Yet Another Last Minute, Late Night Post!

Blaugust Day 7 - Time to Get Organised!

These blogging challenges are a great way to get into the habit of writing every day but I'm struggling to get everything done that I want to do anyway so I've kind of added yet another item to my to-do list.

I think I've had a little breakthrough though - I just realised I can't just sit down and write a few paragraphs about any old thing just to fulfill the Blaugust challenge. It's no fun for me and I'd guess it's a waste of time for anyone who pops in for a quick read. I need a plan!

When I did the A-Z Challenge last year, I had a lot less stuff on my plate so I sat down and used the Google calendar to jot down ideas for the days. I'm pretty bad at brainstorming alone though so a concentrated 'let's plan this' is not the best way forward for me. I'm more of a 'random thought at odd times' kind of girl so I've put a small notebook and pen in my handbag. That way, I can jot down my ideas when I'm at work at least.

I tried the 500 words a day challenge back in May too but I didn't time that very well. I was in St Louis for two of the weeks of the challenge and was hopeful of getting a post done whilst Cold was at work but it proved, yet again, that my planning skills suck!

So tomorrow, I'm going to sit down and try to plan some Blaugust posts. Even if I leave gaps in the calendar, it will give me something to work towards and maybe this time, I'll actually finish one of these challenges!

How do you organise yourself for blogging challenges? Do you just wing it or do you plan it out? Any suggestions?

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Post Patch Blues? Fight It Before They Start!

With patch 5.4 landing next week, I'm really spending a lot of time in game right now but it's almost all focused on gold-making, crafting & being ready for the endless possibilities that a new patch brings. I've posted my to-do lists here before - usually just a few things I want to achieve that week and sometimes I actually manage to cross a few things off those lists!

Patch 5.4 is also bringing a whole new island for us to play in but from what I've been reading, you really need to be fairly well geared to survive there. As my Paladin is my only alt even vaguely geared enough for the first level of LFR, I'm guessing I have a lot of work to do before I can even set foot on this new Timeless Isle so I was thinking what else I could be doing once the Auction House patch furor has died down.

That's when my mega long to-do list was born! Towards the end of Wrath, so much had changed in game for me, I could happily have waited another 6 months for Cataclysm to arrive, I was that busy adapting & still learning the game. I had only been playing for about a year at that point though so much was still fresh & shiny new to me.

In the last months of Cataclysm, more changes were happening for me and again, I could happily have waited a few more months for Mists to arrive. See, that's what happens when you don't raid every week - you have time to do all the other stuff in game and you don't have to see the same boss every week for hours on end until you beat him! Of course, I do actually miss the old raid group even though things went nasty towards the end. We had some really good times as a group and I still wonder if they are ok or are they even still playing.

So where I am now in Mists is a kind of limbo - most of my guildies have wandered off and the rate that new content has been released has me beat! There is just so much stuff I haven't done yet, I kind of don't know where to start so I don't do any of it - I just fall back into crafting, farming & auction house lurking! Getting a proper job for the first time since I started playing has also cut down my play time & between adapting my sleeping patterns back to 'normal' hours & doing everything in the now limited spare time, I find myself faffing around even more!

I've decided to make myself a long, long to-do list for the rest of this expansion - the buzz is that this will be the last patch so we could have a whole year before the new expansion which hasn't even been officially announced yet! I'm going to make my to-do list a separate page & put a tab up the top there - I'll be adding to it as I see or think of things I want to achieve or as people suggest things too. That way, I'll have a kind of suggestion list for what to do when I'm a bit bored - nibble away at this achievement or that Reputation grind. I find lists very motivating as long as most of the items don't have a deadline - even at work, I make lists all the time - something my new boss appreciates as she is a list maker too!

How do you keep yourself interested in playing? Do you have lists of things you want to do? Let us know in the comments :)

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It's a Holiday Weekend To-Do List!

