It's raining Sixes!!

So, I have been tagged (!!!) to do my first meme.  (Which by the way, I pronounce as Me-Me, much to my husband's delight.  He then makes fun of me for hours.)

Gnomeaggeon started a screenshot thing and it's been going like gangbusters today!  I was crossing my toes and fingers to get tagged myself.  And then the Earthmother answered my prayers by sending Effy of Effraeti's RP to tag me in!  Yay!!

Rules are simple!

• Go into your image folder.
• Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image.
• Publish the image! (And a few words wouldn’t hurt, though I dare say I couldn’t stop a blogger from adding a few words of their own.)
• Challenge six new bloggers.
• Link to them.

So, since my screenshots are not in any order at all (except the order that Blizzard put them in when I take them), I just spent an hour or so slamming them into really loose categories. 

And this is what I came up with.  

This is my darling Karegina, waiting for raid to start just outside the portal for Dragon Soul.  I love trying to land on branches and perching there like a vulture.  Once, I did a mass summon and summoned my entire raid into the branch!!  Some people fell out of the tree and cussed at me, but it was soooo worth it!

As a bonus, I went into my RL images directory and pulled up my 6th folder with my 6th picture and came up with this:

This is the side of my house.  We had to paint it this summer (it went from white with dark red trim to this green with white trim) and I was taking pictures of the finished product.  I painted that door and the trim.  That's pretty much all I did.  I made the husband do the dirty work (with my step-dwarf).  

Now, for tagging people.  Let's see here.

1. Mia from Chronicles of Mia
2. Glow from Glow's Branches
3. Tzufit from Tree Heals Go Woosh
4. Akaeka from red cow rise
5. Fannon from dwarven battle medic
6. Katarnas from Resto is Epic

So, there!  Now my cat is glaring at me so I think it's bed time!!

Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire

I need to think about the difference between liking and admiring for this post.  I like a lot of people but to admire someone is harder.  I suppose at this point I will have to start naming names.

Players that I admire are my guildleader (Alyred), who has played a mage since he started but recently switched to his warrior (Alama) so we could have a 2nd tank.  I admire my best friend who stubbornly sticks to her resto shaman (Shonokoko) despite having one of every healing class at level 85.  I admire my shadow/disc priest guildie (Bachue with a funny e) for her awesomeness.  I admire my rogue buddy (Invisigirl) for her good attitude, even though she doesn't raid.  

Bloggers I admire are Phaedra from Resto4Life, who has retired from WoW, Lissanna from Restokin, Vixsin from Life in Group 5, and Big Bear Butt (which is just an awesome name).  I've read a lot of blogs but I've not been able to find a replacement for Phaedra's blog, which I just loved.

Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time

Since I work full time, my usual day is mostly taken up with work.  So let's go through it here:

7:00 am - Alarm goes off.  I snooze it as husband has just gotten out of the shower and I need to let the water regen before I take my own.

7:10 am - Radio alarm goes off, I drift in and out of sleep while I listen to NPR and get my morning news.

7:30 am - Husband comes in and gives me a kiss and snuggle before he leaves for work.

7:30 am to 7:40 am - Get myself out of bed and into the shower.

7:50 am - Get out of the shower, get dressed (despite cat laying on my clothes)

8:00 am - Make breakfast, check Facebook and do my fishing and cooking dailies on Karegina

8:20 am - Leave for work

8:30 am - Arrive at work, greet office cat, clean out litter box, feed office cat, snuggle office cat carefully without exposing myself to his razor sharp claws too much.

8:50 am - Actually start to work.

Noon - Eat lunch, check Facebook, check blog stats, sigh, check Livejournal, check Restokin, randomly click on links she has linked to.

12:30 pm - go back to work.

4 pm - Get off work.

4:10 pm - Get home, snuggle cat, jump on exercise bike, bike for 15 minutes.

4:30 pm - Leave to go pick up my best friend from work.

5 pm - Pick up friend, drive her home while talking about our days and WoW.  (She is my resto shaman healing buddy!)

