I have been playing World of Warcraft since a little before March of 2005. Prior to playing this game, I'd notched seven years of playing GemStone III, around one year of Anarchy Online, and two years of Starwars Galaxies. I'd played some other games on and off, a few months at a time, but nothing that showed real commitment.

I did take a break from World of Warcraft. Around November of 2007 - April of 2008, I had closed my account. The stress of trying to lead a guild while simultaneously working over forty hours a week and going to school full-time while planning a wedding and managing a household with a fiance and two children aged one and three broke me. I quit my jobs, I bailed on wedding plans, I dropped the guild, and I stopped playing WoW. All I had left was school and managing that household. I don't regret a second of it. I was being pulled in so many directions by so many people that if I hadn't pulled back, there on the brink, I would have imploded and lost myself.

In the time that I was not playing WoW, I picked up other aggressive hobbies. I became a vegetarian, and then a flexitarian. I planned out an organic garden (and implemented it). I moved ahead aggressively with school, and decisively, and now I will graduate in December.

Looking back, though, I was missing something very social. I don't play World of Warcraft to escape my life. I play the game to enhance my life. I don't have the money, time, or inclination to go out to bars every night. I don't have the money or time to go to new movies when they come out. A lot of events that people throw or attend to get in some social aspect of their life is missing from my life. I don't even get much social interaction at work or school, because I spend so little time there (in-and-out) in a need to minimize daycare costs.

However, for $15 a month plus internet costs, I am able to play a game, unlimited except for time constraints and the needs of my family, work, and school, with people from all over the country and world. Friends of mine that have moved away, new people that I've never met that will become great friends, and people that I've known for years who've always lived in another state.

I don't play WoW to win. I don't play it to get all the PvP gear or all the raiding gear or to get six 70s. I play WoW to hang out with people I enjoy, to get in some social needs by talking and laughing and creating inside jokes with people, and to just have fun.

Some people have told me that it is an extremely nerdy thing - this playing WoW. My response is that when I play WoW I am playing with people. When they watch TV for that same amount of time, they are alone. Who is actually more reclusive?

What do you think?

Labels: random

Captioned: "Sometimes I feel like I'm just hanging on by a single nail, too."

When I first came to the University of Iowa, Aaron, Nate, and I attended several of the students with children group meetings. At one of them, someone from Lowe's came in and taught the kids to make these simple bird houses. It's now been around three years, and the bird house is starting to fall apart.

That's okay, though. It adds character.

Labels: mommy blogging

Hello! I got done with work early so I have some free time. Jen suggested that I write about what I would do if I had $10,000 but that's too easy so it wouldn't be an interesting read. I would pay off Jen's credit card debt so she didn't have to worry as much, then use the rest to pay off most of mine. See, not very exciting, right? For a more interesting piece, see my following monologue on speed limits.

Speed Limits (According to Aaron)
I love America. I don't feel that we have more social problems than other countries, I believe ours are just more publicized. When someone gets down on America for being still young at just over 200 years old, I wonder what their excuse is for the European countries who still have ridiculous problems despite being the "older, wiser" siblings.

Moving on, one of the parts of America that I love is its inhabitants' interpretation of the phrase "speed limit." Being a logical type, it makes sense to me that a speed limit should be the maximum speed you are allowed to travel on that section of pavement. But that is so clearly not the case no matter where you go in the U.S. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind! But it's interesting to note that even a word with such authority and finality as limit (put in bold here for emphasis) can be skewed in a land as lovely as America.

With that being said, I've gotta run, so I'm up, up, and away (at 5-8 mph over!)

What I would do today if I had a free $10,000.

$3,269.47 - Pay off my credit card debt
$1,200.00 - Pay off my computer / Canon Rebel
$3,130.00 - Pay off my car

Total: 7,599.47

The remaining $2,400.53 would be applied towards student loans (~31k). I'd save just enough to buy one CD, though. Then I'd spend a month pouring over all the possibilities before I bought the one CD, to make sure I really savored having enough money to purchase something frilly and unnecessary for myself.

What would you do if you had a free 10k?

Labels: random

RIP Trixy
September 17, 2008



We only owned Trixy for a very short time period, but we were fond of her as a family. Trixy had to be euthanized yesterday as she was suffering from either a brain tumor or brain damage. It was our first family pet, other than a fish, to die. It was also the first time Nate and Sammi had to be told one of their companions was never coming back. We had a nice little funeral in our back yard, and they seem to be none the worse for wear. Having been there for every second of Trixy's ordeal in the veterinarian's office, I don't know that I am quite the same.

Labels: random

So... I didn't get to write an illuminating post this weekend, either. I'm going to stop making excuses and just post when I can.

On that vein, I've been using Google Reader lately to get my news. I am in lust after most of google's programs, and this is no exception. I've read about more issues now than I had in the past two months combined.

I never would have seen this interesting story or the SNL skit that has been paired with it: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/17/palin_clinton/index.html. And what a shame that would have been.

Do any of you use Google Reader? Want to share stories?

Labels: news, random

My mother is watching the children this weekend. I plan on getting some things done around the house, doing some homework, and actually posting pictures and possibly blogging several of them.

When did I run out of time to do one of my most cherished daily activities?

I could write all about the nerves I'm experiencing when I think about graduating in December. How I don't know what I'm going to do for a job, or how I'm going to be parted from my children (whom I've spent the majority of my weeks home with for over two years now). How I'm not sure I'll be accepted into the work place because I'm obnoxious, loud, and opinionated.

Oy. If I could wrap up all of my insecurities and anxiety and hand them over to someone (preferably someone who could handle them better than I could), I would do that in a heartbeat.

Maybe this weekend I'll recover some of my sanity, get some peace, and complete one of my favorite activities.