So last time I made a to-do list was at the end of July and if I'm honest, I haven't actually done any of the things on that list! I'm really quite cross at myself for that but somehow I log in, do my gold making stuff then get distracted by Twitter, Facebook, Candy Crush (shhh! I know ok?) and Magic the Gathering so I never actually kill anything in game!

But having spent a chunk of last weekend installing the new TSM2 (a complicated Auction House addon!) and using it to craft & sell lots this week, I have been spending more time in game & some of my old guildies are back too. So I've promised myself a WoW heavy holiday weekend!

I have 2 new TCG pets to play with too - The Gusting Grimoire & the Eye of the Legion as well as a Vicious Grell to level up. I'm also thinking of swapping my herbalist to be my second Leatherworker ahead of the patch changes & I need Engineering at max level too so my 2nd Tailor may have to start swinging a hammer instead! I really want that new Engineering mount - the Sky Golem!

I was going to level up my abandoned Warlock for the Engineering but to be honest, I've just never connected with her! For some reason, I hate the way she looks and even with a lil bit of transmogging, I still can't seem to make myself play her! Once I've levelled Engineering on my Hunter, I think I'll delete her once & for all and start a new Warlock - if I don't get sidetracked first of course!

So that's my weekend kind of sorted - level 3 pets to 25 on my Hunter so she gets the xp too, drop Tailoring & Herbalism on my Rogue & Hunter & level Engineering & Leatherworking! Still not really proper playing I know but my Paladin will be busy skinning for materials for my new Leatherworker & my Warrior will have to leave the city to go mining if certain stuffs aren't available on the Auction House so maybe I'll actually get around to killing some stuff this time!

I'll let you know how it goes and to be honest, I really need to uninstall Candy Crush! It's a stupid game but I'm the kind of person that doesn't let a stupid game beat her so yeah, it's caught me in its' net! Level 100 could be the final straw though - after 2 days of playing that one level, I could happily throw my ipad through my monitor & I really don't want to do that now do I? lol

have a great weekend everyone xxx

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Yet Another To Do List!

It's been a while since I did a to-do list post & actually, it shows in my in-game progress! I'm not sure I've achieved anything worthwhile since I stopped doing these list posts except for the pet battle achievements maybe. There's something about making it public that kind of obligates me to get some of it done at least and of course, gives me something to write about here & over at AH Addict!

I even gave myself a public to do list over there today - I've been slacking off that much lately. It's not that I don't enjoy the game once I'm logged in, it's more that I get so occupied doing other stuff that I don't make the effort to log in very often. Which is kind of silly really as I'm paying my subscription after all & let's face it, Facebook & Mahjong solitaire aren't exactly stimulating now, are they?

So, this week I'm determined to get something at least started if not completed!

• Warrior/Blacksmith - get her out of the city & go do some stuff - preferably get the Lightning Steel Ingot thingy & start learning some of the Plate PvP crafted items - this one crosses with my gold based list so will be able to cross off 2 things if I get this done!
• Warlock/Engineer - she's also been abandoned in Ironforge for months! She's mid 50's level (I think!) so I should try to get her to Outland at least
• Rogue & Hunter are both level 86 (via pet battles & cooking) so I'll probably use both of them to pet battle some more & add some XP to their bars
• Take my Paladin main over to the Barrens & at least have a look at all that stuff before it disappears!

There's loads of stuff I could add but I'm trying to make it a manageable list not a pipe dream! There's loads of achieves I don't have yet, mounts & reputations to work towards, dungeons, scenarios & raids I've never even seen & that's just from earlier expansions! I think I've just about given up trying to do everything that's available in Mists - I shouldn't complain but there's just too much stuff to do now! It makes my head spin & I know I'm not the only one who just doesn't quite know which bits to do first!

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Yet More Changes at Casa Nev!

