The Black Lotus and You

Black Lotus is still very useful for making flasks even in Burning Crusade. It's still rare, and expensive.

I've learned a good farming system for aquiring the black lotus, and can collect usually abut 4 an hour this way.

On our server black lotus sells for 25-50 gold a piece.

One thing I love about farming black lotus is because there is some travel time between places it allows me to get up, do a little housework, grab coffee, sign homework etc, even watch a movie half heartedly.

Things to know about how BL spawns:

It spawns one time per hour if it is picked, in one of roughly 14 spawn points in 4 zones. What does this mean exactly? If you pick the one in Eastern Plaguelands there will not be another spawn in that zone for another hour, move on to the next zone. Make note of the time you pick the first one on your route, so that you know that you have waited an hour and don't waste your time checking empty spawn points.

How I do it:

I start in Eastern Plaguelands, so I go Shattrath to Isle of Que'l Danas and fly to EPL. From Light Hopes Chapel, I go toward Bowman hill and hit all the points between there and Strat. Run back down by Blackwind lake, and hit the spawn points by WPL and hit all the points between there and back to LHC. Once I find my Lotus, whichever spawn point it is at, I move on to Burning Steppes:

Once at Burning Steppes the route is a little more of a circle, thankfully. Starting from Morgan's Vigil I travel south and check Pillar of Ash spawn points, make my way up to the altar, and around Black Rock Mountain then east towards ogre mound and back to Morgan's. Once I find my Lotus, there are two options. I hearth to shat and either take the port to Darnassus, and go to Winterspring. Or you can hearth to Shat and Zephyr to Tanaris and fly to Silithus. Either way you have one long flight ahead of you between the next two zones. If you are a druid, you could zephyr to Tanaris then port to moonglade and save yourself a nasty flight. I personally like the long flights because I can actually do something else for a sec. So I go Winterspring next.

Once in Winterspring the circut gets a little fruity again. I start right by Everlook and hit all the nodes to the south first then work my way back up to the middle of the map, and hit west side and then lastly if I have still not found my lotus, I hit that one far up north. Most of the lotus I have found in this zone has been south of Everlook, but it is random which node it spawns at. Once I find the lotus in this zone I head to Silithus.

On the long flight here, takes several minutes this is when I hit the potty, refill my coffee, and run a load of dishes or something. Once here I hit the North West portion of the map first, work my way south, then run all the southern points and work my way north again along the eastern side of the map. Once I have my lotus for this zone, I either hearth back to Shat and start over or fly to Theramore and boat back to MH and start over that way, depends on if my hearth is up and how lazy I feel.

In closing I'm sure there is a more efficient path, but really efficiency isn't the key here, because the circut must take at least an hour or your first zone will not have spawned a new lotus. So the idea is to make sure dawdle a bit if you find a few quick lotus and are under your hour, pick a few herbs along your path for bonus gold.

I hope this is useful for someone.

Copy Red Leader

In May I was diagnosed with severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Which basically means my soft palate or my throat blocks my airway and causes me to stop breathing in my sleep. During my sleep study, they found out that I stopped breathing 95 times an hour while I slept. No wonder I felt like hell.

This is the contraption I sleep with at night, and yes I'm much too vain to post a pic of myself with it on. The idea of this contraption is that it forces air into my airway and keeps the soft palate and throat from relaxing and collapsing.

My husband says I look like I'm about to blow up the death star, and calls me Red Leader.

After a few months on this thing, I do feel some better. I feel more rested, and I actually sleep a full 6-7 hrs a night.

The mask is uncomfortable and sucks ass, but I'm getting used to it. There are days I wake up annoyed with it and yell at it, call it bad names and throw it down and resign myself to being awake. But for the most part I'm just really glad to be getting a full night's sleep.

On occassion when I nap I rebel and don't put it on, but I make sure that it's a short nap.

Diabeetus

A week ago my vision started to go blurry. I thought it might be allergies (which I usually do get end of summer early fall) and after a few days on Benedryl, with no other allergy symptoms, and vision not improving I went to the ER.

My blood sugar was 547, normal is in the 120 range.

I've started on medication, but my vision is still blurry. Doc said it should come back once my blood sugar is down to about 400.

So now, I'm a newly diagnosed Diabetic. Which really sucks.

Fortunately there is a few funny YouTube videos poking fun at Wilford Brimley. He's a major force for the recognition of Diabetes through his Liberty Medical ad campaign, and a diabetic himself, but he is also naturally and unintentionally funny. Thank you for giving me something to giggle at in an unfunny situation.

Rock Me Diabeetus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4LyaNgzy6U

Family Guy Clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ujLvxLi0M&feature=related

Diabeetus dance mix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hNu1I9r_1A

Back To School

So the kids went back to school yesterday. Now I know a lot of parents do the dance of joy when their kids go back to school, and there is a little part of me that is dancing.

