Shh! It's a secret!

Today Smiley picked up some extra work so I am going to seize the moment and sneak a Christmas tree into the house! What with me quitting my job to go back to school and him having some issues at his weekday job, I won't be spending much, so it won't be anything amazing, but it will be Silas's first Christmas tree!

So as many of you all know, I'm not particularly religious; I haven't really been to church in probably years. I do firmly believe in being compassionate towards others, helpful and open minded, which are all things I can do no matter where I am on Sunday, but there is actually one thing I miss about not being able to go to church here in Tallahassee - and if you know me, you might have guessed - it's the hymns.

And maybe you wouldn't have guessed it - maybe you don't know how peaceful singing is to me. Smiley knows. He's had to put up with it for two years now; it's not uncommon for me to spend an evening singing along to my favorite songs (think Nightwish, Evanescence, Within Temptation, and video game songs that I love) as a way to relax and wind down. (And actually, the people I play WoW with know. They've heard me singing over vent during raids to stay calm!)

And maybe you might think I'm weird; I know when I brought a friend to church services many years back, he complained that the songs were too slow. I know a lot of churches like to bring excitement to their hymns with upbeat tempos, guitars, and other instruments precisely for that reason and that works for many people, but not me.

I got to thinking about all of this today when I was singing Silas lullabys as I put him down for his morning nap. I started using the old hymn tunes as a base for my words of love to Silas. It comforts me, and, judging from the fact that he's been asleep long enough for me to write all of the above - without any breaks to rock him back to sleep! - I think it comforts him too.

Well, I can't spend all of my time here typing; I've got to go make room for a Christmas tree. Thanks for letting me share a little part of my morning with you guys.

The First Time I had a Migraine Aura

From what I've heard, migraines are serious business. Many of my family members have been struck by the sensitivity to light, to sound and to smells, often with a heaping serving of nausea and vomiting. I remember migraine days growing up, when my mom would retreat to her room and use towels over the windows to black out the light as best as she could and just try to sleep through the pain.

I know my brother has been "lucky" enough to get the kind migraines where he almost always throws up when he has one.

I have been legitimately lucky enough to never have had an actual migraine. The only thing that I've experienced is the migraine aura, which has now happened to me twice. This is the story of the first time.

The first time had to have happened on a Tuesday or Thursday. I know this because it happened while I was playing WoW and we happened to play WoW on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the time. I don't know if you've ever had a migraine before. If you have, this may sound familiar. If you haven't, you might think I was experimenting with drugs. I promise you, I was not.

I was looking at my screen to see what someone had written in chat, and I noticed that although my computer screen was clearly displaying the text, I couldn't read a certain spot on the screen. I blinked a few times and looked at the chat box again. My brain knew that there were words there, and I could read some of them, but on the left bottom side of the box, the words were non-existent. It was like trying to read something in a dream.

Blinking again, I shifted my focus on the screen. The blind spot seemed to shift with me. From the corner of my eye I could see the unknown letters start to form into words. But when I try to read them, they disappeared again.

"I think there might be something in my eyes," I said tentatively to my husband, who was sitting next to me at his computer. Over voice chat, I told our guildmates that I had to get up for a minute so Smiley could check and make sure nothing was in my eye.

Unsurprisingly, there was nothing in my eye. But what had been just a blind spot was starting to turn into something else. There were flashes of color sort of in the shape of a "c", with jagged, torn looking black edges. I was at a loss for what it could be.

My guildmates had a better idea than I did. I explained what was happening and those who had had migraines agreed that it sounded like a visual aura. I hadn't been freaking out too much before, despite the whole suddenly having dancing color tears on the left side of my field of vision, but now the thought that I could have a migraine and might throw up made me upset.

My brother was online, so I messaged him to ask for his advice, which was to go take ibuprofen and lie down and hope that I fell asleep before the headache hit. That sounded reasonable, and it was getting late.

The next morning I woke up with clear vision and no signs of a headache. And then I pretty much forgot about what happened, until it happened again recently. But that's a story for when my stupid pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel pain goes away and I can write another post!

This will mean nothing to so many people...

... but my guild downed Ragnaros 10-man last night and I am so psyched. We spent a lot of our time working on the fight and it finally paid off as everything came together. I thought we'd get stuck up at the meteor phase but not even that could keep us down.

I've been in a few different guilds during my time in WoW and one thing they've always had in common is that they've imploded while I was there. Things just sputtered out, raid attempts went from scheduled to spotty and then large chunks of people left, spitting out macro'd 'goodbye' rants before the all important /gquit.

My experience with guilds hadn't always been that way. Growing up, my parents ran a successful raiding guild in Everquest for many years, making friends that lasted beyond the guild. I remember they even had guild meet ups when the Everquest convention was held in Chicago. To me, that was how guilds could and should be.

WoW was a lot different.


