Five Podcasts and a New Computer!

Oops! I knew the last few weeks had been busy and slightly weird but I didn't realise it was so long since I posted here! I got to chat with the Godmother when Marcus & I invited her to guest on the show and that turned out to be a really interesting show for all of us I think. That was the last of my days off too so I spent the Sunday getting my shit together to head back to work.

I finally went back to work on the Monday after New Year, after being deemed fit to work (post-op) by my Doctor so that was pretty good actually. It sounds great to have a month off over Xmas but when it's recuperation time and it feels like everyone else is out partying, it's kinda tough on your mental state, you know? It was especially tough as it was also my first holiday season alone, ever!

My boss was great though - she even let me finish at 3pm every day so I could come home and have a nap. I still managed to get a load of catching up done so that was a good week but busy! But the best bit was on the Saturday morning - I finally got a chance to chat to Leeta as she interviewed me for her Behind The Avatar podcast. That was great fun and I'm sure it won't be the last time Leeta & I talk for a couple of hours!

The following week was my birthday week and between baking cakes and cookies for work and being taken out to celebrate by my parents and then standing in at the last minute for Rez on EGP, I didn't get much chance to log into WoW. I could have logged in Friday evening I guess but I just sat there and kind of spaced out in front of the PC. I'm honestly not sure what I did that evening at all!

Another great Saturday morning - recording the show with Marcus Ty and that was about all I could manage that day! Sunday dawned grey and cold but it was another busy day - lunch with Mum (and getting laundry done!), afternoon chats with Cold then another first - recording Girls Gone WoW with Sil and Raven. That was great fun too & it turned out we all had a lot more in common than I expected. I've been invited back at a future date so I am looking forward to that already!

So in just about 2 weeks, I've done 3 guest spots and recorded 2 shows with Marcus, gone back to work, caught up there and had a birthday week so I guess it's not surprising that I've been a little slow posting here!

This last week has been strange too - I'm back to my regular full hours at work but I've been a bit out of it all to be honest. My Doc gave me some new medication which seems to be doing its' job but I think it's making me spacy - I actually caught myself reading Twitter the other evening and I had to remind myself to scroll! However that could also be an effect of the previous 2 weeks and lack of sleep in general, hopefully these meds will help all round and I'll be back to normal soon.

I need to be - I've done nothing productive again today and I have a huge list of things to do before I fly back to the States in a few weeks! That's given me something to look forward to as well so I'm staying as positive as I can in between sleeping at random times! I'm also expecting delivery of my new PC tomorrow - I really am struggling to wait patiently for that - my current set-up is kind of old and I'm only running 2Gb of RAM as well. Roll on tomorrow and WoW on high settings for the first time ever!

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I Wish You Enough

This is doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment and as I was writing my 2013 review on AH Addict, it came to mind. So just a short post here for my New Year's Eve post rather than repeat everything and my thanks for all your support and comments over the last year. They mean a lot to me <3 xxx

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

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Baby Shaman On The Move!

If you visit my main blog about gold making in WoW, Auction House Addict, you'll have seen that I have been working on a little project for the month of December. I called it my 30 Minutes a Day project and it involves spending just 15 minutes a day leveling one alt and 15 minutes a day in the Auction House on another. As I promised myself a baby Shaman for Alt Appreciation Week and never got around to it at the time, I chose a Dwarf Shaman to be my leveling alt.

Anyway, it turned out that the best laid plans of mice and men didn't take into account how hard it is to make any progress with questing for just 15 minutes a day so I changed it up a bit & decided to make it more flexible - basically a maximum of 2 hours leveling per week. I haven't reported on my leveling progress over on the other blog so I thought I'd put it here - it makes sense as my gold making readers probably aren't that interested in my leveling adventures after all!

So with a slow start and no heirlooms, no friends and no back up from other alts, my baby Shammy, Lyssara was born in Coldridge Valley. The first few days were very slow - 15 minutes really isn't very long at all to be honest and it quickly started getting boring before I even left the Valley to head to Kharanos.

Once the latest patch update hit and we could send heirlooms to other servers, I decided to see what I had available on my main server and send them over. It turns out, I didn't have any intellect leather/mail gear - I have the agility leather from leveling my Rogue and the agility leather/mail from leveling my Hunter. Luckily though, my main is in a level 25 guild with access to the guild heirlooms so I bought those and sent them over.

I looked up Icy Veins and various other sites to see what an Enhancement Shaman needed and saw that the cloth heirlooms weren't too bad for low levels so I nipped back to my main server and sent some cloth heirlooms over too, as well as the staff.

