First Monday

It is my first Monday not working.  Two weeks until school starts for me and two weeks and 2 days until school starts for the boys.


I am taking 5 classes this semester.  This will be the first time I will be full time and I am very excited.  2 Comp Sci classes, 2 Math classes and one stinking English (rhetoric) class.  Have all but one book ordered from Amazon and am eagerly waiting the start. :)


The boys on the other hand have zero desire to go back to school, lol.  Nathan will be in the fourth grade, and is hoping that Mr. Cleveland is his teacher.  Let's keep our fingers crossed please.  He is an awesome teacher.  Trenton is entering the seventh grade.  I cannot believe that he is old enough to be in middle school.  He will have seven classes. His first and last class are his best classes, so lets hope that it will help with all the in between classes.


With me not working (that doesn't sound right), Scott has decided that he needs to pick up extra hours if they are ever offered.  Well, he got them this week.  His normal schedule is Wed-Sat from 6pm - 4:30am.  This week he will be working from Mon-Sat, possibly 6pm-6am.  That will definitely make up for my paycheck.


Now, I need help finding some good food blogs as I want to start trying all sorts of new things.  I have one blog that I follow at the moment and, of course, Pinterest.  The only problem with Pinterest is that a very good chunk of the recipes on there are desserts.  I want main meals, side dishes.  Easy ones and harder ones. I want to try all kinds of things.  And now that I have more time, this is the time to do this.  I want to have this cooking thing down before I graduate college and have to re-enter the work force.


I know this whole post sounds so disjointed, and they probably will for a little bit.  It has been a while since I have been blogging and I am just trying to get some of my jumbled thoughts down.  Pretty soon it should start flowing a little bit better. :)


Now, on the EQ2 front.

Well, I have 4 at level 92, 2 at 90, 1 at 81 and two other little alts.  I will soon dedicate a post to EQ2.  Although I am really disappointed in Skyshrine.


We will have 4 zones to run until the next expansion.  Reminds me of Kunark. I hate so little options. And you know we could go back and run all the DoV v1.0 stuff, but it seems not worth it anymore.  There are only a couple pieces of gear that worth the trip.  The Drunder neck and the EoW legs, for the time being, anyways.


I will update my character list at the side with links to EQ2U, the most awesome new site.  And will delve a little bit into each one later.


For now, I need to kick the boys outside and do a little bit of cleaning.


Be safe!


P.S. I have no idea why blogger is putting 2 spaces between paragraphs, as I am only typing one. 

Time

Time.  It is what I did not have a lot of up until this past week.  I haven't posted at all, because when I did have down time, I would rather play video games and zone out versus having to actually think.  The past four years, between school, work, the boys.....has been very busy.  It got extremely busy in April.


Scott was re-hired out at Chrysler.  On nights.  This made for tons of fun (/sarcasm) with having to do homework, work crazy hours to get my 40, take Nathan to one of 4000 practices, games and tournaments.  I was very tired and cranky.  I broke down several times. A decision had to be made.  One thing had to stop and my choices were either school or work.


I didn't make a lot of money, but we survived on my income.  Scott (with the new "rules" of Chrysler) doesn't make much more than me, but in the end, we decided that a couple more years of living on the slim side, would be worth it in end.  So, as of August 2, I am no longer employed and am embarking on a new quest to finish my degrees.


Yes that says degrees.  When I transferred to Rockford College, I took a lot of credits with me.  I only need approximately 30 credits to get my BS in Math, but I needed 30 more credits so that I could actually get my degree.  So I had to come up with more classes to fill my time.  I decided that I would step it up a notch and double major.  So when I finally graduate college, I will end up with a BS in Math and a BS in Computer Science. 


I have to say that my decision to quit work and focus solely on school has me scared. And excited.  Is it the right decision to make?  Will it be worth it?  How the hell could I quit my job in an economy like this?  The answers will come soon enough I am sure.


Can you believe that Trenton turned 12 yesterday? Ya, neither can I.  He is very excited to now be a pre-teen or tween.  Nathan is 9 now.  He has graduated from speech therapy and is doing really well.  Baseball and Hockey are his life (and mine, or so it seems at times).


For now, that is it.  I will be back with updates from school, kids, life without a job, and EQ2 (have to update that one, and my links to my toons).