Anyhow, I've been raiding with the same guild since February now and while there have been many frustrating nights, we friggen downed Ragnaros 10 man yesterday and that was kind of one of those moments that remind me why it's worth it to play this game.

To the people for whom this post was just a bunch of nonsense words, I'm sorry. (And quite honestly impressed that you're still reading). I thought about explaining everything in more general terms, but it didn't read right. And it would be a bit like convincing someone who doesn't like dogs that dogs are great; no matter how I phrase it, it'll be boring.

Anyhow, so that's that. Go us. Also, did I mention we're recruiting? We're looking for healers and a tank and will certainly consider competent DPS. Our website is www.exitium-guild.com. And our unofficial motto is "A real raiding schedule for people with real lives." Or something like that.

Remember when Graffiti was the big thing on Facebook?

For reference, this is part of Silvermoon City from WoW.

My blog needed some pictures; I've been relying on words for too many days in a row here. But I haven't had time to draw anything, not even given how quickly I can draw badly.

I've always wondered if the fact that I draw on the computer with my mouse hinders me. As I am left handed, presumably my fine motor skills are better in my left hand. However, unlike my brothers who mouse exclusively with their left hands, I just took up to using my right hand for mousing.

Actually, I think that's why I can't stand higher mouse sensitivity. As a teenager, my parent's basement was pretty much the place to be. With between four and five computers linked to our network at any given time, it was easy to have a few friends over and to toss down in Quake III or Unreal Tournament, two of my favorite FPS games. But sometimes my friends would up the mouse sensitivity on the computer and later I would sit down and go crazy trying to maneuver the mouse around. What I felt were little movements would shoot the cursor halfway across the screen.

Of course, maybe I was just bad.

But, given the amount I won or at least held my own, I think it's safe to say I could have done even better had I taught myself to mouse left handed. On the other hand (ha!), at least now I don't annoy people by leaving my keyboard and mouse on the wrong sides of the computer like certain siblings I know.

Before World of Warcraft, There was Everquest

Believe it or not, I've actually been playing video games for more than three-fourths of my life at this point.

I've also been trying to convince myself I can learn how to draw for a good majority of that time.

The conflation of those two hobbies resulted in some comics from my younger years, based on mine and my sister's Everquest characters. I won't apologize for the artwork (check out the way I cleverly avoid drawing feet or hands!); I will only hope it will help you laugh at the ridiculous punchlines I set up. (Click through for full size!)

The original Mystrana was a clothie, just like the Mystrana today!

Sadly, the premise behind "Fighting Those Angry Dwarfs..." didn't inspire me beyond those two masterpieces. Luckily, thanks to the magic powers of scanning, they continue to be displayed for posterity.

I look back on these every so often and am always reminded of the little things in EQ that would never fly in the world of WoW - and that, honestly, I am glad don't.

For example, it's not that I just drew Mystrana with her spellbook because it was an interesting visual point to the plot of the comic but because looking at your spellbook was an actual thing you had to do in order to regen mana at a reasonable rate.

I know I've said this before, but I haven't gotten it down on my blog before, so here goes: I never even got to the highest level in EQ. I got to level 27. Between needing to group up to quest and level (as an Enchanter class, I literally had no way of soloing) and limited time through school and responsible parents that didn't let me stay up too late, I could never push past in to the magical 30's. Leveling was no joke, and a death meant experience lost.

I do not regret those days but do not think that I miss them.

Tonight's Raid Night!

Today is a pretty important day. It was my last day at my now old job and tomorrow will be my first day at a new job. Also, despite my two-day rant on the Sebring, someone came and looked at it and might be buying it for serious! He said that he used to have one and liked how it handled. How cool is that?

Well, Thursdays are also raid night on World of Warcraft! The husband and I sit down with our guild (8 other people who are online with us) and get stuff done. I was looking over my old pictures and found this one from two years ago:

That's me on the right and my husband on the left. But as I said, that picture is over two years old now so we've changed some. I've got a cuter dress. And my husband now plays a goblin so he's kinda short. You know, WoW is how we met. I think I'll have to write our origin story one of these nights. But in the meantime I wanted to share some other WoW pictures I found that are pretty amusing, even if you don't play the game.

 That's me, around Thanksgiving time - rounding up all the turkeys! (And a skunk). This picture always made me laugh because the turkeys would follow me around in a single file line and then whenever I stopped, they would fan out in a fairly perfect half circle. None of them cared about the skunk!

Around Easter time, Easter eggs start popping up around the grass in game. They're fun to pick up and they have virtual candy, dresses and other such Easter items. And the way these two Tauren were staring each other down, I couldn't help but add some dialogue. It was, uh, funny to me at the time. And ok, I'll admit that I half laughed when I saw it in my picture archives.

Well, that's really all the time I've got for now. Raid starts in 9 minutes and I have tacos to eat and iced tea to drink. Here's hoping that tomorrow is awesome.