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After learning that you could potentially get some BoAs by doing the dailies for the Argent Tournament (and the fact that I don't do Cataclysm instances at the moment), I've been primarily been focused on raising my paladin's reputation with all the factions. So far, I've only managed to become exalted with two factions in the Undercity and Orgrimmar.  Those are pretty easy; simply do all the introductory quests up to the level 20 zones and you'll find yourself exalted in no time.

Of course, you can also rep grind via using city tabards. However, I didn't fully understand that this was possible when I started my paladin out so I missed out on the lower level instances.  In trying to rep grind via instances, I noticed that the reputation gains were quite small. For pre-BC content at least, I'm gaining 3 per kill with bosses at 60 per kill.  With some diligence I'm certain I can finish off factions by rep grinding in lower instances. Yet in examining those numbers, it seems that the effort vs gain is quite low.

Instead, I've been attempting to boost my reputation through completing all the pre-BC content  quests. Not every quest giver will provide reputation. However, most quests at level 85 are a breeze so you can easily gain 1000 rep or so in a zone within a short time span. If you complete a zone, I would say you can gain anywhere between 500-1000+ per faction, depending on the zone. I'm almost complete with all the Horde Kalimdor questing zones and have managed to raise all of my other city reputation to revered. At level 85, I can complete a single zone in about an hour.

The big question is for most people: is it worth it? The answer truly depends on the player. Because I don't see myself doing Cataclysm instances, the answer for me is quite blatantly yes. One, I enjoy questing and seeing all the content. Running an 85 through low level content isn't really boring at all. You're moving quite fast and nothing can touch you. So you get to see all the storylines as well as test areas for other toons. Right now, I'm probably missing two zones that I have not completed. Second, if anything you can do these quests for the various achievements. If you have multiple toons like myself, doing every single zone for anything outside of a specific goal might be a bit much. However, I do encourage people to take their main toon and check out all the quests from each zone, otherwise you'll probably be missing out on a lot of nifty content.

While questing, I got off the track from Sunday because of Noblegarden. So I started doing some of the quests for that event. It's a rather tedious event because it requires you to hunt down eggs. Depending on the time and area you're hunting, you might find the situation to be frustrating. For myself, I tend to do my egg hunting when people are asleep. Because my server is an oceanic server, most people are on later in the day. So an area like Bloodhoof Village is completely barren during those times.

That said, I became further distracted in swinging by Dalaran in attempting to find alliance toons for doing the female bunny thing. I ended up in Icecrown and started farming in a zone called The Valley of the Fallen Heroes.  Originally, I had learned about this zone through WowHobbs on youtube. This zone is (or was) a great spot for farming in terms of making gold. The reason being that it was an excellent AoE spot. Actually, I found that it still is a decent AoE spot. The money dropped off the mobs might've been nerfed, but I discovered that the gray items that drop can be sold to vendors for a reasonable amount. There's a particular gray that when stacked in clumps of 20 can be sold for 10 gold. However, that's not the only reason to farm this zone. I discovered that this zone probably is the best spot for frostweave cloth. Mobs tend to drop between 1-4 pieces.  Usually, you'll see groups of 5-6. So after an hour or so of farming, I can easily dig up around 7 stacks of frostweave. On my auction house, frostweave still is a viable source of income, selling around 90g/stack and not having a great number of people selling it. Considering that embersilk is somewhat difficult to farm and that embersilk bags only give a 2 item slot boost, Frostweave Bags still can be a reasonable choice for bags.

Also, I've been testing out zones in Icecrown to farm for money. One spot that I've come across that seems decent is the little arena in the northwestern zone in Jotunhelm near the Shadowvault.  It's a high spawn rate and easy to gather and AoE mobs down. The other thing I've come across is the Pustulent Horrors. Sometimes you can get over a gold per kill. I heard they used to drop more but it's not such a difficult mob to smack down.

Beyond this, I managed to finally max out my Paladin's blacksmith skill. It cost a bit of money, but I decided to sell off the excess materials and equipment on the AH. If all goes well, I could well make over 5k in gold from the various items I've posted to the auction house. From there, I'll hopefully pick up some 359's for my paladin or just continue to save for the mammoth mount (always wanted it).

Also, I've been working on both cooking and fishing. Cooking is a tough one because of the materials. I managed to push it beyond 450. Fortunately, I had saved enough materials up for that. But to really maximize this skill, I'll need to eventually farm. Fishing is just a nightmare. Fortunately, I'm high enough to do some Dalaran quests. But to complete one of those quests, it practically requires 20 minutes of my time while getting almost all junk. I'm hoping to raise my level to at least 300 and then rep grind with the walrus people for the epic fishing pole. This probably would've been better done on my hunter, but I think it'll drive me insane to get anymore than just one toon to that level (unless I transfer my old hunter over)