Hello!

Updates! Updates! OK, so I left my job at Domo and have been working really hard on creating original songs both WoW and non-WoW related. I am probably the happiest I’ve been in such a long time, finally getting to focus on and do what I love every day! It doesn’t matter that money is lower, or that I’m not able to socialize so much in the day because this has been my dream for a long time and I don’t  mind any of that!

I have still got a couple of really, just, amazing collabs in the works with some well known names – but I don’t know when they’re coming out. Super excited about them though ;)

I also have some project ideas of my own in mind, however I am currently doing some odds and ends for some people in the WoW community and they’re taking up quite a portion of my time so I’ve not been able to focus 100% on getting my own stuff out there for the time being. Also, had a major problem with Youtube rejecting nearly 90% of the videos I was uploading-saying that it was not me in the video, or me singing, or royalty free music. It got to a point where I was having to explain my rights in such detail as to say that I had ‘written the lyrics in Notepad for Windows Vista’, ‘Mixed the music in Cubase SX’, ‘Music mixed by myself’, ‘in the video: Myself’- and still I was getting rejected. It’s normal to obviously credit the royalty free music with things like artist, song title, link to the song, the license it’s under (both human and legal code), but to have to go as far as to say how I wrote the lyrics and all that was just so frustrating. It took them 2 weeks to accept My Mount & I with several appeals from myself. I mean come on! It’s royalty free music and me singing into a mic! /sigh

How funny was it when Trololololololol got removed from Youtube?! I also got a swifty strike on my account :P I appealed and within about 10 minutes they had reinstated the video and removed the strike. Who reviews these videos? Really?

Anywho… spell check is informing me with a pretty squiggly line that anywho is not a word and squiggly is which has surprised me. And apparently it surprised this little guy too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1foQKD3OI

Okay so I’ve meant to update here for ages but just not got round to it!

Where to start?
I got made redundant from my job at Hawkins as it went into administration. I found out from my work collegue. The managers didn’t bother to ring me or tell me so, yeah, I was really pissed off about it. I am still waiting to be paid, it should be around £700 so this month has been really tight, especially since we got paid a week earlier than our usual pay day in December. Upon checking my bank account yesterday, I found that I had been paid an extremely generous £20, so I am really hoping that the rest will come through soon. I don’t even know what that £20 is for?! My contracted hours were 4 per week even though I was doing 25-40 so that would only cover 1 weeks contracted hours. What about the other 3? Meh, I don’t get it. As far as I’m concerned we were made redundant and then left to pick up all the pieces. I’m glad I’m out of that job tbh because I probably would have stayed there for years and just been really unhappy.

I have managed to, very luckily, find a new job working for a company called Domo. They sell bags, purses, holiday luggage etc. The people there are fantastic, there’s not many of us but the shop runs really smoothly and everything is in its place. My boss is great and so helpful, she gives me plenty of training with the new systems and I really think I’m going to enjoy working here once I get used to all the product information.

That being said, I have had a great year so far in regards to creative ventures. I have finally taken up writing after years of wanting to have an outlet for it. I’ve started an interactive World of Warcraft story which is all online, and people can read it and submit their character to be in the story and also chose how the plot unfolds.
I’ve always been a writer but I tend to write a few chapters and then loose motivation, so having an online story with proper interaction really keeps my motivation levels and enthusiasm high. I’m absolutely loving it and can’t ever see myself not writing actively now.

My long term goal is quite conflicting to all the above. There is nothing that makes me happier than using Youtube as my creative outlet. I spent 8 hours on my day off the other day writing, creating 3 videos and composing a song which I then uploaded all to Youtube. I really would just love to make Youtube my main source of income. It’s such a passion for me, I don’t want to ever give it up. When I’m at work it’s all I can think about and I actually get really down sometimes that I have to work in a field I don’t want to be in. That sounds really QQish because most people work in a field they don’t want to be in to survive. But I really feel I might have a chance at this Youtube deal and as long as I’m passionate about it I’m gonna keep aiming for it. I do get frustrated that I can’t seem to get my main channel partnered and I keep seeing other people making sub channel after sub channel after sub channel and getting them all partnered. But I will persist!

I am going away next week to the New Forest. It’s my usual destination. Log Cabin, endless fields and forests and complete tranquility. I’m gonna take the laptop and write, take Maggie for long runs, have hour long baths and go out for meals. Can’t wait!

