Happy Raturday!

 

All pictures this week are courtesy of Anisah Hann/Ratz Furever. Ratz Furever has a hilarious Instagram page where she posts videos of her rats. She gets some drama because some people don't think these are funny. I find them hilarious and you can tell from her other social media that she takes great care of her rats. Go check her out. I took screen shots from some of her videos to get these pictures because I love her rats. 

Apartment Life #376

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 26 years here in a weekly blog post.

My camera doesn't take great pictures at night but the ambulance showed up at 10PM on Monday night and they had someone on the stretcher that went to the ER. 

The police were seen on my street on Tuesday afternoon. They're been driving by a lot recently, this time they stopped and talked to someone across the street in the apartments there. 

The next morning around 6AM on Wednesday, I saw caution tape going across the street. I didn't hear or see any police or anything but the older couple across the street said he said the police at 2AM with their flashlights looking in the rocks. Usually when they do theta they're looking for blood or bullet casings. But another neighbor said she went to work at 5AM and the caution tape wasn't there at that time. Did someone put it up, take it down and then put it back up again?

I'm confused as to who did it now. Was it police or someone around here pulling a prank?

I read on Twitter sometime back that people in other countries don't believe that the school buses here in the US are actually yellow. So I thought I would snap a picture of one to show anyone who didn't know that they are indeed yellow.

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Some fireworks from the 4th.

 

The high this week was 104F/40C

The low this week was 77F/25C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made.

I'm calling this a comfort food casserole. 

Cornbread Chili Casserole

You will need: 

2 cans of Hormel Chili with beans

2 boxes of Jiffy Cornbread mix

1/2 cup of corn- fresh or canned is fine

1 tomato- diced

2 TBSP Diced Green Chilis - I used canned

No calorie cooking spray

2 eggs

2/3 cup milk

1 1/2 lbs ground beef- cooked

What to do: 

Cook the ground beef in a pan until no longer pink, drain off any oil, add both cans of chili to the ground beef and stir to mix. Set aside. 

Spray a 9x13 casserole dish with no calorie cooking spray. Preheat over to 400F.

Mix the Jiffy cornbread mix according to package directions using the eggs, milk and water. Stir the diced green chilis, tomato and corn into the cornbread mixture and pour into your greased baking pan. Spoon the hamburger mixture on top of the cornbread mixture and stir just a little to get the hamburger down into the cornbread. Do not mix too much, you want the hamburger to still be mostly on top. 

Bake for 45 minutes in a 400F oven or until the cornbread is done. 

This made a huge casserole dish full and made 8 servings. Each serving is 375 calories and 20 carbs.

Would you eat this?

I made a big dish of this and ate is for lunch for a few days. It easily heated back up in the microwave and was great for lunch.  

Makeup Haul and a Maybelline Foundation Rant

 

Small Makeup haul. The Sugar brand black eyeliner is my favorite. I've used it for years and love how smoothly is goes on. But I really love how it dries down like a liquid eyeliner and doesn't smudge. I love that. Then I also got a Burts Bees Shimmer lip balm in color Peony. It's the only lipstick/lip balm that I wear when I want some color.

Benefit Fan Fest Mascara- It's a volumizing mascara that works really well for me since I have small eyelashes. It builds on itself and makes my eyelashes look long. 

And then 4 different shades of Maybelline Fit Me foundation. 3 of them are too light but at least I won't have to buy any concealer for a long time since I can use these for that. lol 

I also tried a Wet n Wild Photo Focus Dewy foundation shade Rose Ivory. It was much too light. Almost straight up white. Too light to even use as a concealer for me. 

I also tried a Revlon Illuminance Skin-Caring Liquid Foundation, Nourishing Formula with Medium Coverage, in the shade 209 Buff Beige. Now while this is the right shade to be a good concealer, the scent is awful. To me, it smells like what an old dish sponge that is moldy/mildewy smells like. I can't have that scent on my face. I gave it to my daughter to see if she could use it. 

So you might be wondering why I bought so many different foundations? Let me tell you... I've been using Maybelline foundation for many years. First it was this one, Dream Satin Liquid Shade 30. Then they discontinued making this.

I started using this, Maybelline Dream Radiant Liquid, Shade Ivory beige. It has a pink undertone which I really like since my skin is fair but pinkish. Each time they rebrand and discontinue making the one I'm using, I can usually find the right shade by reading the comments on their website. But when I went to order more of the Dream Radiant Liquid, I saw that it was also being discontinued and my shade was no longer available. So I went to their website and looked at the comments to see if anyone had figured out the right shade for what I used. 

Instead of just telling people what the right shade would be to replace what they had been using, Maybelline gave them this very unhelpful response to try the Fit Me Dewy foundation but they don't tell you what the new shade number is for what you used to wear, so they pretty much are saying, figure it out yourself. Very helpful. Not!

While I probably should have just tried a different brand all together and left Maybelline in the dust, I didn't and since I have no idea what the new name of my old shade is, so I bought shade 105 and 110 hoping that at least one of them would be close to the right shade. They are both close but both are a little too light. 