What a difference heirlooms make! I guess I've used heirlooms since my second alt four years ago so it was a rude awakening indeed. So relieved to have them available cross server now too. A lot has changed since I last leveled through Dun Morogh too - Steelgrill's Depot was always the place to find a Bronze Tube to sell for a bit of gold but now it has a fancy Ultrasafe Personnel Launcher which comes fully equipped with a VLD Parachute (Very Late Deployment). I was lucky enough to not get splatted and made it over to the next area for questing but the best bit is that I got the Going Down achievement & some great screenshots too!

I hit level 13 last night and arrived in Loch Modan ready to start my next zone but not before noticing these guys. I'm not sure I ever noticed them before but it's been so long, I may have just forgotten them! Blogger is messing with the picture colors but the night sky was super dark & the stars and clouds really stood out. I murdered my way through a whole valley of troggs before finally getting enough teeth to complete the quest and headed back to Captain Rugelfuss.

I'm enjoying her so far but then I enjoyed my Elemental Shaman who got to 50-something before being unceremoniously deleted. I can't even remember why I deleted her now but I hope I'm not tempted to delete this one after this project is over!

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My Life Right Now

If you follow me on Twitter or read my other blog AH Addict, you may have seen me mention that I'm going into hospital next week. I've had a few messages asking if I'm ok and wishing me well so I thought I'd just let y'all know what's happening.

If you don't like medical or personal stuff, you may want to skip the rest of this post - it kinda got away from me! Just know that I'm ok and not gonna stop blogging anytime soon!

If you're a relatively new reader/follower, you may not know that I had Breast Cancer last year. I was incredibly lucky not to need chemotherapy or radiation treatment but due to the possible aggressiveness of the tumour type, I did have to have a full mastectomy. That all went very smoothly and I like to think I coped well with losing a breast. My gold blogging friends were really supportive and I'm sure I'd have been more of a mess without them cheering me on.

Due to the type of tumour, I wasn't offered an immediate reconstruction, just in case they needed to go back in & fix something else. Also chemotherapy & radiation therapy can change the skin texture and affect reconstructions adversely so I was offered delayed reconstruction instead. If you watch the news, you may have seen it reported that Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy - well yes, she did but she had immediate reconstruction too. That meant only one operation to remove the breast tissue and replace it with implants - they saved her skin & probably nipples too so she went through a lot but all in one go.

Delayed reconstruction is a whole different ball game. For starters, I have no 'spare' skin under which to put an implant so one option is to have a tiny inflatable implant inserted which is then slowly expanded over time to stretch the skin I do have. Once there is enough skin, then a normal size implant is put in place and hopefully, that would be the end of the story.

The other option is much more involved - taking a chunk of your own flesh (usually belly fat or lower back, just above bum cheeks) and using microsurgery, attach it and all the related blood vessels to your chest. If everything goes well, you can have a nipple tattooed in later. But this option is a 10 hour surgery followed by a week in an Intensive Nursing ward. Immobilised to prevent the tiny blood vessel stitches from tearing, catheterised because you can't get up for 3 days at least and special leg things to keep the blood moving and prevent blood clots!

My local Breast Care Unit are fantastic. They have a regular 'show & tell' type evening for ladies in my situation. It's all very impersonal to be told how reconstruction works but to see other ladies who have had all the various procedures and to hear their stories makes it so much more real. That was probably the most upsetting evening of the whole experience. The ladies were great but I reacted badly to the scars and as I'd already half decided to refuse reconstruction, that evening just hardened my resolve.

Not only did I refuse reconstruction, I decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life worrying about my falsie showing through my blouses or even worse, falling out of my bra. I like to scuba dive and swim but I didn't want a falsie in a swimsuit! I started going to the gym too and I want to run. Again, can you imagine my falsie falling out onto the treadmill whilst I'm running there? It would be hysterically funny but I don't want that either!

So I opted for a second mastectomy. I've had to fight to get them to remove healthy tissue though. Apparently it's not a normal reaction so I've had some counselling and numerous Doctors asking me for my reasons and am I sure, over and over again. I finally convinced them that this is what I want so next week, I'm having a second mastectomy. It's a relatively simple 2 hour procedure and I may even be home the same day although it's more likely to be an overnight stay if I need a drain put in.

If it goes as well as last time, you probably won't even miss me! Once I was out of the recovery room and back on the ward, I paid for internet time and was back online within about 7 hours of arriving at the hospital! I came home the following day at lunchtime and was back in WoW within 2 or 3 hours of getting back!

I'm sorry if this is too much information but I have some wonderful online friends who seem to be worried about me and this is my way of letting everyone know I'm ok, really, I am. I promise :)

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IntPiPoMo #1

IntPiPoMo #1

Ok, guess who didn't find the energy to level her baby Shaman the other day? Yup, me! I got sidetracked when looking for heirlooms in my alt banks for her though so I was full of good intentions! Instead I decided to level my baby Pandaren Monk so I could get out of the starting zone, chose a faction & actually GET TO A MAILBOX! I sent a bunch of stuff to her when I started her way back at the start of Mists & I have a horrible feeling it all bounced back to my equally abandoned Druid & has probably been deleted by now.