On that note I don’t think there is much more to say at this point. Take care all :)

So much has happened in 2011 – so much has changed and it seems so much more is already in the process of changing as I head into 2012.
I had a lovely Christmas with my family and friends, very relaxed and a lot of time off work which I didn’t expect. GAME have offered me a Senior Sales Assistant+ role should I chose to change jobs which is very promising. Maggie has grown SO much but I still want her to get bigger lol. My Youtube channel seems to be growing, even with my more laid-back attitude to slamming the videos out.

A very brief post, wanted to write more really but I’m just about to go out now so I will have to sit down and update again properly soon!

Hello!!!

So it’s been pretty mental lately. I’ve had a super unlucky week but I’m going to take control and make sure this week is better! So what have I been up to? Well, I started a second job at GAME but I’ve not really had a chance to get my teeth into it yet as only done 1 shift. Hawkin’s is still going well, I have perfect hours there now which give me free time for GAME and singing. It’s great to be getting money each month, I splashed out on a new HD 22″ TV yesterday off the cuff and have been enjoying it immensely ;)

It was my bro’s 30th on Saturday so we celebrated with indoor fireworks which are rubbish btw, and lots of nibbles and treats. I also hit 30k subscribers on the same day so I secretly celebrated in my head with a mental pat on the back.

Had a fantastic Halloween this year – went to my first ever Halloween party (I know, sad right?) and had 1 too many shots. I ended up dancing in the living room screaming for Dubstep and Lamb of God whilst Dude waltzed around me in a Witches hat and sunglasses. I can’t remember if anyone was impressed or not.

I very nearly bought a cheap, imitation version of a Spirit Hood from the market. It was like £20 which is £40-50 cheaper than from the website, but the quality of it was too shoddy so I passed.

I thought my forums had been unusually quiet… and then I had a tip off from a Youtube viewer letting me know there was no Register button.  But, there is now – so you can go ahead and register now. Now. Go.

Also, totally /ragequit in WoW today because Dude and I have had the day off work together so we decided to clean up our last 4 HC achievements. Got an excellent group for DM. Cleared to end boss. Entered nightmare. MASS DC.

I literally walked away from my PC and went downstairs to vent. When I came back up I had a ress waiting so I accepted it and died to the falling ice boulders of death. I WILL get that achievement!

Hai! So not last weekend but the weekend before I went to my first ever Real Life Raid in London which was suppperrrrrr cool! I met up with loads of my guildies and we had a great time! Now I miss them all :(

But since then I have not had a single fudging day off work and it’s driving me mental because I want to DO SOME SINGING and STUFF!!! I have a day off on Thursday – but that will be like, 9 days of working w/o a break and I always though the law was 5 days of working and then at least 24 hours of non-interrupted break… w/e I don’t know, I’m really crap at knowing my rights :P

I’m moving in 3 weeks and I totally have not even had a chance to really think about it. It’s like, I’ll think about it and then its gone out of my head instantly. But I can’t wait – I’m gonna have my very own garden … with a POND. And a SHED. And a GARAGE. And a cute little woofie dog running around everywhere… I really wanna try and convince my dad to let me have the 3rd bedroom as a studio slash vlogging room but he so won’t let me. So I’m not even gonna ask. But I’d love that XD

Ummm… yeah lots of weird things keep happening to me on the way to work. I randomly found this drunk guy crying his eyes out near where I get off the bus. I just said to him as I passed by that today would be a better day and he cried even more so I went and got a security guard to make sure he was okay! And then, there was this old Italian man who didn’t know what bus to get so I sat with him when it came and he told me all about his Church and then I told him where to get off (BUS STOP – not in a rude way :P ). Then yesterday there was a little girl who got on the bus and started crying cuz she’d gotten the wrong bus – well it wasn’t the wrong bus, she had just got on it on the wrong side of the road so it was going away from where she wanted to go. I made sure when we got off that she was totally in the know about what bus to get to where she wanted to go and then I went and hassled the same security guard to go stand with her until her bus came. Today, nothing happened. I was kinda expecting something else, but it was a pretty sane trip. And you know what bugs me the most about these things? Every person who walked by, or saw, or knew about the situation completely ignored it. Some even laughed at the crying drunk guy. The woman who was sat next to the crying school girl got off the bus at the end of her journey without a care in the world.

Anyway. I’m so happy because I only have 2 more days of work. Yay :D

Heya.

So hopefully I’m going to be moving home in about a month to a really nice 3 bed house with a… wait for it… A GARDEN!!! Ohmygosh I can’t wait to sit in a garden at long last. I’ve been … hmm let’s see, since I was 14 years old without a garden so it’s gonna be heavenly! It’s a really big garden too that bends round in a C shape with a pond as well! It’s gonna be great for Maggie and summer parties. Plus there’s a garage with a door to the garden in it so Maggie will be in her element. She can stay in the garage for the majority of the day and run in and out to the garden as she pleases.

