Music Monday: Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You

I've been a bit obsessed with the game app Song Pop and this song has featured heavily on my turns in the last week. It has made me want to watch Empire Records more than ever before, which barely seems possible! It's such a great tune. It easily gets stuck in your head and I'm sure it will keep popping up in Song Pop this week too.

 

Get paid to review music

I'm always a bit wary about these sites that reward you for using them. A couple of months ago after saying I was struggling to know what the new music was these days - how old do I sound? Ha! It was suggested that I joined slicethepie as they had new music mixed with music that hasn't really been discovered yet. I could review music and get paid - what was the catch? Well it's never going to make me a millionaire and they are pretty strict.

I started using it about January this year and I don't go on there very regularly but I have probably made about £50. Yep, told you it wasn't going to make me a millionaire! It's pretty easy to sign up and you have some options at the beginning as to your music choices. Be honest here, if you select all the music but you don't like folk music for instance it will show in your reviews and you'll probably get black marked. That's you told.

Reviews are pretty simple but you can't for obvious reasons just write "I loved it" or "I hated it", you have to explain why. How the song made you feel, what you liked and disliked. Basically review what you have heard. Most times songs are paid out at just $0.05 which is pretty low if you're doing this for money. There are special times when this goes up to $0.20 a song and recently I have had a few $0.27 a song. Along the way I have heard a lot of new bands and I've also heard every track from the albums of Rihanna, Tom Jones and Cheryl Cole.

It's a mix and there will be times when you can't write a review and you'll just skip it. New bands love to have some input in their songs and you'll find you start noticing names re-appearing when they release new tracks too. Like I said I don't use it very much at all, the money is obviously an added bonus but I love listening to new music. It's a great site and I've honestly had no problems with it whatsoever.

You can sign up here slicethepie.com




 

Bloglovin changed!

This is another of my 'drama' moments when really it's not actually a drama but it is annoying, very annoying. I have used bloglovin for a while now to follow and read all my favourite blogs and bloggers. Then they changed it, well they updated it but lost the blogs I had 'starred' as my favourites. Yep drama!

I follow about a zillion blogs and when I have a spare moment (normally when travelling on the train) I open up the bloglovin app and work my way through my starred favourite blogs. If I have time I work my way through more. When you rely - yes rely on a website for a function and it's gone it makes me mad and also sad. I try to keep my little self so organised and I don't like change. Bloglovin on twitter did contact me and said my 'starred' blogs were lost probably for good and that the app is going to be having a big update soon. So now I'm moving and sorting my blog reader to something else, I'm trying out a few options and I think I'll have to do some kind of back up system for these.

Just when I was going to start my series for how I stay organised, something changes and pushes me into panic. It will be resolved soon and I'll keep you posted.

You can still follow my blog on bloglovin but please let me know if you have any issues with it. Bah, Sarah does not like change!





 

Music Monday: The Killers - Runaways

A new Killers album is on its way, September the 17th to be exact and I'll admit I am excited. I still don't think anything will compare to Hot Fuss or the first time I heard that album but new Killers stuff intrigues me and this new single Runaways is definitely growing on me.

The album 'Battle Born' is out September 17th.

thekillersmusic.com/runaways




 

My half price spend at The Body Shop

The Body Shop emailed me with their new offer and before I'd even finished reading all of it I was already logging into the website. Next my basket was getting full and soon enough my card details were in and sent! Oops. But actually not oops.

Look what I got;

My favourite foot lotion

    Baked-to-Last-Bronzer - Warm Glow 

 

Tea Tree Oil 

Satsuma Body Butter

Chocomania Shower Cream 

   Born Lippy stick lip balm - Pomegranate

I chose a mixture of old favourites and I'm intrigued to try the chocomania shower cream! This lot came to £50 until I entered SPLASH at checkout and it came to a total of £25! HALF PRICE!

The full offers in full are; Save £5 when you spend £15,  Save £10 when you spend £25, Save £25 when you spend £50.

Receive £5, £10 or £25 OFF your order. Enter Code: SPLASH at checkout.


The important bits

This offer is open from 4pm on 17th July and closes 12 noon on 23rd of July. The promotional code must be registered at the time of purchase, by entering the promotional code at the shopping basket. The offer excludes the purchase of: (a) Charity Items, (b) Love Your Body™ cards or (c) Gift Cards. This promotion cannot be redeemed in conjunction with any other discount or promotion including the standard 10%The Love Your Body™ membership discount. This promotional code can only be used once for one single transaction.

If you spend over £50 you also get free standard delivery too.

The Body Shop are one of my affiliates.