07-08-09

Ahhh, real life. Not as good as some would like it to be, but we are surviving. The boys are absolutely huge. Nathan just turned 7, and Trenton is about to turn 10. They really are quite a pair.

We have been busy running them around to baseball games and tournaments. Unfortunately, Nathan broke his foot the other night (playing the Wii of all things), so his baseball summer was cut short, but he will be up and ready to go for Hockey this fall.

Trenton will be going in the fifth grade (/falls over) and Nathan will be making his way into the second grade this year.

Scott is Scott. He is still unemployment and that is not from lack of trying. The job market around here sucks ass and well, what do you do? He has decided to see about pursuing a career in Radiology, which would require one year of school and a couple years of internship. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed.

I am still in school. I will graduate with my Associates of Science in May 2011. After that I will be heading to NIU to pursue my degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. It has been a hard road so far and will only get harder, but I will make it!

EQ 07-08-09

Am I back?

I don’t know yet. I was reading a bunch of stuff earlier and it made me think of this lovely blog that I haven’t touched in a while. Thought maybe I would start it back up and see what happens.

Figured I would also start with EQ2, as I am still playing. Not as diligently as I was before, but I am still there.

I am not sure I like this expansion much. I know TSO let me down. TSO was fun at first and then went downhill. I ended up cancelling my account for about 6 months. Came back and leveled up a coercer, as I really didn’t want to play Krys as much. I began to play Krys again with SF came out, although, again, I am not sure I like this expansion. I am waiting for the announcement from the fan faire about what the next expansion is. (/whispers Velious) I hope we don’t have to wait until February for it either. And I do hope that there is a level increase. The expansion after Velious can go with no level increase but I would like one for Velious.

As for my lovely toonage:

Krystalea: My wizard. She is still my main and I really enjoy playing her the most. I have to say that she is really starting to gain some power. The other night in the library I think I had a 14k parse. I need to pull up ACT and will post the screen shot. That was an awesome feeling. I am also sitting consistently at around 7-8k zonewide on the parse. That is so nice. The only issue with that is of course if you have a crappy tank in front of you. At any rate, Krys is level 90, a 90 sage, 450 transmuting and adorning, 50 tinkering (or something like that) and 213 AA’s. I have yet to finish all the quests in Sundered Frontier or the Moors of Ykesha. I missed a lot of zones in TSO as well, and only have two updates left for Chapter 5. (ya still working on that, lol).

I have been running battlegrounds with Krys and having a blast. I really like those and it makes for a nice break when there are no groups to be had and when I really don’t feel like questing, which is often. I have 5 pieces of the BG armor right now, and am working on the last two pieces. After that I will be saving my tokens for my other toons, to get them geared up.

I would like to raid, but unfortunately I cannot find a guild with the time slot I need, and between working full time, going to school part time and two boys to run after, I think my raiding goals will have to wait until my life calms down some. Although I would be up for forming an alliance with another guild to get some raiding done here and there.

Gonna do just a quick rundown with the other characters.

Zymeria: 85 Defiler, 90 Provi, 160 (?) AA’s and 400 Tinkerer.

Zephina: 87 Bruiser, 90 Jeweler, 166 AA’s.

Arzania: 81 Swashy, 80 Woodworker, can’t remember AA’s.

Calipso: 81 Coercer, 66 Tailor, 160-something AA’s.

Attalyne: 30 Trouby, 90 Carpenter, maybe 15 AA’s. I rarely adventure with this toon.

Rysina: 19 Ranger, 45 AA’s and no tradeskill class yet. I was thinking Alchemist, as I have zero desire to do weaponsmithing or armoring ever again.

I see a pattern in my posts

And it is that I don't post very often. I am not even going to make promises this time as we all know that I will not keep it. /nods

I am also at a place where I can't post right now, so hopefully shortly I will be back.

07-20-09

Trenton had a tournament (kinda) this weekend. It was in Chicago. The coach got them new uniforms for it. Bright yellow and navy blue. The kids looked awesome. They also played really well. There were different rules to play by, like full kid pitch, plus the kids could steal, have triples, have infield home runs. Plus, the pitchers mound was 2 feet closer to the plate and the bases were all 3 feet longer. So for all that, plus their first time playing anywhere but the two boys and girls club parks, they did exceptionally well. We lost both games, the first 5-4 and the second we held them off, winning 2-0 until the final inning. You could tell the boys were getting really tired. This was also their first double header. Anyways final inning, the other team hit a home run and I think that just did the boys in.

