It’s That Time Of Year Again…

You know the routine… make a few promises to yourself, keep them easily for a few weeks… feel bad that you didn’t even make it to March… Yup… The New Year is approaching very quickly… and I’m itchin’ for a change…

 

so you’ll find me over at Verbose, Morose, and Comatose from here on out.

Update your bookmarks! That address is:

http://www.vmandc.wordpress.com

I’ll see ya there!

 

Happy New Year!

Poets Have Been Mysteriously Silent on the Subject of Cheese

–G.K. Chesterton “Alarms and Discursions”

I used to fancy myself a poet, once upon a time. However, I never had much love for haikus. These syllable based poems used to drive me crazy, as they were, in my mind, too structured and forced to be short to be of much use in expressing myself. However, the newest weekly challenge has set a new goal for me… overcome this hatred for the 17 syllable haiku, and bust out five of them. Ready for my first haikus? Here they are…

Creamy mild flavor,

Fun to play with when eating

swiss cheese is so good!

(HA! Take that, G.K. Chesterton)

 

Cold air bites my skin

Visable breath in small puffs

November is here

 

Laundry all around,

Dishes need to get done too

So many chores to do

 

Bills are owed, need paid,

Rent is due, car payment, too

Off to work I go.

 

Kids aren’t babies now,

But not grown to teenager.

Slow down and enjoy!

 

Nope, still not fond of haikus, but glad I gave it a shot. I know there’s two weekly challenges written by me. The earlier post is from last week’s challenge, but I didn’t notice that before I wrote it, so you get two today. Enjoy.

History is the Essence of Innumerable Biographies

–Thomas Carlyle

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my mother, Lee Ann, passed away about a week ago. I’d written about her before, but came across a weekly writing challenge called “Traces” in which we are challenged to write about leaving our mark on the world, and she’s the first person I thought of when regarding this challenge.

When reflecting upon my mother, of course there are fond memories, there are not so fond ones, too. My mother was not a saint… far from it in fact, but I loved her even more for all her misgivings. She was raised in California, dirt poor, in the 1950’s and 60’s. She had two older half brothers and one younger sister. She didn’t like to tell me stories about the things she did when she was young very often, but I know she was picked on, hated her own image, and made some rather poor choices in husbands early on.

When I tell other people about my mother, I don’t sugar coat a thing. She was honest, and so too am I. Her honesty could hurt sometimes, and maybe she wasn’t always transparent with everyone, but she was with me. When my sisters and I reminisce of her, we don’t talk about that trip we took or that time she was so nice… we tell stories about how people stared in horror as she yelled at us in a Mc Donald’s play place to get down or she’d “rip our arms off and beat us over the head with it”.

So why am I writing about my mother in a challenge about leaving my mark on the world? Well, I’m pretty certain that I’m (one of) her marks on the world. Sure, she made some awesome stuff that will still be around, now that she’s gone. She met lots of people, even took some of them in and cared for them when they were down. Those people will remember her and what she did, too. But I (and my siblings) are the result of her molding. Her mindset; brought to life. I am the product of her lifestyle, choices, personality… her everything. I am her mark on the world, and so too my children will be, after I’ve had more time to mess with their little minds and mold them into my little clones.

I am not my mother’s twin, but I carry a lot of her with me. We had the same hair, the same laugh, and the same pace and tone when speaking. People mistake me for her on the phone. Her views and mine were like night and day on some topics, and on ones we agreed on, we’d still debate the same side. She wasn’t the most understanding of what I thought, and nor I of her. She and I weren’t physically affectionate either. Honestly, I should have hugged her more. My mother loved the crap out of me though. I know she was proud of me, she said so often.

Now that she’s gone, her legacy is what she made. She made tons of objects, like dog agility equipment, painted rocks, polished rocks, paintings, blankets, and shadow boxes. However, it was the life she made herself, and those who gravitated towards it, that are her true legacy. I am who and what I am because of her, and I know she altered other lives outside our family, too. She was naturally nurturing, and people always just found her. Her legacy is her story, and now that she isn’t here to tell it, I suppose I should someday.