But for the most part I get a little sad when they go back.

I know that other people's children will at some point be mean to my children and that really annoys me and makes me not like other people's children.

I know they will learn the victor's side of history, and not see all the points of view.

I know they will be forced to learn things they will never use for the arbitrary reason that someone thought they should.

I know that people who don't know my children will be resolving their conflicts and may not see their point of view.

I know my kids will be offered something they shouldn't put into their bodies, and I hope that I have taught them well enough they will decline it.

(rushes to go pick them up from THAT place)

There, back home and safe with me to warp them on my own terms.

Altruism

This is my relaying of one of the rants my dad likes to go on, thought I would share it


al·tru·ism

–noun
1.
the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others.

Altruism does not truly exist in our world. People do kind acts for each other all of the time, but there is always some selfish motivation. There is nothing wrong with this because sometimes our motivations are good, and serve a higher purpose. But acknowledging that we get some reward from helping others gives us the pat on the back we need.

The good motivations:

The fuzzy feeling of helping others that helps us to feel like we've done something to help another. This helps to build our self esteem, and helps us to feel a part of our world.

The act of making the world a better place for this future generations.

Knowing that you took part in positive change in a person's life.

To pay a karmic, spiritual, or legal debt to our world.

The bad:

Buying your ticket to heaven, or good karma.

The feeling of power over someone weaker than you.

Unreasonable expectations from the people you help.

Does this mean we should stop doing kind things for people? No. It's just good to know that you do get something from it, and embrace that and own it. Reward yourself, revel in it, pat yourself on the back, feel the fuzzy, and give yourself credit for your good work!

Boredom

Today while reading forums I came across one titled "Boredom" and it inspired me to write a rant.

I heard a bit of wisdom somewhere (I don't remember who said it or I'd credit them) that only boring people are bored, and that has stuck with me.

If you are bored, then you do not have enough interests or work to do. An interesting person can always find something to occupy their time, and if none of their usual activities seem enjoyable at the time, then they find another one.

There is always something to read, do, observe, play. Even prison inmates find stuff to fill their time with, books, working out, talking, buttsecks...etc.

If you are bored, create something...anything, repair something, clean something. Make a blog fill it with rants even:)

Coffee is GOD

This image was posted on my WoW guild's website and confirms what I've always felt about coffee!

Coffee is GOD and it comes in Mocha flavor!

I really love coffee, the smell of it brewing damned near puts me into a state of ecstasy!

Juan Valdez is my personal savior! And if was practical to make sweet love to coffee, I'd do it!

My very favorite is the Starbucks Mocha Frappuchino in the bottles! They are much too expensive, too sweet, too decadent, but they are absolutely delightful!

I've often told people that I like my coffee like I like my men, blonde, sweet and rich, my hubby is at least 1/3, not too bad:)

Musings on Raising Children

I have two wonderful daughters aged 17 and 10. They couldn't possibly be any more different from one another. They are from two different fathers, the eldest's father has been a part of her life most of the time, but has lived far away most of the time, the youngest has never met her father due to harsh life reasons I will not go into. I met my husband about 6 years ago, but before then I pretty much raised my kids on my own.

When my husband and I began to get serious in our relationship, we had a discussion about his role in their lives. I told him that my little one needed a father, and my eldest needed a saint. To which he gave me the "huh?" look. My eldest has a father, and has a relationship with him. And they love each other a lot, he is not perfect and I won't go into his flaws here, but he cannot always be there has he lives half the country away. My husband agreed to take on the role of saint, parenting without the glory and credit of parenting, and to be prepared for the inevitable "You're not my father!" teenage eruptions. My youngest daughter has never known her father, and desperately needed a dad. He has taken this job on cautiously, but beautifully.

I was raised Pagan in Mormon Utah. We are not even remotely religious right now, and do not plan to be. One of our major challenges was teaching morality without religion. How do you teach someone to be a decent human being without the impending doom of going to hell, or karmic law? My answer to that was personal accountability, choice, and consequence.

Our family is an oddity where we live, and we have faced many challenges in parenting due to some of the choices we have made, and circumstances we have faced.

I have attempted to beat the stereotypes some people have about single parents, poverty, and blended families, and have tried very hard to be as effective a parent as I could be. I have made a lot of mistakes, and had some moments of sheer brilliance.

I thought I might share some of our experiences with the world, and see what happens.

What I have done right

Parenting is filled with triumphs, failures, near misses, and just plain old winging it. Sometimes its good to give yourself a pat on the back for the things you did right, especially in a world where there are enough people who will tell you what you did wrong.

Reading:

Literacy is hugely important to me. I feel very strongly that if a person can read and comprehend they can learn just about anything. My two daughters both read well above their grade level, and always have, with very little effort on my part. Here is what I did.