Maybelline could have been helpful and left the shade names or numbers the same on the new bottles so people could find what they're looking for but no, that would be too easy and helpful. Or at the very least have a chart telling you if you used this shade, this new shade would work for you. But no. That would be too helpful too I guess. I even made a post asking for help finding a dupe for the shade they discontinued. I posted on Twitter/X and on Instagram and tagged Maybelline in both and got nothing from them. 

So I bought shades 122 and 124 as well as a Revlon and Wet n Wild foundation. You read above how the Revlon and Wet n Wild foundations turned out. The Maybelline Fit Me Dewy shade 122 was just a little lighter than I liked but works fine for a concealer color. 

Finally though when I tried the Maybelline Fit Me Dewy shade 124, that was almost the same shade as the Maybelline Dream Radiant Liquid shade Ivory beige that I loved and wanted to replace since it was discontinued. It works but isn't as pink as I would have liked.

I decided to do like the beauty enthusiasts do on Instagram and swatch a couple of shades on my arm so you can see the difference. 

The top shade is the one I like. It's the Maybelline Dream Radiant Liquid in shade Ivory beige. 

The next one down is the Maybelline Fit Me Dewy shade 124. 

And the one at the bottom is Maybelline Fit Me Dewy shade 122. 

You can see that 124 and the top one are very close in color while the bottom shade is too light. So I will continue to use 124 for now.

Maybelline obviously stopped making the shade that I liked with the pink undertone because while shade 124 was very close, it has a tan undertone. The next darker shade available would be too dark and again doesn't have a pink undertone. But since I use Coty Airspun Loose Face Powder in the Rosey Beige shade, I still get that pink tint to my face makeup that I like. I'm going to keep looking for a foundation shade that is right and has a pink undertone to it but for now, I have several bottles of foundation that I need to use. lol

If you've ever had a favorite makeup product be discontinued and you had a hard time finding a duplicate for it, you already know how frustrating that can be.  

Book Review: Lost by Ava Benton

 

Book Description

Tyson and some of his pack are acting as emissaries to other packs in the state when they suddenly spot something on the side of the road and he picks up the scent of blood. It’s a girl, lying in the road. She’s beaten and bloody.

Alicia wakes up, can’t remember much other than her name and age. She’s hurt. Someone seems to have beat the daylights out of her. And she’s in someone else’s—a male’s—clothing.

Then a rugged hot guy walks in. Now she realizes how lost she is.

My Review

Tyson and a few members of his pack are on their way back home, driving through a rival pack's territory when they pick up the scent of blood on the side of the road. They think it might be a setup but they stop anyway. They find Alicia who has been stabbed. They pick her up and load her into their vehicle and bring her back to their pack where their doctor can ptch her up. Tyson and his pack are wolf shifters so now with a human in their house, they have to be careful and not scare her by wolfing out. 

Once Alicia wakes up, she can't remember what happens. But she knows she feels safe with Tyson for some reason. Tyson doesn't want to admit it right away but Alicia is his mate. Something really bad happened to her and she keeps getting small flashes of what happened but she knows that there's something really important that she can't remember. 

Tyson is so patient with her while she recovers and tries to remember what happened to her and who would want to stab her and why. They can't keep their hands off each other because of the pull of the mate bond but that's ok because they really needed each other. Tyson wondered why he hadn't met his mate before now so he's happy to finally find her. Alicia really needed someone in her corner to be there for her. 

I liked the mystery of who tried to kill Alicia and why. The ending was great. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Don't Fall For These Scams

 

Recently I've been getting more and more scam emails. These two in particular though were new to me and made me read the emails twice. I even opened a new browser window and checked my Paypal account just to make sure this wasn't true. It wasn't but if I had been an older person who didn't know better like my mother, she would have clicked on the link in the email for sure back when she was alive and got her first laptop. 

This almost looks real, doesn't it? But if some unsuspecting person clicks on the "Review document" link at the top, I'm sure this is a Phishing scam where they ask you to tell them personal identifying information that they can then use to open new accounts in your name or when you click on the link they are able to infect your device with spyware or malware. Don't ever click on links that you don't trust. 

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This scam email made it look like I was going to have $541.00 taken out of my account through 'auto debit' for this. There was a pdf to download at the bottom. Don't click on that! malware, spyware, and who knows what else could infect your device if you click on any links or download anything like a pdf from these types of emails. Don't fall for these scams. 

I'm sure we all get scam emails but these two were new ones I hadn't seen before so I thought I would share them so you now know they are scams and just delete them. 

If you ever think something is going on with a bank account, Paypal account ect. Just log into your account the way you normally would and check. I'm sure most of you already know not to click on links like these but older people, like my parents would have probably fallen for this. It's always good to get this information out there for those that don't know. 

Everyone Has A Story, Here's One Of Mine

 

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood and into adulthood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.