Last week I mentioned that I had a job for the next 10-12 weeks & here we are on a Sunday afternoon & I'm just waking up from a much needed afternoon nap! My body clock time keeping has changed drastically over the last few years to the point that actually getting to sleep before 2am is near impossible which hasn't been a problem whilst I've not been working!

Now though, I'm awake at 7am & by 4pm, I have no idea how I'm staying awake for that last hour of work, let alone driving home! I have been able to sleep by 1am though so I'm guessing another week or two & I'll be back to a 'normal' sleep pattern.

So what's the next lot of change coming to Casa Nev, I hear you ask? Well, I started this blog originally to talk about WoW stuff that wasn't gold related. It turns out I don't have as much non-goldmaking stuff to talk about as I thought but I do have lots of other stuff going on in my life so I think I'm going to change the direction of my posts here.

I have an Etsy shop & a couple of Zazzle shops for my photography & fractals, I write pages at Squidoo on all sorts of stuff, I have WoW stuffs, I'm learning new cooking styles & of course, I have my new single life stuff. So I thought rather than start yet another blog, I'd just re-purpose this one! Luckily 'She Rides Dragons' isn't an obviously WoW name so I don't even have to worry about changing that :)

The only WoW stuff I've done in the evenings this week is to relist my auctions & do the Tailoring & Leatherworking cooldowns to get the new PvP patterns.

I did get my priest moving over Easter weekend - she's almost 86 now :P Yeah, I may have forgotten how slow leveling a priest is even with almost all ilevel 415 blue crafted gear! It's almost as if I've lost the ability to quest for hours or even do anything productive in game. Again, I'm sure I'll settle down again eventually so I'm not going to stress it for now.

I'll still be doing some WoW posts here - especially the to-do list ones as I find they help me stay focused in game but with everything else going on, sometimes I just need to get my other thoughts out there too. I'm not totally sure quite what will end up here but I hope you'll tag along out of curiosity if nothing else!

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All Change At Casa Nev

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd been out to work for a few days & maybe the agency would have me on their radar now. It's a mixed blessing but on their radar I ended up - I have a job! It's only an input clerk & only for 8-12 weeks but it sorts out a lot of problems for me & gets me out of this apartment. It does mean that most of my side projects that I was going to knuckle down & focus on will have to go on the back burner again though! It also makes a few other things more difficult but I'm sure we'll get through those. They do say 'love conquers all' after all :)

So as my last grasp of unemployed freedom, I'm going to spend the next few days in WoW - no more messing with side projects & faffing - it's time to play a bit & maybe even get my Priest on her way to 90! Shock, horror, gasp!

So I need a to-do list for the next 5 days - here's what I got so far!

• Start leveling Priest (including new keybinds, glyphs, talents & sorting out her bank/bags for space!)
• Get a pet to level 25 - I have some around 13-15-ish so far
• Do the Thunder Isle dailies at least once if only to see what the fuss is about!
• Work the Auction House like a madwoman!
• Do Tillers dailies on my Warrior & DK - both at 12 plots now.

If I don't see y'all here before then, have a great Easter :)

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This Week So Far - Patch 5.2 & Stuff

In my last post I said I'd be concentrating on my Warrior this week which I did & I actually got my Shado-Pan & August Celestials reputation grinds started too. Then Patch 5.2 hit on Wednesday & I seem to have lost 2 days!

So I finally made level 90 on my Warrior & basically swore that she was never seeing the light of day again. But I need Spirits of Harmony for blacksmith crafting so I have actually done some Tillers dailies on her. I'm hoping to get to a full farm in the next few days so she can grow her own Motes of Harmony. With the new Work Orders on the farm, I'll probably grind some reputations that way for her too as I really didn't enjoy playing her at all!

I also dug out my recently dinged DK to get the Tillers dailies done for the farm too. I'm not planning on abandoning her though but I do need to find some nerves of steel from somewhere & attempt to tank a dungeon or two! Once I've done a few, I'll decide whether to flip her back to Frost spec or stay as Blood.