• I always chose TVs with closed captioning, and leave it on all the time. I feel like this puts a sub conscious connection between the word sound, and the look of the word itself.
• The kids were given reader books that help them to do it themselves. (Thank you mom n dad who are the kids' book fairies)
• When they asked how to pronounce a word I made them try it themselves first.
• They were given reading level appropriate dictionary, and when they asked what a word meant I had them look it up. (book fairies again)
• When I read to them I point to each word so they connect what I am saying to the word they see. And when they read to me I had them do the same thing.
• The kids were given a Karaoke machine, this has proved to be a fun and wonderful tool. (Thanks MiL)
• Harry Potter books, these have been so amazingly appealing and challenging for young kids. Whenever a new Harry Potter book has come out, I only saw the top of my eldest daughter's head except when she came up for food and bathroom breaks.

Their teachers will inundate them with repetitive reading assignments, which I personally feel like is arbitrary, and may actually cause them to not want to read for the joy of it, and may in fact make it so they find it to be a chore. I don't tend to enforce those reading assignments very strictly, as I feel like we have made reading a very incorporated part of our lives.

The Santa Clause:

Our family is not religious at all, we celebrate Christmas for the social reasons of the kids fitting in to a very religious location.

I had no clue how to deal with this subject, I asked family, friends, clients (one of whom is child psychologist who has been amazingly insightful), coworkers, basically anyone who would talk to me about it, I asked.

I was torn in many directions at once. How do I teach honesty yet lie to my kids about Santa? How do I include them in the fun and magic of Santa? How do I tell them the truth when the time comes? And most important, how much mileage can I get out of this Santa thing! After much internal debate about the subject I had a revelation (probably while sitting on the can, which is where most of my "AHA!" moments arrive). Make it like a game where I set the rules.

So here are my rules of Santa (and all other manner of make believe bringers of childhood wonderment for which I volunteered to be):

• Do not directly lie, but definitely allude with questions. For example, "Does Santa bring toys to children who scream?", "Do you think Santa will come if you are still awake?"
• Present the legend through reading books, stories, poems etc. If you say that there definitely is a Santa, and that he does this, this and this you have lied. If you present it via book and let them have the idea of it then you can always answer their questions with a question. "Is this true Mom?" "What do you think?"
• Santa does not get to take all the credit. Some gifts are from Santa, some from family. I did not want my kids to feel like Santa loved them more than their family. So Santa gifts were usually, stockings, underwear, jammies, and items of a magical nature such as fairy dust, and sleigh bells. But the big show gifts such as the bicycle they have been coveting, the dollhouse they cannot live without, credit goes to the actual gift giver. This was not so much done for ego, as much as teaching gratitude and the understanding that money and hard work earned that and that it wasn't created by elven slaves working in a sweatshop for cookies.
• Let them decide when they are ready for the truth, however in the case of my youngest she was actually not ready to give it up when it was past the age of most of her friends picking on her about it, or her arguing to defend Santa, I did have to nudge her along by creating reasonable doubt. I left clues for her to figure out.
• When they do confront you with "I am not so sure about this Santa thing." This is what I responded with: "This is one of those pivotal moments in your life right now where childhood moves towards adulthood, do you really want to take that step right now?" If they said yes, then I told the truth, and praised them for being so clever. If they said no, then I played along and tap danced around the question, usually with a question. "Do you think it's possible?"
• Leave clues to the truth so they can figure it out for themselves. I would hand write the tags, I would leave out the wrapping paper, throw the empty candy bags in the household trash. I feel like this is playing fair and lets their curiosity, and natural childhood nosiness turn them into sleuths.
• Understand that this is a big deal, most people remember how they found out about Santa, and it can either be a positive thing or a negative. I tried my best to make it positive, and praised them over and over about what smart kids they are, and let them mock me for being "careless" and leaving evidence, even though it was quite intentional. If they got cocky about it, as my little one did I would just say, "Perhaps I did that on purpose"
• When they learn the truth, explain to them that they have friends and younger family members who still believe, and briefly go over the rules with them about it, and remind them that it is not their place to destroy that fantasy for someone else, and that it is not appropriate to be a brat and say "There's no such thing as Santa!"

The one thing I wish I had thought to do in hindsight was when I labeled the Santa gifts, to mark them as "Santa?".

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say

Kids have the amazing ability to make you say things you'd never have thought you'd have to. Here is my ongoing list:

• "The cat is not a weapon!"
• "Who thought it was a good idea to eat cheese in the bathroom?"
• "What made you think that putting rock salt in your nose was a good idea?"
• "If you are going to use your words unkindly then I have to take your words away, you can have them back when you learn to use them nicely."

I'll add more as I remember them, or as they occur.