I hope someday I have impressed upon my children the importance of legacy; of family, and how they are my mark on the world. I’ve learned from my mother’s shortcomings and try not to have the same ones, but I’m sure the ones I do have will be remembered by my children. Someday, when they talk about legacy, I hope they think of me, I hope they know that THEY are MY mark on this world… and pass that on to their children. My story, my legacy, my mark on the world, is family.

Everything Happens to Everybody Sooner or Later if There is Time Enough

-George Bernard Shaw

More than a year has gone by since I opened my mouth last… perhaps that’s a good thing. Rather than apologize, I saw a quote while looking up ideas on how to write about the passage of time and came across this little bit of pleasure…

Sometimes I need what only you can provide: your absence

It made me think that apologizing to the internet for not having time for it is rather silly, since odds are, no one noticed I wasn’t writing. As depressing as that thought might seem, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t write here for any other person’s pleasure, just my own. It’s a nice little journal of sorts that I am willing to share, and if someone is willing to read, all the better.

So I’ll try to recap the last year as briefly as possible… mostly so I can remember to write about these events later.

• We spent Christmas last year in Bremerton with family, for the first time in 10 years.
• In January I promised myself to be healthier… and I promise I tried… for about a week.
• In February I got a job at Burger King… In April I quit. Don’t work there. Just don’t.
• April brought Lillie’s 6th birthday.
• In late April I started working for The Home Depot. Do work there. I still do.
• In June Hayden turned 10. Double digits earned him a trip to a water park. Turns out I don’t care for water slides… or find I feel too fat for them. See January.
• Also in June I joined a gym. That lasted a month due to cost… but I lost weight.
• In July my mom found out she had cancer. I spent a week or so in the hospital with her.
• In August I decided the weight had to go. Between August and November I lost like 30 lbs.
• In September both kids were in full time school. I wish they’d quit getting older, cause that means I am too.
• In October I turned 29, Mom turned 59, Dustin turned 38, Molly turned 19, and I had my 11th wedding anniversary. I also worked too much, and didn’t celebrate much, but I did get an awesome 3DSXL and Animal Crossing for a present!
• For my anniversary, though, I went to a Navy League Ball. It was fancy… and boring. But I got to wear an expensive dress.
• For Halloween, Hayden was a Creeper, and Lillie was the Pink Power Ranger. Also, Bill visited.
• November 6th was Garen’s birthday. He’s still old. (33)
• On November 11th I arrived at Harrison Hospital at 3:30 in the morning, for my mother.
• On November 13th I got to talk to her for the last time.
• On November 16th, she passed away. (Also Garen’s late mother Charlet’s birthday)
• On November 22nd, my sister in law Gina was being a sneak and got eloped. (CONGRATS!)
• Tonight I redid the blog, merged in older posts, and got ready to try writing again.

I make no promises to commit to writing, because I never seem to follow through. But I’ve got the bug, because my hubby got the bug… and well, anything he can do I can do better! (Not really, he’s got a knack for words).

I’ll try to expand upon these things in the next few days… but there’s the short version.

Goodnight!

-Andrea

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Just after Cataclysm came out I decided it was time to take a break from WoW. I had been playing since Vanilla and was just downright bored. After nearly two years away from the game I found myself curious about the new expansion. Pandas!? I mean, there are so many possibilities for Blizzard to turn into content, but I didn’t think it would be the Pandaren. Alas, it was, and I was finding myself itching to know more. I finally relented and bought the expansion and fired up my WoW account once again.

Some things hadn’t changed, others were incredibly different. For people who are coming back to the game, here are some things I learned either by accident or with the help of some friends that you might want to learn about too.