And then there's my poor Retribution Paladin - oh my gosh, she still feels a bit squishy & when I finally got over to the new Thunder Isle dailies, I was back to ghost running regularly. I did enjoy running around as a Saurok & the jump is fun too but it did get me in trouble once or twice! So between the Shado-Pan, August Celestials, 2 lots of Tillers dailies & the new Thunder Isle dailies, I've not been doing much else in game!

I didn't even get all the dailies finished as I was sidetracked by the pet battle XP discussion on Twitter. I jumped over to my Rogue & managed to get almost to level 86 on her just by pet battling in Stormwind before I had to give up & actually sleep! By the time I logged in the next morning, a hotfix had been applied so I guess she's off back to her farm until I get bored enough to level her to 90!

My To-Do list for this week is very short again - do more dailies! I figure that if I can get all the factions upto Exalted on my Paladin, it will be easier to get any reputations for crafting recipes on my other alts but also, I'll be able to stop worrying about doing the dailies & focus better on any other stuff I want to do later.

I may have to do some more Pet Battles though - I quite enjoyed them again the other night & there are more & more discussions going on about how to level them quickly & efficiently. The lure of all those achievement points may prove great enough to distract me from Dailies but we'll have to see how that goes!

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Planning Ahead - The Never Ending Story!

So I left my Warrior at 89.62% last night because it was getting silly late but I'm planning on pushing to 90 today if it kills me! My Paladin already has the Klaxxi reputation so at this point in time, my Warrior is earning double reputation & is halfway to Revered already. I got all excited when she made it to Honored because she is my Blacksmith & I wanted the BS recipes. One thing I hadn't checked though - buying the recipes requires Kyparite Ore, not Spirits of Harmony as I thought.

Having sold a bunch of Kyparite Ore just a day or two beforehand, I'm sure you can imagine what colour the air turned around here! But what's the use of having loads of gold if you don't use it? So off I went to the Auction House on my banker - not only to buy some Kyparite Ore but also to see which of the recipes to buy. Foiled again! Only a few pieces of Kyparite Ore on the Auction House & not enough to even buy one recipe! I guess I'm just going to have to pick up what I can over the next day or two. As for the recipes, again there were very few items on the AH so I'm going to use The Undermine Journal today to see what's what.

Once this girlie hits 90, I have some decisions to make though. I still have a Priest, Hunter & Rogue sitting at 85 & waiting patiently to be leveled up but I'm also acutely aware that I'm slacking on my reputation grinds. I started both the Shado-Pan & August Celestials this week but I haven't done them every day. I haven't been back to Krasarang Wilds for the Shieldwall Offensive dailies either.I also want to get some pet battling done & scenarios on the DK for some gear for her. I'm pretty sure I won't be playing the Warrior in any serious way any time soon so I'm not too worried about gearing her up at all.

My Paladin is just 1 point away from being eligible for LFR but I haven't been trying that hard to gear her up. I'm not that sure I want to as I still don't feel happy with her DPS. But if I don't gear her up & focus on rotations, gems, etc, how will she ever get better? I guess I just have to 'stick with the knitting' as an old tutor of mine used to say - stop jumping around all my alts & just concentrate on getting 1 good one.

The side benefit of focusing on just the Paladin & getting the reps done is the accumulation of Valor Points. Yes, I know the Patch 5.2 is supposed to hit this week so I've left it far too late yet again but she's still wearing greens in some slots! Another benefit will be that once I get these 3 done, I think that will be my 45 Reputations achievement too. A project for the backburner is to go back to the Cataclysm zones & get all those reputations done - I think I only have one of those at Exalted so finishing those will give me 50 Exalted Reps (and maybe some mounts too!).

So my in-game to-do list for this coming week is very short - Get the Warrior to 90 & do all the dailies on my Paladin. The rest of it is just going to have to wait!