Not having leveled any Pandaren alts yet - you can imagine my surprise when I took the quest to ride in the balloon. At first I wasn't sure what I was seeing as I have to have my settings down pretty low. But sure enough - there's the Giant Turtle straight out of the Terry Pratchett Discworld books if I remember correctly. I loved the Turtle ships in Northrend too - I may have to visit just to get some screenies to add to this collection! In fact, I've just had inspiration for a theme for my month - pretty sure I can get 50 shots too!

Be back soon - gone shooting!

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IntPiPoMo - Preliminary Wafflings!

Orange Rose © Helen Shorey (me!)

Ok so it's 16 days into November & I promised myself I'd spend most of this weekend catching up & prepping some posts including the IntPiPoMo that Jojo at Admiring Azeroth is organising. That means I need to post about 3.5 screenshots a day until the end of November to hit the target of 50 - that didn't sound too bad, did it? Well it didn't, until I realised that 50 shots of the Auction House, Mailbox & Bank in Ironforge wasn't going to make for very interesting viewing! Oh for the exciting life of an Auction House Addict!

So what shall I do? I'm still hoping to get my Alt Weeks finished so I've started a new baby Shaman & am going to spend a little time leveling her a bit this weekend - that should give me some screenshots to post. Then I should go & say hello to my abandoned Warlock - she's still sitting in Ironforge too so she won't be much help towards the screenshots total unless I take her out & about. At level 50 something though, she'll be questing in a totally different area to the baby Shaman. Then there's my level 90 Warrior sitting in Pandaria somewhere - she'll be easy to take out & about & Pandaria is so photogenic, it shouldn't take too much to get some really beautiful images.

Now I'm going to cheat a little bit too - it's actually International PICTURE Posting Month and as I'm a keen photographer as well as a blogger & WoW player, I thought maybe I could post some of my photos instead of screenshots. I sell my photographs as Microstock images & have a small Zazzle shop too.

I have just bought a new Photography book from Amazon which arrived this morning! Food Photography - From Snapshots to Great Shots is written by an online acquaintance of mine from a few years ago. Nicole & I started selling our images as Microstock around the same time but I never took the chance to make a career of it. Nicole has been doing really well so when I saw her name on this book, I had to have a look. All I can say is - the pictures in the book look edible on the page! I hope I can learn & improve my own images across many genres with the help of the techniques & tips in this book!

So! Enough faffing here - I have a baby Shaman to level a bit & some screenies to take to show you all :)

have a great Saturday

Nev

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Too Many Projects!

I posted my Rogue Week entry last week which was very late but I still have Shaman, Warlock & Warrior Weeks to do in the Alt Appreciation Weeks project and now it's November & Jojo over at Admiring Azeroth has taken over the reins of IntPiPoMo (International Picture Post Month) which is the visual version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month?).

Suddenly I have so much to write about but I'm away from home for another week with no WoW access which makes it pretty tough to do the whole screenshot thing! Not to mention I do actually have a story idea that I wanted to develop & I was going to use NaNoWriMo as my impetus although that was the plan before my trip dates were finalised! I don't get home until 11th November so I'll be very late even getting started!

I started a baby Shaman just before I came away, with the intention of leveling her for the whole week so I'd have something to write about for Shaman Week - I didn't manage to get that done so that's something else for when I get home again. She's a dwarf as I don't have any dwarven characters & my first ever Shammy was a dwarf. She didn't survive one of my alt culls but hopefully this one will!

I also have a joint project with Cold of Cold's Gold Factory that we started in late September but we hit a few glitches which are just about fixed finally but it means that project is 'Go' again too! Once we get it going properly, I'll probably bore you silly with it here too - I'm really looking forward to getting that going strong!

With all that is currently on my to-do list though, something has to give somewhere and I don't want it to be WoW. I know it sounds silly to say I don't want to give up my game time to do more 'real' stuffs but as I have 2 blogs relating to WoW & my joint project with Cold is kind of WoW related too - it's fairly central to getting those other things done. Of course, if family, work or health was dictating my priorities, it would be totally different but until then, WoW stays!

You may also have noticed a total lack of Blizzcon enthusiasm from me, either here or twitter. Basically everyone counting down to Blizzcon is counting down to the end of my stay here with my fella so I'm trying desperately to ignore it! I don't even want to think about going home. The only things I'm really missing is my PC & my Mum. Oh and the notebook full of post ideas I left on the desk by mistake of course! Hence the random posts & weird timings at the moment :P

Back to normal next week though - time to catch up with Alt Weeks & get going on some screenshots stuff, not to mention all the stuff at work I thought I'd got done early but will undoubtedly have piled up anyway!

Have a great week everyone
Nev

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