5:40 pm - Get home, make dinner with husband.

6:30 pm - Log into WoW, do my Hyjal dailies with the husband.

7pm - Either raid, play an alt, do a random dungeon, try to not die in TB or idle while writing blog posts.  It really depends.  We raid on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Nothing I do is really set though.

10:30 pm - Go to bed

I have an extremely boring life ;)  It used to be more exciting, but honestly, I'll take my boring life :)

Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws

Bad habits and flaws huh?  I have a lot of them both in and out of game.

In game, I don't listen to my husband aka raid leader like I should.  I'm lazy and I don't always give my 100% into raiding, dungeons, or whatever.  I think I like to level because that doesn't take a lot of brain power.  I'm impatient and don't like to farm reps/marks/whatever because it is just so boring.

Out of game, I bite my nails, I interrupt people while they're talking, I flop on chairs (instead of just sitting), I ask my husband what my bad habits are, I'm easily defeated, I take things too personally ... I could probably go on forever.

However, despite my flaws and bad habits, I think I'm an asset to our raiding team and a helpful person.  If you can get past them!

Day 10 – Blog/Website favorites

My favorites list on my computer at home is huge.  I follow a lot of different blogs and websites.  Some WoW, some about cooking, some webcomics, and of course Facebook.

WoW Blogs/Webpages:

http://www.restokin.com/  - I check this site pretty much every day, even when I know there isn't a new post.  It's just part of my routine.
http://r4healingtouch.wordpress.com/ - Generally, I head here next.
http://treebarkjacket.com/ - Do you see a pattern yet?
http://www.cannotbetamed.com/
http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/
http://thestoriesofo.net/
http://lifeingroup5.com/
http://hellotauren.blogspot.com/

Cooking Blogs:

http://smittenkitchen.com/
http://playingwithmydinner.com/
http://greenlitebites.com/
http://steamykitchen.com/
http://www.skinnytaste.com/

Webcomics:  These are not for kids!!

http://www.punchanpie.net/
http://www.somethingpositive.net/
http://www.twolumps.net/
http://www.reallifecomics.com/
http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/
http://www.leasticoulddo.com/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/

Humor Blogs:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
http://thebloggess.com/
http://www.motherhoodinnyc.com/
http://www.mamabirddiaries.com
http://ohrachael.wordpress.com/

Plus a whole lot more.  These are just my favorites.  I'm a fan of the humor mommy blogs.  They crack me up.  I wish I could be as witty as them!

Day 09 – Your first blog post

As I've said before, my original blog post has been lost to the Nether.  It was a rambling rant about healing meters and how not to endear yourself to existing healers by linking them and saying "And this is why you need X class."  I deleted it when I repurposed my blog.  (I will revisit the topic someday, but not yet.)  My NEW first blog post was back in February.

http://reluctantraider.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

I wrote about a defining moment in my WoW career.  A moment that has made me doubt myself repeatedly over the years.  All because a hunter thought I was doing it wrong.  Maybe I am.  I don't know.  I've never really healed with another druid steadily.  My healing team for 10 mans has always been a resto shaman (my best friend) and either a holy pally or a priest (either holy or disc).  For 25's in Wrath and BC it was 1-2 resto shaman, 1 disc priest, 1 holy pally and me.  The resto druids we had were mostly boomkin that had an offspec we could use.

Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you

1.  I wanted to be a math teacher when I was in college but I wanted to be a music teacher when I was in high school.  However, I ended up settling for the job I have now so I could start a family with my husband.

2.  I used to be a very negative person, never seeing the good in things but recently I've been feeling more positive about things.

3.  I love to play real time strategies as a team with other people.  Some of my favorite memories of video games pre-WoW was playing Empire Earth with my husband and our best friend.  I'd do base defense, they'd make tons of offensive units.  I was awesome at base defense.  They called me Wall Girl.