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This Week's To-Do List ( 9th Feb)

Well I did finally get my Elders visited & now I only need Children's Week to get my Violet Proto-drake for the 'Long Strange Trip' achievement too but other than that, I've not had much success in doing any of the stuff on my last to-do list from 2 weeks ago! I've been having intermittant disconnection problems with my router & it really put me off trying to quest in WoW.

But after almost 2 days of no internet at all, I think we got the router sorted out & fingers crossed, the disconnection problem seems to be better too! I did manage to get my DK within spitting distance of level 90, she's about 50% of the way through level 89 & honored with the Klaxxi already. So my plan for today & tomorrow is to get her to 90 at least, even if I do nothing else in game!

The internet problems have messed with my other online stuff too so now I have a backlog of to-do things outside of game. I don't know if it's just me but I feel like my girls are nagging at me to get them moving! It's kind of distracting whilst trying to get my photography website redesigned or writing additional content for my newsletter over at AH Addict. Both are taking chunks of time & I just want to get back to my nagging girlies!

It doesn't help that I'm addicted to Twitter & Facebook too. I hate waiting for answers/replies to comments I make so I try not to make others wait for responses from me. What that means in reality though is that no matter what I am doing, I'm always interrupting myself to check Twitter or FB which of course, slows me down further!

I think I need an intervention!

Anyway, given that I keep making work for myself, my in game to-do list this week is very short!

• Get DK to level 90
• Get Warrior to level 88
• Do some dailies with Paladin, probably Shieldwall ones as I've started those but I should start on Shado-Pan or August Celestials too

That's it! I know it's Love Is In The Air week too but I have that achievement. I'll have to check to see if I have the Lovebird mount though and if not, I'll add getting that to my to-do list as well.

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This Week's To Do List (27th Jan 2013)

Well, I'm back home after my trip, almost over the jet lag & slowly getting back into the swing of things but today sees the start of the Lunar Festival in WoW & as it's the second to last one I need for my Long Strange Trip achievement, I'm going to be pretty busy! It's also been shortened to just 2 weeks (to avoid overlapping with Love is in the Air I guess) so if you haven't done all your Elder visiting, don't hang around too long!

I finally made it to Revered with the Klaxxi on my main so she's started the Shieldwall Offensive quests now whilst I've gone back to leveling my DK. I hit 89 late last night so just the Dread Wastes to go, with 2x Klaxxi rep, & hopefully I'll hit 90 with her very soon. I was hoping I might manage it today but it's mid afternoon already & my real life to-do list is still pretty long!

I've been a little bit braver this week too - I actually took my Paladin into a scenario or two. I was so close to an achievement I've been aiming for, it seemed like the easiest option at the time. It wasn't! Her DPS is still pretty bad & the random scenario system dropped me into Crypt of the Forgotten Kings - one I've not done before - so not only was I trying to not get lost, I was trying to keep up with the other two players too!

But I did it & I finally got my achievement too - yay! The strangest thing is though, my Achievement screen shows that I have only 8990 points so I'm not quite sure what happened there.

 So this weeks to-do list is pretty short

• Complete the Lunar Festival achievement (almost all the Elders required)
• Get DK to level 90
• Tank a dungeon with my DK
• More scenarios/dungeons on Paladin (she needs the VP's)
• Start the Cloud Serpent reputation dailies on DK as she is my Jewelcrafter
• Keep doing the Shieldwall Offensive dailies on Paladin
• Get Warrior moving again, currently at 87, she's still sitting on the farm

I may be a bit hopeful putting dungeons & scenarios in that list though - I'm having problems with my internet connection dropping intermittently which is extremely frustrating as you can probably imagine! It's probably a good thing that I spend hours flying around for the Elders achieves - at least if I disconnect on a flight path, I won't die before I can reconnect!

Okay, enough waffling from me - back to those damned Elders I go :)

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Merry Xmas! Oh What A Busy Week!

