Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

Goodnight 2013

Last year, I called 2012 a humdinger of a year, well this year I'm calling 2013 a rollercoaster - periods of intense activity and an awful lot of waiting around, faffing and generally not doing much at all!

I started the year on a high - Stateside for New Year's Eve and my birthday was an amazing experience, made all the better by being in the company of someone very special to me. It was his encouragement that gave me the idea for my 20 Days of Gold Making meme which turned out to be one of the best ideas I've had for a long time! Over 25 other bloggers joined in and for most of January, the gold blogging community was regaled with stories of how we got to where we were in gold making and some of the pitfalls and successes we'd had along the way.

Late in January, I also started my email newsletter - a simple way to get my posts delivered directly to your email inbox and a great way to get around workplace internet restrictions! I wrote a few extra posts to send out just for subscribers and I have more planned so if you haven't signed up yet, why not? Did I mention subscriber only giveaways too? lol

Dance 21

In April, I finally managed to get a proper job - yup - I'm back in an office, driving my boss crazy and ploughing through a backlog that had built up. It's a charity that works with disabled people to raise awareness of disabilities in the workplace and helps all kinds of disabled people to get work. We also run a payroll and accounting service for disabled people to get the help they need without the headache of invoices and payroll requirements. I love it and in December, I volunteered to photograph an event taking place in our local shopping centre. What a buzz that was! I'd forgotten how much I love taking photographs and the kids involved were amazing too!

In July, after a guest spot on the Journal of Marcus Ty podcast, I joined Marcus as his regular co-host and what a blast that has been! With his awful, corny jokes, gold making tips and even me singing publicly for the first time, it has been and hopefully will continue to be, one of the best things I've done in a long time. I also guested on Eviscerated Gaming Podcast a couple of times this year and I've been invited to guest on another podcast or two in the next couple of weeks.

You may have guessed by now that I love to chat with people - podcasting and talking about WoW for fun is something I never thought I'd be doing when I started playing WoW back in 2009 but then, I never thought I'd be blogging on two blogs about it either! WoW is so much more than just a game - the community around it may not be the most gentle or civilised group of people I've met but by golly, they are a passionate, talented bunch and it's that passion that brings the drama.

In the spirit of community, I started my Saturday Celebrations - Milestone Interviews in September. It's a weekly post dedicated to YOUR stories and milestones in gold making. We're up to 14 guest posts there now and I still have a few lined up. It's your chance to have a little bit of internet space to tell the world how you got to a milestone - and that's any milestone, from 10,000 gold to 5 million gold - all your achievements are worthy of a few minutes of fame and with so many different ways to get there, they are all different too. Not everyone wants to write a regular blog about WoW but this way, everyone can have a little space to tell their tales of their goblin careers!

And that brings us to December and my current mini-project, 30 Minutes a Day - I've enjoyed it but it has been way more frustrating than I expected. I have a few ideas for the new year and of course, I'll still be chatting with Marcus every two weeks, blogging here and there and playing WoW too.

My personal life has had it's ups and downs too - if you've been around a while, you may remember I struck out on my own last year. Well, the house finally sold and that plus the job has given me a little financial stability at last. I've been fighting depression for years too but with everything that's been happening, I just haven't had time to even think about it this year. I still have a few bad days here & there but Cold has been holding my hand along the way and with his humour and good heart, I've kept myself positive and moving/looking forward.

© Helen Shorey

My plans for 2014 are still in a state of flux - my job is a fixed term contract that ends in June and my divorce should be final around then too. After that, who knows what I'll be doing or where I'll end up, I sure don't although of course, I have my hopes and dreams to keep me going. As for blogging and the future of AH Addict - that's a given, I love this blog and my other one too (She Rides Dragons) so although my posting frequency may drop off a bit, I'll still be here.

I really want to get my photography blog going again and that is one thing I wanted to do in 2013 that didn't happen. To give myself a bit of a push about that though, I've bought a domain name and I'm looking at self-hosting for it although for now, I'll stay with Blogger. If you want to have a peek at some of my photography, you can find it at helenshorey.com but it is a bit neglected for now.

And then there's my joint venture blog with Cold - we started Gifts for Gamers and Geeks back in September with a few Amazon based gift guides. They were just fillers until we got the meatier posts done but blogger/google decided they didn't like us and made us rethink how we were going to move forward. It took them over a month to tell us though so we lost a bit of drive & enthusiasm there but it's still a live project that hopefully will take off a bit more in 2014 too.

Oh my gosh, this post got big! I told you at the start it had been a rollercoaster year though! I have high hopes for 2014 being my year - I feel as though I've been under a huge cloud for years and am finally breaking through to some sunshine. I probably won't see much sunshine with all this blogging I'm planning on doing but at least I'll know it's there, right?

One last paragraph then I'll stop writing, I promise! A HUGE THANK YOU to all my readers, my Twitter friends and podcast listeners - without you, I'm not sure I'd have kept going so long. I love getting your emails - whether they be questions, suggestions or just hello's. I love reading your comments here and on Twitter too. It's those little bits of conversations that help keep me going in so many ways and I hope you enjoy my posts as much as I enjoy writing them. I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope your 2014 is looking bright, exciting and of course, prosperous too!

