CROC! Finally a CROC! Yes, yes, yes!

Well, I have done the fishing daily practically every day since it hit in patch 2.4 almost a year ago. I have never got a crocodile and never got a hat on Seph at all. My rogue and druid both have crocs and druid has a hat, but Seph has been unlucky.

Today, that changed...


As you can tell from my Guild Chat response, I was a bit happy. Me and snarly went for a "get to know you" chat in a quiet corner of Dalaran...


He's a little cutie isn't he?

I've been de-stessing a little, as you can see from my recent achievements.


The pest control and Squirrel loving were quite easy once I'd made my list (I'm a great list maker - I have scraps of paper all over my desk). I managed a lot of them as I toured the world Elder hunting. I also did a few more zones for my Explorer title. Tonight I'm going for the last 7 Elders. The dungeon ones. Should be fairly easy.

Naxx, Angst, Boredom and Frustration

OK, so there's been a lot going on in my RL that has been causing me stress. I'm not going into details here, but the recession is biting everyone, so you can probably guess the most of it. I've been hiding from the world in WOW. I've been raiding 6 nights out of 7 (not bad for a casual guild, huh) and now I'm feeling down about it.

Naxx is going well. We're 12/15 Normal and 11/15 Heroic. Here is a dead Thaddius....


We're arranging 25 man runs 4 nights a week (remember we do 2 hours a raid). People are arranging their own 10-man stuff, but it's getting hard to fit it all in and guildies are all talking about what we're doing and how best to carry on with both the 10 and 25 man versions.

It's all doing my head in this week - I want to run away and cry.

I got all cross about a guildie wanting to arrange his own 10-man run and spouted off about it all being not very guild friendly doing it all in whispers and private emails and that it should be organised on the forums and all that sort of thing. This week someone has organised a run via the forums, but I've been asked to join another one, by a long standing guild friend who wants to go with a lot of his other RL friends and I'm all confused...

Argh! I wish I could clone me and play with everyone and do what they all want, be a friend to the world and still have space to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it.

Hmmm. Think I might need a bit of a break again.

But not tomorrow - I have 7 Elders to visit in dungeons to get my "Elder" title.....

Sephrenia the Elder, Chef Sephrenia, Sephrenia the Hallowed... I have too many choices. Why can't I just use them all and be "Merrymaker Chef Sephrenia the Hallowed of the Shattered Sun, Champion of the Naaru". Maybe a bit long, but it does sound nice though don't you think?

Saturday night and bored.

Well, I logged in on Saturday night a bit bored. Nothing was planned in the guild. I was going to go visit all the Elders but didn't really feel like it. Someone said he knew a pug group that was going to AQ40 if anyone wanted in. I thought about it for a while. I thought how I'd only ever seen 2 bosses in there and that was on my rogue and that I never dreamed I would go and see it all.

I thought that my guild either wouldn't go, or we'd struggle even at level 80 and it would be a tragedy. I decided that I'd give it a try - what the hell - it was Saturday night - surely a girl could go off on her own once in a while and have some fun.

There were 8 of us. It didn't feel good, but I arrived just as they got to the last bit of trash before boss one. A Green crystal dropped. I waited to see how others rolled. They needed, so I did as well. I WON! All those raids with 40 people in and never getting one - and now I have one! Woo Hoo. I have a silly bouncy bug thing that induces jumping.

We moved on... and got to the boss. Raid chat went

Guy1: "Tactics?"
Guy2: "Dunno"
Me: "He splits and you need to kill each bit"
RL: "Let's just give it a go and see"

Me (thinks to self) ... "oh dear, if this fails I am so out of here"

It didn't fail. We killed him very quickly.

And so it went on - all the way to the Twin Emperors. They were the first real challenge. I began to have a few disconnect problems. Not pretend ones - real ones. For some reason our internet kept dropping out or messing up or something, but I kept going off at stupid moments. I offered to leave, but they wouldn't let me and we kept going. By now the group was up to 15 of us. We killed the Emperors.

We moved on to the most thrilling sight I'd seen for a long, long time. I'd seen videos, read stuff and all sorts, but never actually been there. My heart was in my mouth.



We started. It was going well. Then.... I disconnected.....Nooooooooooooooooo.

Time passed as I frantically tried to get back in... I managed it, but it was too late - he was dead. I was gutted. All that effort and finally getting there and I would have nothing to show for it. But... I checked my achievements and there it was "Temple of Ahn'Qiraj: Defeat C'thun". Hurrah! I'd done it.


I want to take my guild back now, preferably on a night when my internet isn't playing up. I also want to go back and do all the other places and get my Classic Raider achievement. The rest I almost have done for real on my rogue, Lorienne (all except Nefarian), but it kind of feels like I should do them with Seph as well.

