Prayer Request

Wow it's been a long time since I've updated. I haven't forgotten you guys, I promise. :-)

Life has been pretty hectic for my husband and myself over the past month or so. Let me give you a little update about our lives before I hit into the real reason for my post today.

Around the beginning of August, I started having really bad pains in the lower left part of my stomach. My doctor blew it off as an inflamed colon and said it would take care of itself and I didn't need to worry about it. However, when the pain didn't go away, he sent me in for an ultrasound to see if there was something else there that might be causing the pain. We found out from the ultrasound that I did indeed have a cyst on my ovary which is what my doctor was thinking, but it was on the right side of my body, and not the left where my pain was. So that left us thinking it's either a kidney stone or a UTI. He put me on an antibiotic to clear up any kind of infection I might have and I started drinking lots of juice in case it was a kidney stone.

Meanwhile, since I have a cyst on my ovary, he recommended I let my gynecologist know and he told me that the hospital recommended I go back for another ultrasound in six weeks to make sure the cyst went away. I did a little reading about cysts and discovered that they do typically go away on their own, but if they get to be in the neighborhood of 5 cm or so, they usually do surgery to remove them. I found out from my gyno that my cyst is 2.9 cm long but she's not that concerned about it. I'm actually going to have another ultrasound in a couple of weeks to make sure it goes away and she switched the meds that I'm taking to see if that helps keep cysts out of my body.

And in case you're wondering, the pain has indeed gone away, so we're thinking whatever I had was an infection of some kind. So yay for no more pain. :-)

Then last week, my husband and I went on vacation with my parents to the beach. We had a great time. A little bit of an emotional rollar coaster because of a few things, but overall, we were able to relax and I really enjoyed spending time with my mom and dad.

However, nothing is ever perfect and the day before we were supposed to leave, my husband wakes up sick at his stomach and discovered he has a kidney stone. Yippee! Thankfully, he was only really sick on Saturday, and was feeling well enough to be able to ride in the car on Sunday for our drive home. He's had a rough couple of days at work, but he's feeling a lot better now and is pretty sure he's passed the stone. So good news there. :-)

As far as the guild goes...well, what can I say. I really don't want to go into details, as I've put the anger and the hurt behind me for the most part, so I'll just say we've had a few people leave while I was on vacation and I'm at the point where I'm having to restructure how things are going to be handled. I've already started working on a game plan for the guild and what I want from it. This next week is definitely going to be testing the waters to see how the guildies I have react and the desires they have and committments they're willing to make. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm hopeful and I know we can bounce back from this.

Now, onto the real reason for my post. I'm going to turn things a little more personal here and ask that those of you who share my faith, pray for me. I mentioned several posts ago that I have a desire on my heart and here, several months later, the desire is still very strong. Strong to the point where I'm actually reading, researching, and finding out more information about this desire. However, my husband still needs some convincing. I've been praying for several weeks now that God would either take the desire from me if it's not His will for my life OR change my husband's heart for it.

I was listening to a podcast this morning about this desire that I have, and something they said made me realize, I'm expecting so much of my husband. I expect him to fully embrace this and jump into it with me, but he's shared a desire of his with me and I'm totally against the idea. God and I are going to talk a little more about that one as I'm still very much against the idea, but I realize now I need to be more open and accepting of my husband's dreams and desires if I expect him to be open to mine. Two way street Tab, two way street.

In any case, please keep us in your prayers for my unspoken prayer request and that a decision can be made one way or another before I go crazy. :-)

And...one last thing I want to talk about before I end my book. hehe Check out this awesome video I found today. I hope it touches your heart as much as it touched mine.

Not just a Toon

DISCLAIMER: This post is not calling one individual out. There have been several guilty of the rant that follows. If this post is NOT directed at you...then a big huge freaking THANK YOU!!!!!!

So I want to throw this out there to all you non-raid/guild leaders. The person behind the toon...yea, they're a person. Like a real life, living breathing person. And that person...male or female...totally has feelings.

I'm not a prick. I'm really not. I'm a nice person, and especially in WOW. I bend over backwards for people, I give up my time for others, I sacrifice a lot of things to do for my guild. I'm probably a lot better person in wow than I am in real life. And I really do enjoy it. I enjoy giving of myself to better someone else or even just make life a little bit easier for them. It makes me feel good. Makes me feel accomplished. And it really does make me put forth more of an effort in real life.

But I tell ya what. When I'm disrespected...it really pisses me off. When people don't show up for raids, when people show up late for raids with no reason or excuse, when people blow me off or go against the rules we set for the raid and the guild...yea, that really pisses me off. And whether you think it is or not, it's disrespectful. It's a complete lack of respect for the person that put the raid together.