Some Good Times

I realize that a lot of what I've written over the years has been pretty bad stuff, but it wasn't all bad. There were some good times as well. So how about I share some of those today. 

My parents split and got divorced in 1981. They didn't get along for a few years afterwards. This was taken in 1984 at Christmas. My mom invited my dad over for Christmas dinner with all of us. And everyone got along surprisingly. 

Christmas dinner was me, my brother, our mom and dad, my mom's mother (grandma) and grandma's new husband, Buster. For the most part my parents got along from this part forward. My parents were divorced at this time.

My dad liked to take us all for drives along the Pacific Coast Highway in California. We would get out and take pictures. For the most part I always liked going for a drive with my dad. I loved going to the beach. This is my dad with me and my brother.

During the Summers we would usually drive from California to Utah to visit my grandma (dads mom). This is my brother Billy, me and our grandma. She was a very nice lady. This was in 1980, I was 10.

After my parents divorced, my mom started dating Larry. I've written about him before. In the Summer of 1982 my mom and Larry took my brother Billy and me to a few different places. This was Moro Rock in California, and we stayed there to see some sights and visit Crystal Cave. It's in or right near where you enter Sequoia National Park in California. We stayed in Sequoia as well at that time. My brother and I climbed the 350 steps to reach the top of this rock a couple of times. I wish I had that kind of energy and endurance now! I had a lot of fun in Sequoia. The tree's there are so massively large. 

This is me, my brother and our mom at the top of Moro Rock. It was such a beautiful view from up there. 

I was living with my grandma after my parents divorced but for my 12th birthday my mom came to visit and got my ears pierced. She also bought me this outfit. Those are red corduroy pants. lol 

When I was a kid we had a dog named Poochie. He was a Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix. This is me holding Poochie when we went for one of my dads famous drives. This is somewhere in California but not sure where. 

My brother, Billy and I have always been close. My brother pointed out not too long ago that in most all of our pictures together I'm hugging him or have my arm around him. We went through a lot together so I think that's why we are so close, because we only had each other to count on. That's our mom in the background. 

Me and my brother, Billy again. I had just left West Virginia and come to Las Vegas when this was taken. We lived in this tiny camper next to us with our mom. My mom was happy to have us with her and she had stopped drinking for a while. 

This was taken in 1986 at Big Bear Lake, California. This is me, my aunt Wanda and my mom. We were out on a boat on Big Bear lake. My mom and her brother Jack had rented a cabin in Big Bear and we stayed there for a few days. I always loved Big Bear and the cabins. We were there during the Winter months so there was a little snow on the ground too. We had a great time there. I was 16 and taller than my mom and aunt both. lol 

1986 my brother and I. We both look pretty happy here. For a time we were happy. I can look back at this time and smile at some of the things we did and some of the trouble we got into. Were we trouble makers? Maybe? lol 

For comparison, this is my brother and I taken this year. 

This is my grandma who I was living with after my parents divorced. She is on her car. I believe this was a 1969 Ford Mustang Convertible. Man, she loved this car. She was a character as you can tell. I lived with her from 1981 to 1982. It was a little over a year but it was a time in my life that I felt the safest. 

My 8th grade graduation. I'm the one in the pink dress on the right. My friend is in the blue dress on the left. My mom actually took me dress shopping and bought the dress for me. She took me to the hair salon and had my hair done. She bought me my first pair of heels for the dress, they were only 1 inch high but still my first heels. My mom came to the graduation ceremony and took pictures. She never came to any school functions so this was unusual. Afterwards my grandparents took us all out to eat. It was a good day. 

I hope you enjoyed the look back through some old pictures and some good times in my life.

Links to past stories

2023

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December

2024

January 2024

February 2024

March 2024

April 2024

May 2024

June 2024

July 2024

August 2024

September 2024

October 2024

November 2024

December 2024

2025

January

February 2025

March 2025

April 2025

May 2025

June 2025

Happy Raturday!

 

"Maybe I can find a dating site for single rats."

"Or maybe I'll just look at funny cat meme's like everyone else."

*This weeks pictures courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #375

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 26 years here in a weekly blog post.

On Monday morning while I was outside, the Fire Truck pulled up and the firemen went inside a courtyard. 

Less than a minute later they came back out and left. Why call for the fire dept. if you don't actually need them? I don't get it. 

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I've noticed recently that a few homeless people will go up to people getting in and out of their cars around here and ask for money, food, clothing, or if the person getting out of their vehicle wants to buy whatever they are selling. A guy on a bicycle came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a shock collar for my dog this week. I declined. Most of the time they are selling stolen goods from stores around here. 

I watched on my camera as this lady was getting out of her work truck  these two homeless people quickly walked up to her and I'm guessing asked for something. Because she reached in the back of her truck pulled out water bottles, a blanket and sandwiches. 

Then she took out a box of donuts from inside the truck and gave them some of those too. I thought that was really nice of her to do that.

The high this week was 107F/41C

The low this week was 74F/23C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.