New Toy - Tiny Green Ragdoll

Awww - Mr Toymaker has a new toy in stock after the patch... a [Tiny Green Ragdoll] and isn't he just adorable...


He sits there all lovely for 3 minutes, then disappears. You can look at him again every 30 minutes.

Chef Seph

It kind of has a nice ring to it? Well, I'm not much of a Mum if I can't cook am I? I can even make my own alcohol now - Kungaloosh.


I finished that and feeling on an achievement day I decided to go to Scholomance and finish off my Well Read achievement with the books there...


I had so much fun killing the stuff in there I wondered if a little holy priestess could manage some of the bosses on her own. Yes, she could! I killed the bat guy, Rattlegore, Ras Frostwhisper and then wondered what you had to complete for the achievment. You also have to do Darkmaster Gandling. I had bad memories of him with my rogue. I'm not sure Seph has ever seen him before.

So - off I went and started on the 6 mini bosses. I didn't have to kill all the trash to get to them either! I did all the little guys, but the big 'un didn't appear. It seems you DO have to kill most of the trash before he will spawn - at least all the elites anyway.

When you're on your own and he teleports you to one of the rooms, he comes with you. Makes things a bit easier!

I did it! I soloed Scholomance. I know it is easy, but for me it felt like quite an achievement...


Screenie to prove I was on my own and didn't have a sneaky gnome mage in my group or anything. (I know - the UI is STILL on my to-do list).

My next achievements on the list are the new loving critters thing and Pest Control. Should keep me busy for a while...

Squeee - Little Fawn

Yay for new patches and presents in the post from Breanni.

I got a new little pet for the 75 pet achievement.

Here we are in Dalaran experiencing some lag casting our nerfed COH, but it looks very pretty though.

Friday Five (on Saturday)

Well, my reader list was at 36 messages by the time I'd finished WOW last night and it was too late to do much, so I didn't see Anna's Friday Five until Saturday morning....

They appealed to me again, but got me thinking. Much as I quite fancy proper RP - Seph is just too much like an extension of me to do real stuff. Most of the answers I think are basically me, not things I've invented and rolled into my character. Maybe I'll try that one day, but I've always been a Mathematician and not one who is great at English or imagination stuff. Ah well, I'm going to answer the questions anyway.

1. Does your character collect anything? Is that collection of any value to anyone other than them?

Sephrenia collects pets. She has 76 currently and is looking after another egg that she hopes will hatch into another one tomorrow.

2. What just irritates the hell out of your character? What makes them happy (in a silly way, like bubbles or balloons or goldfish), if anything?

Ironforge irritates the hell out of her - well, the old before TBC Ironforge in particular. Kids juming about everywhere, whirling, leaping, moving very fast backwards and forwards in front of her. Urgh!

One thing that makes he spectacularly happy is hugs, kisses or other signs of affection before a raid. She loves feeling appreciated, needed, wanted and singled out for someone else's attention.

3. What is your character’s favorite thing to eat?

Chocolate. Chocolate cake and a nice cup of tea.


4. If your character knew he or she would die tomorrow, how would they spend today?

She would go to the beach (one without murlocs) and sit with her loved ones watching the ocean until the sun set over it.

5. What is in your character’s pockets?

Papa-Hummel's pet biscuits, critter bites and a bit of soggy chocolate cake.

(And a bonus question, because it never fails to make me giggle when I think about it: If your character were a zombie… what kind of zombie would they be? (examples: braiiins. (subdued zombie). Braaains? (curious zombie). GRAAAIIIINS! (angry vegetarian zombie) ) - feel free to be totally off the wall with this one!)

Seph would be horrified, completely mortified, full of shame and hide from everyone until she died.

Almost a chef

Well, I've finally got as far as I can on my way to being Chef Sephrenia. All I need now is for Blizzard to actually make the achievement possible. This is apparently coming in patch 3.0.8.

My guild were all in Naxx 25 last night, but I had stuff to do so missed out. Guild chat was incredibly quiet. Nobody spoke to me in Officers chat either. So I bit the bullet and thought that I would try and get the Dinner Impossible Achievement.

I pre-made my 5 feasts and went to the BG area. I signed myself up for WSG, AB and AV. Up popped WSG. I laid out my feast. People nommed. Up popped AB, so I quickly left WSG and joined AB. More feasting.... This time I had to go do a bit of fighting, well, healing. I was in the middle of being splatted by a warrior/rogue combo when AV popped up. I died valiantly, ressed and moved on to AV. The 3 people also in the BG enjoyed my feast. I quit and went to make a cup of tea while my scary cat buff thing wore off.

Two more to go.... EOTS and SotA. I'd never been to SotA, but EOTS popped up first, so I laid out my wares. Nobody seemed interested, except the Horde Warrior who showed as much love for me as the previous one. Again, thankfully, the next BG popped up and I hot-footed out of there.