Not everyone has been a raid leader or a guild leader, I get that. But give me a break. Do you have any clue how much of my time outside of wow I sink into getting our raids together each week? A lot. A whole lot. What we do for a couple of hours three times a week, I spend three times that much time putting together assignments, groupings, looking for tips and tricks to make me a better leader, studying our dps to see how to split groups, watching to see what's being upgraded and what's not, putting together gear maps for people, etc. I put a lot of stinking time into doing it. And when you don't show up for a raid you signed up for...or better yet, show up late...yea, that's disrespectful. That shows me that your time is more important than mine. And guess what...it's not. My time is just as valuable as yours. I don't care if you have kids, pets, family you have to take care of, friends, or whatever. My time is the same as yours. We are all equal.

Stop disrespecting me. Stop...now. Or I'm really going to be someone you don't want me to. I was extremely close last night to chewing a few people out, but I held my tongue. And you're really luck I did too because I know I would have hurt some feelings last night. Part of it was because I've lost some sleep and I'm a little grumpy anyway, but I'm getting to the point where I've had enough. Steeper punishment will be coming if it continues, and I don't care who you are.

Get your acts together, get to raids on time, and if you're NOT going to be there, then freaking tell me ahead of time. You have a ton of ways to let me know. If you need my e-mail or my phone # then freaking tell me so I can get it to you. It's not a big deal...it really isn't. But when we get to this point where I'm upset and you're not only disrespecting my time but 24 other people's time...then we have a problem. And you are not going to like me when it's all said and done if the pattern continues. Get your crap together and let's do this. Seriously.

Reminder

Hey...all you male types out there. Here's a little memo. We females...yea, we totally have feelings.

Try not to forget that.

Seriously, I don't know what it is, but here lately the guys I work with seem to have forgotten that I'm a female and I'm a little more emotional than they are.

So here's a tip. Get your head out of your gludious maximus and treat me with a little respect please. That's all I want. I don't belittle you and treat you like a jerk, so you wanna umm...I don't know...do the same freaking thing for me?

What's amazing is I don't even bite your head off when I get upset like you do me. I actually go cool off first or put in my headset. But here lately I seriously feel like I have to walk on eggshells around some of these guys to keep from setting them off. It's seriously unnerving and a totally uncool environment to walk into every day.

So the next time you get upset at a woman, please try to remember she's a little more emotional than you are and if you're going to talk to her, at least treat her with respect and don't be a prick. She'll thank you for it later...I promise.

And one of these days I'm going to grow some and make these guys that tick me off...yea, I'm going make life hell for them until they learn that. One of these days...

Another one of those

So I've really been bragging about my guild a lot lately...and now I'm going to do it again!

Last night, I had more than enough people on to fill a 25 man raid. I actually had to ask if anyone would be willing to sit out so someone else could come in. I can't tell you the last time I've had to do that...oh wait...that would be never! So while that's a really cool thing in my eyes, it's also a pain. I hate having to ask anyone to take a seat on the bleachers to allow for someone else to come in and play. I'd rather do it myself. But Kroff kinda coached me before the raid last night and he felt it was really important that I stay in and be the actual raid leader instead of the coach from the sides. So I stayed. And in the end it worked out. Someone had to leave early so I got to get the person that volunteered to stay out back in the raid and we actually only had one person that's normally with us not in the raid.

So we charged in last night as the beginning of our first week in shortening our 25 man runs to two nights instead of three. My goal was to get at least two wings down and maybe a couple of bosses from another wing. That was my goal. It wasn't too lofty as we've cleared three wings in a single night before.

My goal...yea...they far EXCEEDED my goal last night. 10 bosses...that's right...10. 10 bosses killed in a single night. That's more than half of Naxx. 10. Amazing. Utterly amazing. We downed Spider, Plauge, Military, and Patch. I finally had to call it after Patch before people were going to have to leave before of work and such. But I swear we made awesome time last night!

And...get this...to make the night even better...I had like five or six people get enchants from me after the raid. That's more than doubled from the one or two that would want something. That tells me two things. 1. People are getting upgrades. 2. People care enough about their dps/heals/tanks to make sure they are gemmed and enchanted to the best of their ability so they do the best job possible.

/proud Honestly...I can't get much prouder. The push for content, the push for improving, the flat out FUN we had. I mean, it was just an amazing night.

I'm super excited for Sunday now. We have three bosses in Construct to murder and then the last two guys. My goal...yea my goal is to get all five of those bosses down and go kill another 25 man raid. Exceed my goal again guys...I know you can!

Goals

A lot of the blogs I've been reading lately, the gm's and raid leaders set goals for their group and strive the group to work toward them. So I've been thinking about doing that with our group. Question is, what do I want from them? Obviously I want everyone to learn their toon. I want people to not just coming into a raid and press 1 repeatedly til the boss dies; I want them to understand their rotations, their gear, how the boss encounters work, how to make the most out of their toon and their class. I want them to understand what exactly they bring to the raid. I'm pushing for that right now. And believe you me, I know every single person in our guild is capable of that. Yea, there are some who aren't catching on like I'd like them to, but I know everyone can be that amazing character that other guilds are envious of. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to push people for this so I can show them off. Heaven knows I could care less about having the best of the best in my guild. I want them to reach their full potential because in the end, THEY are the ones who are proud of themselves. I've seen it happen before. You pull someone up out of a spot, maybe they've never raided before, maybe they've never known x about their class, or what have you. You go over a few things with them, you take them raiding, explaining as you go, and bam! totally new person at the end of the day. Seeing the excitement, yea, it's awesome. There's no better feeling than that.