In the end, it was awesome, fun, and you can't get that kind of experience for the $4 it cost.

That was the excited that was our weekend. I got a ton of school supplies all set up, now we have to work on school clothes. This is the last week for baseball for Nathan. Trenton's last week will be next week, as his team is in the year end tournament.

Busy busy we are.

07-10-09

Ahhh. It is so nice to have work to do at work. I am loving this. Unfortunately, that also means less time to do other things. **ahem** We lost one of our employees and we are not going to replace her, which is fine by me. The days are going fast and things have been decent.

The boys are the boys. I, of course, cannot think of anything to write about, other than I am sorry that it has taken me a few days longer than I wanted to make a post. The bad thing about waiting, is you can never remember the stories so you can tell them. I will make a more valiant effort to remember these things and type them out.

As well as the pictures of my garden that I promised a while ago.

Well I suppose I should head on my way out of this post.

p.s. No EQ2 post as well, as I have been so busy I haven't played at all. :(

EQ2: 06-30-09

You know, I do not like people who think they are better than everyone else. I ran Kurns last night, finally. 1st thing: For as long as it took them to release it, I was not impressed. I was impressed that the repeatable quest in there pays out 2pp though, that rocked. 2nd: I went to run this zone with Krys, and ended on Zym, solo healing, this thing. Here's the deal, I did it, with a couple problems, but the tank was an ass.

Listen buddy, I am in T1 shard armor, all my spells are adept 3, I have my fabled epic, and I haven't played this toon in 4 months. Sorry it took me .5 seconds to hit cure curse not .1 second. Sorry even though it's frontal attacks, I can't watch the action for some reason as it lags me out, so when you start the fight out with me being positioned away from the mob, and my back is to you, and the next thing I know I die, due to frontal attacks, and you yell at me, Fuck off!! You are the one to position the mob, don't yell at me. I am sorry my healing was inept to you, but I think I did a damn fine job considering the mentioned above, and the fact that I have never been to this zone. (and a few macro's that shouldn't have been macro's)

Anyways, this dude spent the whole zone yelling at me and then as soon as the final mob died, disbanded. God I was pissed. And really, I only had a problem with one named, the second guy we killed that mem wiped. But now that I know the zone, should be no problem. Next on my list of zones to try Emperor's Anathenum.

06-30-09

Well, I just couldn't wait for Transformers to become a member of the five buck club, so we spent a small fortune and went and seen the movie on Friday night. The boys absolutely loved it. There were a few language bits that I thought were over the top and hopefully flew over the boys' head, but no comments were made. I liked it myself. Good robot fight scenes. Robot destruction. The camaro. Bumblebee will always be my favorite /nods.

One thing that we all /gasped at was one of the trailers. Avatar: The Last Airbender. We are all so excited to get see this movie. Too bad it will not be released until next summer. If you have not had the chance to catch the cartoon, I recommend it. Like 6 out of 5 stars recommend. It was an awesome cartoon. There were 3 seasons. I wish they would make more. My one request for the movie: As much as I love Aang, Katara, Sokka, Suki, Zuko, Nut Job Crazy Azula, I really hope that they do justice for Uncle.

Trenton earned his green stripe in Tae Kwon Do. I have pictures, need to upload to my computer and post them. That was our exciting weekend, Transformers and Tae Kwon Do.

In the garden world. I had around 30 stalks of corn, I am down to 15. Gives me ideas for planting for next year. I have pulled around 4-5 cups of raspberries off my two plants, so I hope all the transferred canes take next year. That would be awesome. And in other veggie news, I have about 8 zucchini's on their way. I have tomato's starting as well, and some pepper flowers but no peppers yet. Of course, while typing this, I thought of a tagline (sigline) from one of my message boards: Hope, like zucchini, springs eternal. Cracks me up.

06-29-30

Okay, we are down one person in the office, she is gone. If I don't get a chance today, but I will try this week to get an update going. /nods.

P.S. The eldest gained his green stripe yesterday. Woot!!