5 Things To Do While Waiting For The Healing Springs

     We’ve all been there. Some of us *cough* might currently be there, who knows? The Wheel of Misfortune hits your pet, a random event strikes with a vengeance, you fed your Neopet the wrong jelly, and BAM! Your Neopet is down for the count with a deathly illness. What will you do?!

     Ok, most of the illnesses you can buy the cure if you really want to. However, then there are those of us stricken with a more costly illness, or maybe we just don’t want to spend the 4,000 NP for a cure when the Healing Springs will clear up the disease for free. Free versus 4,000 Neopoints - sounds like a no-brainer, right?

     So, you head over to the Healing Springs to get your pet healed up. You click "Heal my Pets" and....

     Snowball. 3 HP. Healing Potion. Your pet is no longer hungry, but still sick as a kau.

     Not exactly the result you were hoping for.

     Worst of all, though? You now have a wait time before you can try again: thirty minutes.

     What are your options for the next thirty minutes? You can’t walk away from your computer now, not with a sick Neopet! As a responsible Neopian, you feel obligated to cure your sickly Neopet. Or, if you’re especially unlucky, your Neopet came down sick before you did your daily Battledome fights and so you really need your Neopet cured.

     What, then, do you do for thirty minutes on Neopets besides twiddle your thumbs?

     1. Dailies

     If you haven’t done your dailies yet, you can do the majority of them in about 30 minutes. Both JN and TDN have great dailies pages that you can just click through to make your life that much simpler. You might get lucky and walk away with Neopoints or rare items, too! If you power through all your dailies quickly, you probably have time to get in some quick games for fast Neopoints, also (Fashion Fever and Catch the Petpet are pretty quick.) Now that’s a productive use of time, right?

     And if you’ve done your dailies? Maybe Wheel of Misfortune is further down on your own dailies list, or you did your dailies in the morning and your Neopet came down sick in the afternoon. What then? Fear not, there is plenty more to do around Neopia.

     2. Games

     Okay, if you’ve done your dailies and you have a full 30 minutes to wait, you can get some serious gaming done. Go for either games you like or games where you can make 1,000 Neopoints consistently. Play to your strengths, or play what you enjoy! There are all types of games out there, including both flash games and non-flash games.

     Just be careful playing longer games - some of us have a habit of playing certain longer games (Neopian Battlefield Legends, anyone?) and forgetting to revisit the Healing Springs after 30 minutes. Watch your clock!

     3. Price Your Shop

     Maybe you don’t like games. That’s okay; I’m not here to judge. What do you do instead of games, though?

     If you’re like me and throw all the freebies you get from dailies into your shop, go ahead and price it. If you’re throwing all of your daily freebie items in (including Battledome and Money Tree), you probably have over 40 items to price just from that day. Woah, that’s a lot! It should definitely take about 30 minutes for you to get through pricing it. Bonus: check back later and you may find a tidy amount in your shop till!

     4. Customize Your Pet

     So you don’t like games and you don’t use your shop, you say? Well, time to have some fun customizing your pet!

     Thirty minutes to work on your pet. Been thinking of switching things up? Always wanted to try a certain theme? Got a new item you want to build an outfit around? Now is the time! If your closet is bursting at the seams, this could take you well beyond 30 minutes and you just need to watch your time. If your closet is bare, maybe not so long. If that’s the case, go ahead and customize all four pets! Why give one pet all the love?

     5. Go For a Goal

     None of this is working for you, eh? (Or SOME PEOPLE are unlucky and having to go through this 30-minute wait several times. I would definitely hate to be that person ...)

     In that case, what’s a goal you have? An avatar you’ve been working toward or practicing for? Maybe been buffing up your stamps or Neodeck lately? Trying to beat that tough Battledome challenger? Getting closer to a trophy? Is that art piece nearly done? Your new layout code almost finished? Or have you ever wanted to start one of these goals?

     Work on it! It can be hard to get motivated to work on goals sometimes. Maybe 30 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, maybe you’re like me and more inclined to laze around; either way, now is the time! Maybe you won’t finish or reach your goal in the 30 minutes, but 30 minutes working toward your goal is 30 minutes closer to your goal. (For the unmotivated ones of us out there, it’s 30 minutes less work in the future, am I right?)

     Thirty minutes can feel like a long time when you don’t have anything to work on. Multiple failed visits to the Healing Springs can get even more frustrating since you’re then trying for literally hours to clear up your pet’s illness. Some of us might crack at this point and just buy the cure if it’s buyable, but others of us are not so lucky or not so willing.

     With this list, though, thirty minutes is no longer a waiting game - it’s an opportunity! An opportunity to be productive, have fun, and enjoy your time on Neopets.

     So, next time you find yourself waiting for the Healing Springs to design your pet with a full heal: Don’t let it frustrate, take advantage of the wait!

     (Whatever you do, though, don’t even think of using the time to write a Neopian Times entry. Who would even think of doing that! What could you possibly write about? I wonder ...)

     (Seven hitpoints. Time to head back to the list!)