I can’t wait to move. The place I’m in now I’ve lived in for 4 years and when Tinkie got ill, we had to try and stay on top of her throwing up and weeing because of her old age and illness. This house is so old and was never done up before we moved in, or even before the previous tenants so it’s well out-dated now. The new house is GORGEOUS. Plus, a bonus is that it’s close to my work, about a 20 minute walk so I’ll never have to wait for the stupid bus ever again!

I had a week off work last week and I posted a video about personal shout outs. I’m still toying with the idea but I was thinking, maybe after each parody song I make I could put say 4 or 5 names at the end of the video with one of their comments next to it. Funny thing was, when I had my week off I was totally out of inspiration – the week I went back I managed to sit down and write 2 parody songs!

Today has been groggy. The weather outside is raining and dark and I’ve got to catch my bus later to work late shift but this weather is making me feel MEH! Hope it gets sunny for the weekend – might go down the beach with Maggie. She went in a river for the first time a couple of days ago. It was really shallow but she was all scared and not wanting to go in, so my dad ran to the other side and called her and she just went pelting through! It was so funny, all her ears were going and her face was so happy and excited. You can really see her muscles when she jumps through the water. I’d love to see what she’d be like with the sea. I bet she gets scared of the waves, she’s such a coward sometimes. She even gets scared of dogs 2x smaller than her which is hilarious to see. Although she really does need to conquer her fear of other dogs.

Well that’s it for my ramble. Oh if any of you read WoW Insider regularly, check out the video of katethegreat19 – it’s really good, and that’s also her youtube channel if you wanna see all her stuff :)

Inspiration has been slapping me round the face for the past month, but what with being rough I’ve just not been able to record properly! There’s a couple of songs that I REALLY wanna get done, and even though I’m passionate to do them… when it actually comes to doing them my singing just sounds so… uninterested. I don’t know why. I think the problem might be because I stopped singing for a month when I had bronchitis so I’m kinda out of the swing of singing. Plus, as silly as this sounds, I feel like I might have actually run out of things to sing about! I tried to record a verse and chorus for an idea I had for an open collab a few days ago and I ended up just writing the same old lyrics again. PvP. Thing is, PvP is such a good base for an open collab because everyone can join in regardless of Faction or Race or w/e and it can become a really intense piece of work. I’m just worried that I might be becoming a bit too ‘samey’ with all my music.

I’m still waiting to get paid from my job. I’ve been there nearly 2 months so I’m guaranteed a pay this month on the 28th. Can’t wait, working for free as it stands at the moment sucks especially when I have to find my bus fare each week. I’m pretty sure my money is going to go as quickly out of my account as it went in because of all my bills and stuff, but I am hoping to have some money for a hair trim and style and a couple of other bits.

Maggie was epic the other day. I got home from work after telling my work colleague all about how good Maggie was when I was out of the house – only to find that she had literally decimated 12 toilet rolls in the front room. I was well impressed. I thought to myself ‘if you’re gonna destroy something – do it well. And Maggie has done it very well.’. I got a video of it on my mobile but god knows how to get that onto my PC and what with  being skint atm I am not planning on emailing it to myself lol.

Oh! Also, I’ve re-rolled horde for a while. I have a lvl 60 something Belf SPriest. It’s nice to take a break from the Alliance side, although past lvl 10 on Horde all the quests are the same anyone – just the quest givers look more badass. I think Dude might be cancelling his subscription to WoW. He barely plays anymore, like ever. He’s at that stage now that when he see’s me playing he’s all like ‘omg how can you play that shit game?!?!’ and I’m all like ‘go away I’m trying to kill stuff!’. I do still play my Alliance characters, but I have always wanted a top lvl Belf and I guess I’m nearly there now.

What else… Oh yeah, I wanted to go buy a Spirit Hood like the one TradeChat so beautifully modelled for us, but then I saw the price at like $125 or something and I clicked off the page. Nowai would I pay that amount of money for something that A) I can only really wear when its semi-cold to freezing and B) Maggie will probably end up destroying anyway. Shame though, they are totally gorgeous.

I think I am planning on doing a Vlog tomorrow because I spent all of last night pampering myself and today my hair has been massaged in Henna (Caca Brun & Rouge) for 5 hours now (only 3 more to go!) and Nananea wants (sexy) pics :P So what better way to show you guys my results than to just Vlog it right up?!