4.  I hate TV but I love to watch TV sitcoms on DVD.  My favorites are Community, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and Scrubs.  In non-sitcom shows, I like Doctor Who, and Lost. 

5.  My favorite tabletop RPG is Shadowrun.  I usually play a technomancer, which is like a magic hacker for lack of a better term.  They're basically walking, talking computers that don't need any hardware.  I love it.  But I don't like to play a 'typical' Shadowrun hacker.  I like the awesomeness that is a technomancer.

6.  I was in marching band, jazz band and wind ensemble in high school.  I played the baritone first, then switched to flute.  My sophomore year I switched to french horn and I never looked back.  My junior year, I picked up the trumpet for jazz band.  I recently tried to learn viola and failed miserably.  Stringed instruments make no sense.  (Neither do reed instruments actually.) 

7. I have always had a cat in my life.  During my mom's divorce, my husband (then boyfriend) and I got a little boy cat named Pizza.  As we were moving out on our own, we got a little girl cat named Dante.  When Pizza died, we got another girl cat named Windsday (or Wednesday if you're my husband, and if so, you are wrong, it's Windsday).  When Windsday died, we got a little boy cat named Jayne Sawyer Cobb.  Jayne couldn't play nice after a few years so he went to live with my mom and her shop cats.  He's happy there however, he's got a bunch of other kitties to play with.  So right now, we only have Dante, our aging baby girl.

8. I have two WoW accounts.  And I only have two free character slots on them on my main server.  I have at least 1 of every class Horde side, and a priest and warrior on the Alliance side.  I love to make new characters, if only to see the starting zones again!

9.  Over the last year or so, maybe less, I've really discovered that I love to cook.  I have a bunch of cooking blogs bookmarked and I check them often.  Some of my new staples are from blogs that I've read.  Also, I'm apparently a very good cook.  I haven't poisoned anyone yet!  Which is good because unlike my druid, I don't have a poison clearing spell.

10.  I love to read.  In my three bedroom house, one room is solely set aside to hold my books, and even then, my books spill over into the other rooms as well.  I have bookshelves in every room except the kitchen and if the kitchen were bigger, it would have them as well.  (As it is, I have to keep over half my cookbooks in the computer room.)  I prefer to read fantasy/sci fi but will admit to reading trashy romance as well.  I'm lucky because I married someone who reads as well.  He just doesn't read as fast as I do, so he doesn't read as much as I do.

Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name

The Reluctant Raider was originally supposed to be a place I used to kvetch about how hard it is to lead raids, run a guild and generally try to herd kittens.  In the middle of my guild raiding ICC, I was completely burned out.  I didn't want to raid anymore, I just wanted to level my alts, talk to my friends and hang out.  We were doing 25 man raids and just barely getting people to show up.  It hit a breaking point one night and my husband, in a fit of pique, broke his hand.  I had taken a break from raiding for a couple of weeks and that combined with a lot of other things made him snap and he punched a wall.

We went to Urgent Care that night instead of raiding, he was a lot calmer and I was livid.  I was mad at my guild for "giving" us this stress, I was mad at my husband for being childish and throwing a temper tantrum and I was mad at myself because I proceeded to log onto my main and curse them out for making my husband lose his temper.  It was probably my lowest moment. 

I came home that day and decided that by my not raiding, I helped contribute to my husband's stress level.  So I talked to my friends and created this blog.  I only managed to put 1 post up before I abandoned it.  I didn't want people to know that I was talking about them, and I didn't want to bad mouth my guild since I am one of the guild officers.  That original post was deleted a long time ago.  The stress of knowing it was out there was almost as bad as the stress of only have 19 people show up to do progression 25 man raiding.  (19 players was always the worst.  Not enough to do 25's, not enough to do 2 10's but WAY too many to do 1 10 man without hurting someone's feelings.)