1. Core Abilities Tab – This tab tells you about your most important spells, and when you should use them. Having been away for a while I found this tab to be awesome at refreshing my memory at how to play the various classes. You can find this under your profession/spell book page.
2. What’s Changed Tab – There’s a tab that explains what recent changes have been made to your class. I’m one of those people that usually reads the patch notes in depth, but if I wanna get lazy about it I’m glad that this tab is there.
3. Dungeon Journal – It’s like Atlas Loot, but also explains boss abilities, and information about a dungeon in addition to listing the possible loot. Extra bonus, it has filters to narrow down not only your class, but your spec, too! You can view this by pressing Shift+J.
4. Pet/Mount Journal – There was a tab for this before, but now it’s got it’s own journal. In addition to simply being a place to access all your collections, it’s also the interface for pet battling. You can access this by pressing Shift+P.
5. AOE Looting – This is one of those things I had to figure out. I was killing groups of mobs, but could only loot one. Gone are the days of looting every body, now it’s just one and done!
6. Pet Battles – It’s like Pokemon, but in WoW! Remember all those vanity pets you collected up over the years? Now you get to battle other pets! You can even capture new pets in the wild. It even has a host of achievements to go along with it all.
7. Daily Quests – Ok, daily quests aren’t new. In fact, they aren’t generally a favorite either, but the cap is now gone… and I have one friend who called this the “Expansion of Dailies” and I’d have to agree.
8. Scenarios – It’s like a mini dungeon, but only requires 3 people, has a really short queue, and rewards you with gold and Valor points. These are great options for people who want to do something outside of the usual dungeon crawl.
9. All the Usual Changes – All those things you expect to see in a new expansion such as new dungeons, gear, abilities, locations, profession changes, et all. I would love to list them all here, but that is something I’d like to expand upon more in another post.

For all that has changed, the game is still the same at heart. It’s a place to be social, have fun, and explore the lore that is Warcraft. I’m glad to be back and if you’re thinking about coming back, don’t forget about those Scrolls of Resurrection, if you qualify, you can automatically have a toon leveled to 80 for you. I’ll see you out in the World.

Relapsing Addict

Hello World!

It’s been a very long time. For anyone checking back in that may have read in the past, thank you for checking up on me. For those of you who don’t know me, there’s a little bit of a story for you. I used to blog. It started with AltohoicMom, which evolved to Altoholics R Us. Twice my blog was hacked, and the second time I was unable to recover all the data. This was so infuriating, that I gave up blogging. Eventually, just after Cata released, I gave up on WoW, too. School, work, kids, and life in general kept me busy and I was content to stay without WoW for a while. However, I’ve finished my school program and currently am unemployed, so I’ve found time for WoW again, and with WoW, I found myself wanting to write again.

I don’t think I’ll start off as involved as I left off, but I’ll get there. For now I want to focus on the changes for players who may just be returning or those who are just starting out in Panda Land. I haven’t reworked my UI yet, and I haven’t gotten to play all my characters yet, but I have done enough that I feel I have a leg to stand on. So please do check in, I’ve got some great ideas for your reading pleasure!

This time around I’m letting WordPress host the site, as apparently I am not the greatest at ensuring the security of my own site. Maybe I’ll get up to self hosted later, but for now we’re stuck with WordPress themes. Sorry for that but I’ll do what I can with it. Regardless welcome back to Altoholics R Us, I’m excited and you should be too!

Everyone Thinks of Changing the World, But No One Thinks of Changing Himself

-Leo Tolstoy

Today is day 1.

Today is the day I am supposed to begin the change to be better. A better mother, a better wife, a better member of society. I’ve picked two areas to focus on; weight loss and smoking. Doing these two things hand in hand might seem crazy, but it made sense to me to replace my bad habit (smoking) with a good one (exercise). I don’t expect perfection. I don’t even expect fast results, but I do expect to start somewhere, and that somewhere for me is here. So here’s my starting point information.

I was smoking about 1.5 packs a day.

I weighed in at 257 pounds this morning. 55 gained from my big loss a couple years back. That’s almost all of it.

Quitting smoking isn’t easy by any means, but my method is. The method I have chosen is cold turkey. I have support in my husband Garen who is also quitting cold turkey. I might slip up, I might not. If I do, I’ll just continue on as if I hadn’t slipped.