Christmas Dragon Baby

I hope everyone had a lovely Xmas & I hope you have lots of parties arranged for New Years Eve too. I had a very quiet Xmas so I've had a lot more playtime than usual and how did I do with my To Do list from last week? Not so good actually but only because I got sidetracked into stuff I wanted to do but hadn't put on the list! I didn't move the DK along at all & only did a few pet battles although I did manage to get the Big City Brawlin' achievement once I noticed that I was only missing Ironforge & Father Winter was there anyway!

The Winter Veil achieves for my Paladin still elude me. I was kissing revellers to get a Handful of Snowflakes but the RNG was against me. I have holly & mistletoe in abundance but no snowflakes for her until I read somewhere that I could trade them. Luckily my banker had been kissing revellers too so I roped in my ever patient & helpful guildie Setesh to hold my snowflakes whilst I logged my Paladin. It still took me until late last night to get the last class/race combo I needed though.

So off I went to my void storage, convinced I already had the winter hat & clothes but no - so today's task is to get those sorted out  for the eating achieve & hit up the battlegrounds dressed as a helper to get the last 2 parts I need for the Winter Veil achievement.

Two great achievements did come my way this week though - I finally hit Exalted with the Golden Lotus & that gave me my 40 Exalted Reputations achieve & I did manage to finish off the Dread Wastes quests which gave me my Pandaren Loremaster achieve! Yay, go me :P

So did I get my Paladin into a Heroic dungeon? Nope! I chickened out again this week but I did take her into some scenarios & wasn't too disappointed with her progress. I picked up a couple of Epic gear items this week - there's an Epic necklace for finishing the final Golden Lotus quests & all those dailies gave me enough Valor Points to finally get the Dawnblade's Chestguard from the Golden Lotus Quartermaster. With a couple of Rare quality items from the scenarios my ilevel is upto 453 now so that has helped her DPS a great deal. I still need to gem & enchant her though but that can wait a while.

Now my Hunter has been going great and this week she has just continued being lucky with gear drops! Two Blues & a Purple piece of gear from running scenarios on Saturday as well a whole bunch of achieves but not the Scenaturday one unfortunately. I've been doing dailies for Golden Lotus, Klaxxi & Tillers on her as well as a few heroics here & there.

Yesterday, Cold persuaded me to join a Sha of Anger group & talked me through the basic strategy. Unfortunately neither of us had taken into account how rubbish my PC is when it comes to a 40-man raid! I think I died within 30 seconds as I couldn't see the black stuff until I was already dead! damned lag! After a few more deaths, mainly from lag, it has to be said, they finally got the Sha down (without much help from me at all!) & I got my Epic boots from the quest item he drops. I used one of my Elder Charms for a bonus roll & guess what? Yup, my first attempt at any sort of 'raid' & I got lucky again - the Yaungol Slayer's Legguards dropped for me - ilevel 496 no less!

So all in all, I think this has been a great week for me in game. I'm definitely gaining some of my confidence back, getting used to using keyboard for spells rather than mouseclicking them & trying stuff I never would have just 3 months ago. I'm off on my travels again in a couple of days so my Paladin & DK will have to wait for my return but my Hunter will get a lot of playtime over the next few weeks. I may even resurrect my level 40 priest project I started earlier this year too.

This Week's To Do List - Pre Xmas Panic!

Last week's To Do List was a bit of a hit here at Casa Nev so I'm going to make another for this week. I do spend a lot of time in game just mooching around from one alt to another, doing stuff as it strikes me. This means that things do get done - eventually but by making a list last week, I found that I really focused on those things more than all the other stuff I usually do.

I think that having written it down in a public place made me want to get that stuff done & not let my readers think badly of me. I know no-one really cares if I get it done or not, it just feels more important in my head so I knuckled down & did it - well most of it anyway.