We stopped raiding 25's about midway through ICC.  We just couldn't get a steady roster of people.  We went to 2 10 mans and progressed through ICC that way.  Eventually, we got down to one 10 man, which we then proceeded to do hard modes with.  At this point, we had enough healers that I was able to sit out and relieve some of my burnout.  However, we ended up losing more people so I ended up healing again.  We did the heroic bosses, we did the achievements but before we could get heroic Sindragosa down, we stopped putting up raids completely.  A few of us went to a PUG group and managed to complete the last two achievements to get our ICC drakes on September 25th, 2010. 

After we got our drakes, we stopped raiding completely until Cata.  It just wasn't worth it.  The stress, the heartache.  I was reluctant to raid in the first place.  The only reason I did was to make my best friends happy back in BC, I continued with it in Wrath because they needed me (and I loved to be needed).  In Cata, again, I decided I would raid, for my friends, reluctantly.

However, since Cata came out, we have gone through major roster changes.  Over half our core group has left the guild or quit the game.  Leaving just myself, my husband, our best friends and 1 other person from when we originally started our guild.  We took a break due to roster changes and to be honest, some drama.  Since then however, I have gotten some medical problems fixed.  I've been diagnosed with sleep apnea, so the doctors gave me a CPAP machine to help me breath while I sleep at night.  My other doctors have fiddled with my medication causing my anxiety disorder to practically go away completely.  To be honest, I feel like a completely different person.

My blog name doesn't really fit who I am anymore.  But I don't want to change it to something else.  It means too much to me, it reminds me that I'm at where I am now by choice.  Not because someone wants me there.

Day 06 – Your workplace/desk

This is my desk.  Usually it is much MUCH messier.  You can see my wide array of WoW stuff on various parts, my two plush murlocs (my best friends gave me one when they first came out and I got another one last year from another friend), my WoW game card, my collector's editions for all the expansions, my art books for ALL the games (one of my other friends got the Vanilla collector's edition and gave me the soundtrack and the art book), and my WoW card game boxes (I've never actually played the card game).  You can also see my headset, my authenticator (in a little cell phone holder that's shaped like a basketball, I love free stuff from old, now closed down, lenders), an old hard drive from work that doesn't work, a mess of other stuff, some frog figurines, my cork board that I post loot lists on (right now it has lists of the gear I should be getting on my priest) and a pile of papers that I need to file in my filing cabinet when WoW is down, IE some Tuesday morning that I'm not at work.

To my left is my husband's desk.  It looks exactly like mine, as we bought two of them and used them to create Wall of Desk in our computer room.  His is usually cleaner then mine but right now, it's covered in random crap.  Mostly old vhs tapes and things we need to clean up.  You can't see it but on the top of my desk is his blow up 'Bubble Hearthing Pally' ball.  When I got my murloc, our friends bought him a bubble hearthing pally.

Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game

This question took me a while.  I had to think about it and really look through my bags and bank space.  But then I realized that my favorite item in the game is probably actually two items.

My moonkin hatchling and my Teldrassil spoutling.  Or as I call them, my mini-me's.

I'm not a big collector person but as soon as the Argent Tournament pets came out, I begged my husband to trade for a mini-tree druid.  He managed to get his hands on one for me and I raided through ICC with it.  I was really kinda weird about it.  It was always out, I loved the way it would snore as I was running around casting like crazy.

My moonkin hatchling was a Christmas present from my husband.  I had been dropping hints about it but I never checked my email to see if there was a code in there for me.  So all Christmas day, I'm whining about how much I want the pet and lo in my email it sat.  He eventually asked me pointedly "Did you check your email today?" and I ran off to do that.  My moonkin is out almost all the time now.  I prefer it over my mini-tree druid as until recently I didn't have the glyph of the treant.  Plus, it flys along side me, which is just about the most adorable thing ever.

Day 04 – Your best WoW memory

My favorite WoW memory wasn't something that happened in game but it was related to the game.

One day, I was walking through the house, thinking of nothing in particular, when my husband walked up to me and said "We don't do enough together.  What would you think if I started playing World of Warcraft with you?"