 

Oh IFTTT

I've been using IFTTT for a couple of months now and I wouldn't be able to manage my blogosphere life without it. The site is very simple and adopts the phrase "IF This Then That' so for example if you post a blog post and you want to send a tweet about it then you create a recipe for that task. There are nearly 50 channels including twitter, facebook, blogger, wordpress, evernote. You can create the 'This' part of the action for example;

• I post a photo on instagram

So to end your recipe with the 'that' part you would need to action it; 

• Send photo to evernote.

This very recipe was how I came across IFTTT as Facebook buying instagram had me worried that I could at some point lose my photos and wanted them saved somewhere. I now use IFTTT to do several tasks and help me organise myself better. My only criticism is that you can only load one account to each IFTTT account. So if you run two twitter accounts for example, you would need two separate IFTTT accounts. Apparently they will change that in the future but it's one of my favourite time saving internet tools. 

Love it!

Music Monday: Michael Jackson - P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

Just because!

 

Bees update

Back in early spring I was delighted by how well my beehive was looking after a particularly cold winter. I inspected the hive carefully for any signs of disease and of course located the Queen Bee who seemed happy. The workforce had been tucking away into their winter stores and although they had been checked on several times during the cold months, the first Spring inspection is always very important. With no sign of disease in the hive and the numbers were quite high we believed that our hive was in a strong condition for the year. That was the same through the next few months, until early June.

We are almost quadrupling making our own bee candy as the pollen stores are so low. The numbers have decreased by a third and are not showing any signs of getting better with the weather forecast being particularly wet for the immediate future. Back in April I had started to make my own jars of honey as the warmer days in April had made the hive very busy. It is completely different now. Sadly this is not all due to the weather.

We know that pesticides have been harming bees and other insect types for years and it seems now with the wetter weather in the UK that some are increasing their use. Without bees we would be damaging our crops, it's as simple as that. No bees to pollinate our crops would be very bad.

With myself still under training I am always looking for guidance so my tutor has told me that I need to stop going back for a bit. Bit like leaving your child at school for the first time I guess, I just have to let them get on. I don't go every week as it is but I can see the whole beehive experience in recent weeks has been traumatic for me and the bees. Firstly I get absolutely soaked and those bee suits are super clingy when wet, yuck! Secondly the hive is very loud, more annoyed by the interruption of this big person who is pressuring them to work. Oops.

Definitely still learning and there are so many factors to take into consideration. So I will stop being so obsessive, for now.

You can read all my other bee posts here 




 

I love to laugh...hahahahaha

I laugh at some pretty stupid things. Myself mainly which I am totally ok with. In fact I am more than ok with being a bit silly and acting like a loon. I have fun, I enjoy life. I enjoy laughing, you know the little giggles that you try to stifle because you're at work or somewhere a laugh right now would have everyone staring. Somehow that laugh still slips out, louder than you'd ever imagined and because of that it is even more funny.

I can still watch episodes of Friends and laugh along like it's the first time I have seen them. I can also shout PIVOT loudly at the TV and know I must sound 1. mad 2. still mad. I have also over the years laughed along with many comedians some that I am probably embarrassed to mention at my age, Ken Dodd is one of them. But that's what it is, or 'as is'(that's an in-joke).

I love to laugh. I need to surround myself with more funny stuff. Laughter is good for my soul. Just like cake. Cake and laughter, who could ask for anything more?

 

Music Monday: Icona Pop - I Love It

Another Monday rolls around quickly and this week's Music Monday comes from Sweden and this fab duo Icona Pop. I'll admit the first time I heard this song I put it firmly in the 'annoying can't get out of your head' category. Then it grew and grew and now I can barely stop singing it!

I love my catchy tunes and this one could be my Summer (what Summer!) song!

As the song says "I love it".

iconapop.com/
@iconapop
facebook.com/iconapop

Looking forward to their album later this year!




 

Chrome for iOS = YES!

I wrote recently about switching (finally!) over to Google Chrome and I had heard mumblings that an app was due for iOS. Then when I saw it trending on twitter I quickly downloaded it. The Safari option is at best clunky and quite basic, now with Chrome I can log into my account and it's all synced together.

Reviewed: L'Oreal's Youth Code Luminosity Extraordinary Serum

I had to laugh when I was sent this particularly after my 'thirty something skin' revelation that I wrote about last week. I actually chuckled away out loud reading the title, L'Oreal Youth Code Luminosity Extraordinary Serum, makes you say WOW and also giggle again. It's such a long title for a bottle that is said to do so much.

Music Monday: Bloc Party - Banquet

I'm completely over the moon happy that Bloc Party's new album is coming out on the 20th of August. How I have missed them. Banquet is one of my favourite track's and I've recently had the album Silent Alarm almost on repeat in my car.