that I needed to get a CPAP machine.  This machine has completely changed my life.  We raided through April and ended up getting frustrated and people started to take breaks.

I ended up taking a break  (which I didn't apparently want to do, as I would stand over my husband's shoulder and weep when my loot would drop).  We lost our offtank in May, which was probably the best thing for us.  He was very contentious and would work everyone up into a frenzy and then sit back and be like "I'm just saying guys!"  He was also the brother of the holy pally we had as our 3rd healer and as a result the brother in law of our primary hunter.  As well as the husband of another hunter in our guild (who didn't raid).

After he left, a couple members came back and said "Okay, let's raid bitches!"  Our guild leader had spent his time leveling and gearing up his warrior so that she could tank for us if needed.  So he switched from his mage, who had been his main since he started playing, to his warrior.  And luckily, he has a good time.  Or so he says.

Just as we were starting to get into raiding again, the aforementioned holy pally and hunter left the guild to go raid with our old offtank.  We sucked it up and asked our shadow priest if she'd heal for us when we needed it.  More people had to leave for real life (it was summer after all) and we ended up completing tier 11 after Firelands came out, with the nerf, with a pug.  But we finally did it in August and then in September, we moved into Firelands.

And over that time, we had a warlock that raided with us all throughout Ulduar and ToC and ICC come back to our server and guild.  We gained a death knight (who now appears to be either hacked or gone), we have our usual crew and it's all great.  My guild, while we will never get server 1st or even be in serious progression, is wonderful and I love them.

As for me, I posted my first official blog post on February 10th, 2011.  I then had a hiatus while I got better and learned that I actually do like to raid.  (Seriously, sleep machine, best thing to ever happen to me.)  My second post was just over 4 months later.  It was basically a 'Yeah we're raiding, I hope no one counts on me to update this thing'.  But since then, I've written 100 posts (This will be post 99 that I've published.) so wow.  That's impressive to me.

This blog has been a place to share my opinion or what I'm doing where I know that someone might read it.  The fact that people read it boggles my mind repeatedly.  I've said it before, but since I can't even get my husband to read my blog, it surprises me that others do.  (Husband won't read it because he says he doesn't want to get all 'perfectionist' on me and miss my message because he's critiquing how I use a word.  He does that all the time!)

So, I'm expect that 2012 will be awesome.  If only because my guild is here, my friends are here, my new blogger friends are here and things will continue.  Awesome.