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Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013

Happy New Year 2013

It's that time of year again - everyone looking back at 2012 & looking forward to whatever 2013 may bring. I'm no different really although after the year I've had, 2012 is probably going down in my personal history book as a humdinger of a year!

I started the year with a post like this one - my first look back post on this blog. It had been a vague year, reaching goldcap in WoW was probably the highlight for me. This year started off in a similar vein, I set up my US account 2nd January, logged in once or twice then walked away from WoW totally for 3 or 4 months! I had no intentions of taking a break, it was just one of those random things that happen sometimes.

I was having some counselling for my depression & a very good friend online was metaphorically holding my hand every step of the way. I felt myself coming back to life, like snowdrops pushing their heads up through the snow & ice & when I did finally wake up, I realised some major changes needed to happen. Whilst in my cocoon of depression, I had changed & so had some of my closest loved ones. So I made a very difficult decision to walk away & start fresh on my own.

It wasn't quite so easy to actually do that though - finances kind of kept me stuck there so after a couple of pretty rough months, things calmed down to a point where we could start moving stuff along & make our separate plans. That's around the time I found my lump. If you've been reading for a while, you may remember my charity fund raising in the summer. I managed to raise 293GBP for Breast Cancer Care by chopping off most of my hair & donating it to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer. With fantastic support from my fellow gold bloggers & my lovely Twitter peeps, I managed to keep my head & spirits high & after a short operation, I was given the all clear.

I have to say, I have never been so scared in my life! But so many of you, readers, twitter followers & gold blogging friends sent me positive support messages, it was like little rays of light shining through for me to follow a path out of that particular darkness. It also gave me a new impetus to get stuff done. I finally moved into my own little place & now I have a 'pit' to call my very own for the first time in my life.

I've been blogging like crazy, writing on Squidoo to make some cash there too & I even started a second World of Warcraft blog, She Rides Dragons, for my more general WoW ramblings. With some blogging guidance from my good friend, Cold, this blog has seen a huge increase in visitor numbers. I don't write just for the numbers but I will be honest, it really does make my day when I see just how many visitors are reading my stuff! My old school English teacher would have a heart attack if she saw me voluntarily writing all this stuff! I hated English lessons at school & essay writing homework was always the bane of my school existance!

And then there are the podcasts! I guest hosted with Jim on Power Word:Gold podcast a few times in 2011 & he was kind enough to invite me back for a few episodes this year. I played Hearthcast AoE against Rewt (twice! because of technical problems) & I finally got a chance to talk to Rez & Cold on Eviscerated Gaming Podcast last month. Brandon from Gold Shields blog also set up some Google + hangups late in the summer - just a bunch of gold makers hanging out on Google+ & shooting the breeze - those were fun & there's talk of more in the future once Mists of Pandaria activities die down a bit!

So what does the New Year bring? Who knows? I sure don't. This time last year, I was just hoping to get a job & keep blogging too but the job didn't happen. This year, I feel alive & just about ready to tackle anything! Obviously, I'm going to keep blogging here & She Rides Dragons too but I really want to get my photography blog up & running again. I spent most of my WoW gold too - all those lovely mounts & pretty pets available on the Auction House so I guess I will aim for goldcap once more but without glyphs this time!

I'd like to thank everyone personally but the list was long last year & has just got longer this year. New friends, new readers & followers as well as old friends & early followers - thank you all - your tweets & comments here keep me going & makes this all worthwhile for me. I hope my wordy ramblings help you too - I never did perfect the art of short answers - you can blame my Dad for that!

So I guess after all that I just want to say Goodbye 2012 & ooh hello 2013 - onwards & upwards for me & I hope 2013 is a great one for you too. Happy New Year everyone & thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you xxx


Image © Vironevaeh under Creative Commons licence

2011 - What a mixed bag it's been!

My 2011 started off full of enthusiasm & found me writing regularly here as I rode the excitement of the early stages of Cataclysm. Levelling 4 alts to 85, levelling JC & Enchanting so I could make even more gold, discovering Trade Skill master & making new friends was so much fun & kept me going until mid-summer.

Once I hit gold cap though, I kinda lost my drive & if you've been a regular reader, you'll know my posts have been very scarce here since. I hadn't been doing the new Cata dungeons & hadn't even seen inside the Zandalari ones when they were released so I did a few with guildies & got sidetracked into PvP with my newly dinged Hunter. Had some personal problems with a couple of guildies & combined with the lack of drive/focus with my gold making, I spiralled down quickly & have been fighting clinical depression for a few months now.

The gold making community has been a constant source of friendly support though & I'm so proud to call them all friends. Just little messages of 'I'm here if you need me', 'I miss your writing, Nev' or even just 'hugs' means so much when one is so low. One special person gave me the impetus to start fighting again & to get some help so now I'm booked in for various sessions in the coming months to try to sort all this crap out.

I could waffle on forever about my plans for the New Year but right now, it's all the small stuff - baby steps & 'just keep swimming' as Dory would say :P I plan to return here more regularly but I won't promise, I just don't know yet. There's light at the end of the tunnel - I just have to get there.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is 'a huge Thank You' to all my readers, my fellow writers & my goldmaking friends - without you guys & gals, I'd still be broke in game & broken in RL. I was going to name everyone who's been so nice to me but the list got so long, it would need its' own post!


Wishing Everyone a wonderful start to 2012 & lots of gold in your futures

Luff y'all
Nev
xx