My husband has said that my entire face lit up and he knew at that moment he had made the right decision.  All I know is that my entire body flushed with joy and I threw myself at him, giving him a kiss and telling him that we can get him installed with my discs and then get him a trial account.  He said no and that we should just go buy the game, both Vanilla and BC (as BC was out by then) and off we went.

He rolled up a little gnome warrior named Gnoclaus, I paired his little warrior with my spacegoat priest and we went off.  We leveled up until about level 52 before we switched to Horde.  Where he made a tauren shaman.  By then, our best friends were playing too, so we leveled as a group of five.  Two tauren shaman, a blood elf mage, a tauren warrior and a tauren druid.  We went from 0-70 as that group and it was epic.  Three dps, a healer and a tank.  AWESOME!

Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW

My first day of WoW was so much fun.  I installed the game, downloaded the patches and made myself a little gnome rogue with Princess Leia red hair.  My friend, Sinova, brought her night elf rogue out to the gnome/dwarf starting area, tried to hand me bags and money but she couldn't because I was a trial account.  The next day, she mailed me a copy of the game.

I was in awe.  I did the starting zone quests and marveled at how beautiful the game was.  I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out the talking commands.  Everything was so new and shiny.  I figured out how to reply to whispers and talk in party chat.

I got invited to Sinova's guild, Daughters of the Alliance, an all girl guild, on Bronzebeard US.  I felt so at home and so happy. I met Wolffepsyche, who became one of my best friends. I met Amerynn, who also became one of my best friends.


I played for a couple of hours, squee-ed and forced my extremely uninterested husband to come and look at things. He made me log off and go to dinner, and that was my first day in WoW!

Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog

I decided to start a blog because I like to write and I love WoW.  I know I'm not going to be a theorycrafter, but I think I have a different view of WoW that a lot of people have.  They're interested in raiding but they aren't 'hardcore'.  But they're serious about it.

I have a personal blog that I keep like a journal.  I love having my online friends sharing in my life.  But I want to share my life with more people, and focus on a certain topic.

This is why I started a blog.

20 days of WoW Blogging - Day 1

I decided I'd try to do the 20 days of WoW Blogging Challenge.  Hopefully I can get used to updating on a schedule and maybe, just maybe, someone will read this.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself


I'm Becky.  I am an altoholic with a deep love for my main, a level 85 tauren resto druid named Karegina.  (I have another druid named Karagina, she's a troll!)  I've been playing since August 2005, when my brother in law gave me a trial account to check the game out.  Another one of my friends got so excited that I was playing, so she overnighted me the game.  I've been addicted ever since.


In real life, I'm a 32 year old female.  I suppose at 32 I would be considered a woman, though I still feel like a girl most of the time.  I'm happily married to my high school sweetheart, who started to play WoW about a year and half after I started.  He plays a blood elf prot pally.  We have one wonderful kitty who is 14 years old.  She's extremely skittish and some people don't think she exists.


I live in a small town in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  I love it here and could never move out of this state. 


As I mentioned before, I have bipolar II with a touch of anxiety.  However, I am nicely medicated and that has improved the quality of my life immensely.  


My first exposure to multi player games was from a MUD named Xyllomer.  It's based in Germany and I met a lot of wonderful people, some of which I'm still in touch with.  My best friend (who also plays WoW with me) met and married her husband through Xyllomer.  She moved from Germany to the US about 7 years ago.    Xyllomer was like an gateway game.  I played Xyllomer for about 5 years, then started playing the Sims 2, and THEN I got into WoW.  


I am the oldest of 4 children, I have 2 sisters and a brother.  Both my sisters have (or are having) little baby boys.  My nephew, Andres, is going to be 10 months old and my unborn nephew is due on July 23rd.  My husband has 2 sisters as well, and one of them has a beautiful little girl who is 3 and a half.  So I'm a proud auntie.  


I love music, and often will pipe all kinds of music over the top of my husband's voice while we're raiding so I don't have to listen to him.  I then proceed to wipe the raid because I went left instead of going right with the group.  Oops ;)


Anyway.  That's me.