EotS - I arrived on a boat. I laid out my feast. Hurrah - I achieved!


The 2 people on the boat sat down to eat with me. The boat set off and my lovely feast didn't move with us..... we sailed off into the distance without our dinner!

I wandered about trying to get on the vehicles (with no joy), found a few people to heal, met another aggressive Warrior and the BG ended because we didn't have enough people.

But - it was short and sweet and I've managed to get all but my Northrend Gourmet done, so I was happy.

The guild also managed to down Noth and Heigan (Heroic), so it was a good night - wish I'd been there, but ah well.... another day.

Oh and it's been croc fishing quest 2 days running, but STILL no luck for me on that front. I am amazed that Blizzard made 4 pets available from a rare drop on a quest that only shows up once or twice in a blue moon. Whine, whine....

Pet Heaven

Well, I found out the new pet achievement in the next patch has been lowered from 100 to 75, so Seph will get her little pet deer - hurrah!

Also - I found a [White Tickbird Hatchling] on the AH at a sensible price (i.e. less than 200g). Then I waited for my Egg to hatch....


Hurrah! A cobra hatchling. That brings Sephs personal total pets to 76. Of course I went and bought my next egg. Kind of hoping for the Proto-Drake before the pet - at least I can always buy the pets - the mount is bop as far as I know.

New Year - peace at last

Well, the kids are back at school. The house is quiet. I'm too tired to play. Barkie and I couldn't sleep the otehr night so took a leaf from some of our guildies books (wonder if Mariposa would mind me linking her blog here - better ask her first...) and tried to do some stuff on our own.

Barkie has given up being a chicken of doom for a while and gone back to his tanking. He's been secretly stashing spare feral gear and has spent a LOT of gold on mats for some other lovely guildies to craft into Blue Wellies and things for him.

Fresh and lively from a Sartharion kill (first time for both of us and new Gloves for me - wheee and yes, I need to sort out my UI STILL)...


...we decided to explore places alone. We started with Nexus, normal. Easy mode. Killed Ormorok with no problems - was kind of nice with just the 2 of us and nobody to tell to move out of the way of things. Mariposa and Lylia (our priest/warrior guild couple colleagues) have done quite a bit on their own in HC Nexus, so spurred us on to try it heroic.

We got past quite a bit of trash and came to the last pat before the boss. There were 2 lady horse things that heal and 2 evil trees. They won. We got close a couple of tries, but by this time it was 3.30am and daughter's wake up time of 7am was looming (hurrah for kids that reach the age when they can turn the TV on by themsleves). I'm sure with a few tweaks, frostweave nets, fear, stuns and stuff we can actually get to the boss and think he will be less of a challenge than the trash!

Other things that have made me happy include...

Having a drunken-filled New Year's Eve run to BRD to get some [Sulfuron Slammer]


We also watched the band, because someone had the remote. Then I realised I'd never done the BRD achievement, so we went and killed big chief bad guy (and all his cronies all around him - all at once - hee hee) and installed a new queen...


Much better!

I got my Wyrmrest Accord Exalted and bought some new boots and a Red Drake (who needs gold anyway). I have finally managed to get round to Oracles rep grinding and got my Mysterious egg which I now have to wait until next Monday to hatch. I found a White Tickbird (which sings like Lurky from time to time) on the AH at a low price, so bought it. I resisted on the 3500g price on the Cobra Hatchling I saw. Let's wait and see what I get from my first few eggs before spending ludicrous amounts on my pets. Still no croc from the croc quest, which is still stupidly rare on my server. And it's harder to remember to go check it every day now it's in Shattrah and I've moved to Dalaran.


Oh - on the Oracles rep thing - I was quite proud of myself as I managed to solo the boss where you have to keep your chosen friend alive. This was in spite of not realising quite what I was doing and half killing the Oracle guy first. Durrr. The fight went on for ever - I used my shadowfiend twice and took a potion. Luckily the boss was a caster and didn't hit me for much at all, so 12 minutes or so later I was a great friend of the Oracles and killer of puppies.

Basically I've been having some fun - have now done all the dungeons (finally went to The Oculus - hate it - nasty dragon controlling and stuff - I suck at that sort of thing), been cooking, fishing, tailoring, alcheming and enjoying myself. I've not got back into raiding yet - with Christmas and stuff I've just not felt like it.

But now the Council need to get sorted and work out a plan for the guild. Elections are due soon and quite a few of the current Council have had enough. People have been whining too much, it's all feeling a bit like we've grown too big and running the ship is VERY hard work - it's such a thankless task sometimes. The whole thing needs a good sort out and I've got that to look forward to for the next month or so. I think it probably merits a post all to itself so I think I'm going to leave it for now and have a sleep. I'll come back to that one when I'm feeling brighter, maybe!