Weight loss will be done in steps. With the holidays right around the corner I don’t want to push myself to go on a huge diet. I know this will lead to failure on my part, and then discouragement. I am skipping any major dieting until after the holidays. Instead, I want to build a routine of going to the gym.

With my health problem of having large ovarian cysts, I aimed for strength training as opposed to cardio. Building muscle helps burn fat, they say. I did some looking around and decided that my local Curves was my best option. They have a circuit, support, and motivation that I would need in order to be successful in having a workout routine.

I will start with getting used to working out, add the diet in later, and quit smoking all at the same time. Is it a lot to do? Yes. But I’m holding myself accountable by writing about it. I will have setbacks, I will have success, and I will share it here. 257 lbs to start, 150lbs goal. That’s 107 lbs to lose. And a whole lot of smoking as well. Wish me luck!

Andrea

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

Alright, so I see I haven’t posted since last January. Bad me, bad. I know, it’s bad practice to take off and not say anything for months… but I was really really busy. So let me see if I can recap a little bit for you.

 

1. In February or so I decided to pause my schooling because work and kids and life were seriously getting in the way.
2. Hayden did some Tae Kwon Do. He managed to get to Green Belt. So proud!
3. We headed to a Circus in Milwaukee. I haven’t been to one of those in like, forever.
4. In March, I got my tattoo… That smarted a bit. Rockstar Tattoo is awesome, btw!
5. Lillie turned 5 in April. She had a small party at Ricky Rat’s… I mean, Chuck E. Cheese
6. In May, we went to see the animals at the Petting Farm.
7. Hayden turned 9 in June. He had his party at Lightspeed. Go Karts and Lazer Tag FTW!
8. In June, Garen began a transfer from Cheboygan, Michigan to Astoria, Oregon. He stopped in Milwaukee to pick us up.
9. This meant in June I had to quit my job at the Geek Squad, which is too bad, cause I actually really liked my job.
10. I also got my new phone. Traded in an iPhone 4 for the Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s HUGE!
11. I spent all of July living at my parents. That was…. fun.
12. We got to blow stuff up for the 4th of July.
13. In August we moved into our new house.
14. August also brought football practice for Hayden… which he then quit last week.
15. August was also Bill’s 50th birthday. Happy Birthday, Bill!
16. August is also the start of Lillie’s Soccer Practice. Go girl, Go!
17. August is also the month the kids began and excelled at Swim Lessons.
18. We also went camping in August. I don’t love camping.
19. This weekend we’re headed up to Bremerton to go to the Kitsap County Fair… So excited!

So now you’ve been updated. Sorry for the short recap but there’s really too much to fit into a single post. Here’s some pictures of the missed stuff…

Half of the Squad…

Last day at work with the co-workers. I miss them.

Lillie’s Face Painting at the Circus

Hayden during Tae Kwon Do

Hayden and Lillie playing LaserTag at Lightspeed

Hayden and Lillie at the Farm

 

Until Next Time,

Andrea

 

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Day 6: A picture of something that makes you happy

Hi! Did you miss me? I’ve been gone a long while… had to move and such, ya know, Coast Guard Life and all. Anyways, this post is a little challenging because it involves me declaring what makes me happy. The problem with this is figuring out what it is exactly that makes me feel great. In general, I really like pictures, so pictures make me happy… but lets see if I can dig out a few that make me feel that seemingly elusive feeling.

I’m gonna go ahead and put a break here due to the many pictures…

Pure Moods

Day 5: A song to match your mood

This one is actually kinda tough for me. My mood changes on a moment’s notice, in fact, over the last couple of hours I could easily pick a few songs to match my mood. There’s generally a couple of songs that I end up coming back to time and again, so I’ll list these as my “general moods”. Also, while the versions in my iPod are not edited, I’m playing safe here and listing clean versions of the songs, so enjoy.

Affirmation – Savage Garden

Perfect – P!nk

The First of the Year – Skrillex (This one is a bit different, it’s dubstep, I hear it a lot at work, and the video is interesting, but perhaps a bit intense for small kiddos, though still clean)

So there ya go, it’s kinda like my day, on speed.

Until Next Time,

Andrea