The only thing that didn't get done was leveling my DK a bit more. I did get my warrior to 87 & with a big Thank You to Soco for giving me a lift to the Shrine of Seven Stars to get my Blacksmith recipe, I managed to max my Blacksmithing too.

I was pretty good at getting my Golden Lotus dailies done & finally hit Revered with them on Sunday evening. I bought the Grand Commendation straight away and last night I got to around 6k/21k so just another 3 or 4 days to get to Exalted I reckon.

My biggest time sink this week has been pet collecting though - not only did I get to the 200 unique pets target I set myself, I actually made it to 206. I think I have most of the wild pets below level 12 now so I need to level up my team a bit more before I tackle the next zones & the next Pet Trainer Battle. I'm going to add that to this week's list I think!

One thing I did do this week that wasn't on my list was to take my US Hunter into a Heroic dungeon - we actually did a couple although that last boss in Shado-Pan Monastery kicked my butt at 2am! Cold popped his Blingtron 4000 to cheer me up - I didn't know I could party with it & I didn't know it would transform me into a human either. I did a couple of screenshots just for fun & managed to catch Cold in his John Travolta impersonation! He's gonna kill me for this one I think!

Cold Goes Disco!

The one thing I didn't put on the list was Winter Veil - I'd forgotten that it was starting so I added that in to my list. I only needed 5 of the smaller achievements to get the title, Merrymaker & so far I think I've managed to get 2 of them. I'm still kissing Revellers to get a Handful of Snowflakes, I need to make the Winter Clothes for myself (or find them in my alts banks of course!) & the dreaded PvP one - 50 honorable kills doesn't sound too bad but I have no PvP gear & I don't want to spend out on a set. I can see a frustrating evening in my near future!

So the list for this week isn't that long, just a few bits left over from last week & a couple of new bits.

• Level the DK to 89 (I will get this one done this week, I am determined!)
• Raise Unique Pet count to 225 or more
• Get Exalted with Golden Lotus on Paladin (will give me 40 Exalted reps & a title too!)
• Finish the Winter Veil achievements on Paladin
• Finish the Dread Wastes quests - not only reputation points but I want to get my Pandarian Loremaster finished too. That will be my 1 year anniversary since I completed the old Loremaster title.
• Take Paladin into a Heroic dungeon - I must do this one - It's bugging me now.

Can I do all this by Xmas Eve? Maybe! I hope so anyway because I'm off on my travels again just after Xmas & I possibly won't have access to my EU account although I'm working on that. I miss my girls and all my professions, gold & heirlooms when I'm on my US account but my Hunter there is coming along nicely so that will keep me busy if I can't access my EU account.

My other big thing this week is my 2nd birthday on my goldmaking blog. If you haven't popped over, I'm running a little giveaway to celebrate & it's really easy to enter. All the details are in my Happy Birthday AH Addict post over there so if you'd like a Blizzard Store pet, go have a look & leave a comment to enter. I look forward to seeing you there.

This Week's To-Do List

I've been very unfocused recently - both in game, in blogland & pretty much everywhere else to be honest. I thought I'd make myself an in-game to-do list just as a kind of motivator to actually achieve certain things, rather than wandering aimlessly, doing a bit of this or a bit of that!

I'm not going to make a huge list of everything I want to do though - just a small list of stuff I think I can achieve given the smallish amount of time I've actually been playing recently. If I get other stuff done as well then that will be a bonus & I won't have to do it later!

So where to start? Leveling, goldmaking, dailies, dungeons, pet battles, achievement chasing all come to mind but that would be too much for this first list so I've narrowed it down a bit.