Anyway, kind of got off on a tangent there. So below I've set some realistic goals for my group. Goals that I know we can obtain and goals I'm giving us about a month and a half to reach.

1. I want all dps pushing 3k. Now I know some of this comes from gear or lack there of in some cases, but I really believe some is partly due to spec choices and gear choices. Having these classes classes is helping in this goal, but I'm really going to push my guys to do this. I want everyone carrying their weight in raids and right now some of my higher ups are definitely carrying the lower dps. And right now, that's not too bad, but it's not going to cut it in Ulduar and later dungeons.

2. I want to cut my healers overhealing down to less than 30%. First I want to concentrate on dps so we can beat enrage timers, but overhealing has been bad lately. The last combat log we did, overhealing was 50% across the board. That's awful. I know a lot of it has to do with the paladins and their lack of dots. I'm no expert on healing, but I'd think there must be something we can do for that. Hopefully when we have the paly class, our teacher has some ideas for us.

3. I want to be in Ulduar 25 by the beginning of September. As I said before, I really want to push my guys. I want them in Ulduar 25 by the beginning of September. That gives us a little over a month to push our way to farm on Naxx 25 and start learning the fights in Ulduar 10. We're already behind in Ulduar (not to other guilds but to beating the next patch). I want to get us in there and going so we're better prepared when the next dungeon comes out.

4. I want everyone to learn what 'on time and prepared' means. Right now I have a few people who are sitting at the stone half an hour ahead of raid ready to go. Then I have some guys who are consistently late or never show. Punishments aren't too heavy right now. Sometimes they get left out, sometimes they get lucky and there's a spot open. But I really want my guys to learn dedication. I know real life happens, and we've always been full supporters that real life comes first, but I know people can learn to respect the 24 others that are waiting on them by being on time and ready to go.

I really think giving my guys those four goals to shoot for, we'll see the raids significatly improve. I've already seen them improve since we first started out. A lot of it has to do with me getting my act together and being a better raid leader. I strive very hard to be a positive, influencial leader and I'm getting there. I've still got some work to do though. :-)

Kel Kill

My guild, the awesome bunch that they are, killed Kel last night for the first time!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so proud of them. :-) We've been waiting for a while for this and last night we did it. I'm totally confident that we can down him again and again and again now. My goal is to fine tune our two nights that we've been going and be able to do a full clear in two nights of raiding. We're starting ten man Ulduar next week so I want to be able to get Naxx on farm the other two nights we're raiding 25 mans. As soon as Kel's on farm status, into Ulduar 25 we go! I'm completely excited about what lies ahead.

I really think after last night's kill that the morale boosted 100% in the guild. Now they've seen they can kill him. I've been telling them that for weeks, but now they know they can do it so things will be a lot better from here on out. :-)

That's really all there is from me today. I'm totally proud of my guildies and their accomplishment. :-) Way to go guys!

Summer

It's one of those days today. I feel pulled in a thousand different directions...but not in a bad way. I've definitely got a lot on my mind, but I don't really feel stressed.

A friend is going to hit 80 today and Kroff and I have plans to go dungeon romping with him tonight. I'm excited for that. Not really the dungeon romping per say, but the spending time with friends and not worrying about hitting some sort of goal or keeping up with everyone.

Work hasn't been too bad today. It's been busy enough to keep me off the internet, and I have plenty to do come Monday. No cranky customers, and no rude co-workers thus far.

Tomorrow is our company summer party and everyone's excited about that. I myself am looking forward to it. It'll be nice to get out of the house after spending so much time at home this week.

A co-worker gave me a lot of her old clothes, some that have never been worn before, to go through and see if I like anything. I think I'm going to call up Jules and see if she's interested in going through them with me and seeing if she likes anything. There's a ton there and I know I won't want to keep it all. :-P

I'm also excited about the raid Sunday. Wednesday night was a good run. Little bit of drama, but other than that I think there was a good time had by all. We only got one wing down, but I have high hopes for Sunday's run. There's already 21 people on the calendar and it's just Friday. That's a good sign. :-)

I feel a lot better after kinda confessing some things to the raid Wednesday too. I'm coming at this whole raid leading thing from a different approach this time. I'm going to try to engage everyone in conversation and get them talking and sharing ideas. If we can do that without biting each others heads off, hopefully the runs will go a lot smoother and our time in Ulduar will be better spent learning the fights instead of learning each other.

All in all, I'm excited about the next few days. It's going to be good times all around. :-)