K, see you tomorrow on SharmAFK! xx

Hi!!
Thought I’d do a quick update just to say hello really :) Maggie is doing really well so far, she’s really very clever – we’ve taught her ‘sit’, ‘stay’ and ‘paw’ atm. I think she might be totally fluking ‘paw’ though.. but she is amazing with ‘stay’. We had to teach it to her early on because she got into the habit of following us down the hallway to our kitchen and whining for food. Also discovered that Maggie LOVES carrots! So weird, I never thought dogs or cats would ever eat anything like that. So when she’s a VERY good girl she gets to have a carrot (plus it keeps her quiet for ages!) lol.

Work is hard. Not the actual work itself really, but just that I don’t find out my shifts for the next week until like Saturday, and then I get a phonecall on Sunday and they’ve all changed massively, and so I have to reschedule a load of stuff I’ve planned around them, then I get a call asking me to come in earlier and its like BLEHHHH. But its a job nonetheless and we need the money so in Dory’s words ‘just keep swimming!’ :P

Have a couple of songs I want to record but I’ve been sick with some crappy dry cold thing so I’m just basically sitting around whenever I get time off. Or playing DS. Usually both at the same time… ANYWAY!

Erm what else…? Nothing. Okay bye bye all x

Hi all!
Thank you for all your support on my last post. I really do appreciate it and I’m glad I wrote about what happened.

On May 25th 2010 my beautiful Minka passed away in her sleep. She was 18 so she lived a very long and healthy life. She never had to go to the vet for any illnesses or anything, apart from when she had to go on thyroid tablets 3-4 years ago. I made a tribute video for her here, and it’s great for me to be able to look back on my memories with her.

For years I have wanted to have a dog but I felt it would be very unfair to bring a dog into the home what with having Tinkie for so long and I felt it would upset her because she was very territorial! But Dude looked into it and we found a new born litter of springer spaniel puppies, and the last girl of them was available. We had spoken many times through the years about having a dog, so it didn’t feel like a massive decision when we decided to get her! She’ll be 8 weeks old on Monday 13th and we’re getting her on Saturday 11th. Her eyes are still blue and she’s pretty tiny. I’ve gone through the whole house trying to hide wires and things she can destroy!

Of course, I do have a sense of guilt surrounding buying Maggie (we went for Maggie from the Simpsons), but I am such a massive animal lover and not having Tinkie around makes my home feel so empty. It will be so lovely to have another little presence running around and I think it will start to make my home feel the way it used to when Tinkie was around. I’ll never forget her, she’ll always be the best cat EVER!!

So I didn’t wanna post this on my Facebook or Vlog about it because it’s kinda personal and I don’t want it to become a massive slap-dash spammed thing. But last year I had to go to hospital because I had pre-cancerous cells. It was really scary and I had to have a minor operation there and then, but unfortunately it wasn’t successful. So I was given a booklet about cancer and sent off to the surgery booking reception desk to get booked in for an operation ASAP. My dad and Dude were with me and I was so shaken I couldn’t even talk to them to tell them what I had been told because I knew I’d either cry or freak out. So we all just sat together silently until I could have a general health check and weighing and then be given a surgery date.
2 weeks later I was laying in a hospital bed with a horrible sense of calm knowing that I was gonna be up next. There had been 4 other people on the same ward as me and I’d watched all of them go and come back sedated. I’d never been put asleep before and one of my worst fears is loosing control, but with my dad and Dude there it kinda made it easier.
The nurse came to check me and then the guy who puts you to sleep came over with his assistant and they started to wheel me out of the ward. I wanted to jump out of the bed and run to my dad and tell him to take me home.
I got wheeled into a tiny room and they started to talk to me whilst putting a needle in my arm. I gotta say I was feeling pretty hysterical by this point, I don’t know how the hell I didn’t pull the damn thing out of me and make a run for it. Then they put an oxygen mask over my mouth and told me to breathe deeply and that was it… I woke up.

The surgeon told me that the operation had gone really well… well apparently he said that to my face but I don’t remember it. I just remember opening my eyes and seeing the surgeon in a really retro Jamaican looking outfit and then passing out again.
Yesterday, I went for my checkup. It had been 6 months of worrying. And everything was OK! It was better than OK it was 100% CLEAR. I’m feeling so happy, like a dusty, heavy blanket has been taken off of my brain and body.
The Jo’s Trust really helped me to get through all of this, and ofc, having my youtube community around me helped so much. All the kind words and online friends. You didn’t know it at the time but you helped me get through a really difficult time.

Wow, this is so personal. I kinda feel weird posting it. But… at least I can moderate the comments ;)