• DK - currently level 88, needs to get to 90 but aim for 89 this week at least
• Warrior - currently level 86, definitely needs to get to 87 & into the Capital city for the Blacksmithing recipes
• Blacksmithing - get warrior to city, get a recipe & finally get Blacksmithing maxed! (done! thanks Soco xxx)
• Paladin - Golden Lotus dailies - I must do these every day as I've only just got to honoured & I want to get started on the Shado-Pan dailies for the tiger mounts!
• Enchanting - I have loads of green armor drops that need disenchanting & I haven't leveled enchanting at all - get some skill points this week at least!
• Pets - I have 176 unique pets right now - not all rare by any means but for now I'm just aiming for 1 of each, I'll upgrade them later over time. I'd quite like to get to 200 by next week - shouldn't be too difficult as I haven't even left Eastern Kingdoms yet on the Pet Safari & the Pet Tamer achieves.

The other good thing about getting back to questing & leveling is the chance to reinforce my new found keyboard-using playstyle! I'm still struggling a bit - my little finger keeps missing the Tab button for targeting for starters & anything more than 1-5 number keys is a stretch (literally & figuratively!) but I'm getting there, it's just going to take a while I think :)

So there we go - a nice short list for me this week. I'll pop back & mark them off as & when I get them done - I'm sure I'll think of other stuff to be doing or will get sidetracked by something but at least this way - it's in black & white & maybe I won't feel so annoyed at myself next week for getting nothing done!

Early Version To-Do List

With so many new things to do in Mists of Pandaria, I get a little overwhelmed at times so I thought a nice fresh to-do list might help. Then it all got a bit out of hand as I looked at my achievements so far and realised there's a whole load of Cataclysm stuff still left undone not to mention a fair few Wrath ones too!

So here's the list so far, in some semblance of order although not necessarily in priority order! Priority number 1 is to get my six 85's to level 90 - one is done, two are on their way but the rest of the list is subject to whim, time & how I feel at any particular time!

• Get 6 level 90's at least ( got a level 62 druid & a 54 warlock who might make it this expac too) & maybe a monk - see how I feel!
• Do Pandaren dungeons, normal & heroic at least - not going to worry about the 'special' tests, just completing the dungeon list will do me for now :)
• Get all professions to max level (almost done, just need to level Warlock to get Engineering up too)
• Pet Battles! - All of the achieves are on my hit list - these will get nibbled at as & when I need a break from serious killing or when I'm sitting around just chatting on skype.
• Festivals - finish off Winter's Veil, Lunar Festival & Children's Week to get the Long Strange Trip & mount.
• Reputations - pretty much all the Pandaren ones, goes without saying really but I also need to finish almost all the Cataclysm ones too - there's a few mounts there I haven't got yet! I'm at 38 Exalted reps overall so I've got a fair way to go yet.
• Argent Tournament - I only need to champion two more cities to get the whole thing finished - will probably nibble away at these as I tackle some of the other more general achievements in Northrend
• Under the Exploration tab are the two Rare Hunting achieves - Bloody Rare for Outland (7/20 so far) & Frostbitten for Northrend (cuurently 8/23).
• Under the general tab, there's all sorts of miscellaneous achievements to aim for - /love various creatures, eat & drink various things as well as cooking up all the various foods for some of the cooking achieves - these are the ones I nibble at too - I periodically remember to /love things whilst out and about or go on a cooking spree.

So that's the main list but there's also a lot of pre-Mists content I've not even seen yet - not a single Cataclysm raid was entered so that means Firelands & Dragon Soul - I'll probably leave those until much later when everyone is bored of Mists & old content is being run or perhaps try the Openraid website. I still haven't finished Icecrown Citadel or Ulduar either yet but my excuse there is that I am a late Wrath baby & wasn't good enough at the time! There's even a few of the Vanilla & Outland raids I haven't seen! Oh dear, I was slacking wasn't I?

Of course, the other thing I haven't mentioned in all this is gold-making - that happens every day & comes naturally to me - unfortunately I do tend to get a bit focused on the Auction House which is perhaps why I have so many Achievements still to do out in the world!

Additions suggested by some Twitter friends - 'Glorious' (kill every rare in Pandaria) & Insane in the Membrane - I probably will be if I manage to tick this list off but yup, Insane added too :P

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