Rat Scratches

One of my rats, Bandit...decided he wanted to grab a hold of my hand and climb on it. The result was three little claw marks on my hand. lol 

I don't get a lot of scratches from them but when they dig their claws in to grab a hold..this can be the result. He tried giving me kissed later..Made it all better. 

Making Friends

If you've been reading my blog for the past couple of months you know that I adopted 4 rats a while back from a friend and one of those rats, Fang...would not let Ken pet him, especially through the bars of a cage. Fang bit Ken on more than one occasion. I told you about Ken getting bit in this blog post and he has been bitten by Fang, not once, not twice but 4 times. Once on the nose. 

Fang didn't want Ken touching him when I was holding him or petting him and when Ken would come over to pet him while I was holding him, he would turn away or nip him. I think Fang thought Ken was competition for my affection. So I would hold Fang and have Ken come over and pet him while I petted him too and after a while he stopped turning away from Ken and let him pet him. It took a while longer for Ken to be able to put him fingers through the bars of the cage like I could to pet him, even though he would come and sit over by the corner of the cage and look at him, if Ken put his fingers in there, he would get bit. 

So I sat in front of the cage while Ken was on the side like in the picture and I would pet Fang in the cage while Ken pet him through the bars of the cage and after a while he stopped trying to bite Ken. 

As you can see, fang likes coming over to the corner now and getting petted. Ken also gives him little bits of whatever he's eating, so that didn't hurt. LOL

Fang and Ken are now buddies. 

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too.

This week I received a sample bag of Purina Cat Chow from Costco and I found the link for that on Hey It's Free.

I also received two sample boxes of Align Probiotic from Vocal Point. 

You can sign up at Vocal Point and receive random freebies too. You have to contribute to discussions on the site and when they have free samples available you can also sign up for those. 

Favorite Books

Everyone has favorite books. Books that you either never give away and have re-read, or are a part of a series that you love and can't wait for the next book to come out. While other books have sentimental value because of the person that gave it to you, or how you got it.

Here are some of my favorite books.

I couldn't make this list without adding a book from this series. Anita kicks ass!

I have to say this is a book from one of my all time favorite series. I tell everyone who asks for a great series of books about these books because I haven't been let down by one of them. 

Can't say enough about Gena's books. I'm a huge fan and most of the people I talk to about PNR books, also love her books. 

Sara has a great series out and I impatiently await the next book from her. If you like shifters, you'll love her books. They are hot!

I love shifters and Jennifer Ashley has a great series that I love to read. I have read all the books in this series so far and can hardly wait for the next one.

This is by far the longest book on my bookshelf and it had to be to tell us Acheron's story. This is my favorite book in this series and every book in this series is an auto buy for me. 

So what are some of your favorite books?

My boys...

Finding A Lost Loved One Or Old School Friend

It may seem like a great idea to go and look for a long lost relative or someone you went to school with in this age of technology, but are you prepared for the consequences if things go bad?

A decade ago before I really knew what I was doing on the intenet, I went through a website to help me find a relative that had been put up for adoption and with their help I did find him. My family welcomed him into our family with open arms and it seemed like things were going well for a while but sooner or later the real person shows through, they really can't keep up the fake persona for too long and when they start feeling comfortable around you, all the fake falls away and all you have left is the real truth. Sometimes it's not so pretty.

So after years of dealing with the drama, the lies, and the weirdness we all parted ways with him and most of his extended family.

So my advice to anyone looking for old friends, relatives ect... Don't. Not unless you are emotionally prepared to deal with things you never though you'd have to deal with because you don't really know this person. Even if you knew them in high school and got along great with them, were best friends...if it's been a while, they have changed...hell, you have changed and you might not hit it off so well again.

It's something to think about. Do you really want to bring potential drama into your life? Into your families life? Most likely the answer is no.

I know it's easy to find people these days, all you really have to do is Google someones name and you'd most likely be able to find them. That happened to me a while back when an old friend from high school contacted me on FB. Imagine my surprise. After a few months though, things got weird and he got weird and I ended up having to unfriend and block him...people change over time and sometimes not for the better.

So be careful out there...

A Late Christmas Card

I received this in the mail last week. I found it funny. Happy Obamacare...LOL 

Easy Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

I have a bread machine that my mom gave me for my birthday years ago and I love using this thing. Not only does it make really good bread..but I can make fast dough for pizza, cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls. So that's what I did here. I put all the ingredients in my bread machine and let it do all the mixing, then I took it out, rolled it into a 12x12 sheet and put a thin layer of butter all over it. Then mixed 1 cup of sugar with 1Tablespoon of cinnamon and sprinkled that mixture over the butter. I rolled it up and cut into slices. Here's a picture of my first batch.

You have to grease the pan, cover it with plastic wrap and let them rise for about 3 hours or until they double in size.

3 hours later, they have doubled in size. Now I just bake them at 350 for 20 minutes. 

How easy is that? For a homemade icing I mix 1 cup of powdered sugar with 1 Tablespoon milk and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract and pour over cinnamon rolls. 

Now if these pictures aren't reason enough to buy a Bread Machine, you can also read my article on my top ten reasons like mine. 

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too.

This week I did pretty well and am so excited to read this book. 

I won Wild About You by Kerrelyn Sparks from a giveaway at SOS Aloha blog. *Thanks Kim!* She also sent me the Hawaiian tea. 

I found the links to get the free samples of Folgers coffee and Cream of Wheat at Hey it's Free.

I found the link to get the Jergens lotion sample at Freebie Shark. 

Today I also want to introduce you to another freebie site I found that has great freebie links. It's called Freebie Shark. They have links to great freebie samples too. 

Bagels and Cream Cheese

Bagels and Cream Cheese probably doesn't sound too terribly weird to you and the picture probably looks good to anyone who has ever eaten that. But what if I would you this was a cinnamon bagel and salmon cream cheese?

Still sound good?

Well, that's what it is and I loved it. lol 

No, I'm not pregnant. Ken got us both a bagel the other morning and I used some of the salmon cream cheese he bought for his onion bagel..because I like it.  I wasn't sure it would be good but Bam! Delicious. 

Now I usually have cereal for breakfast, in fact I've had cereal for breakfast pretty much every single day since I was a kid, with a few pancakes, eggs or toaster strudel thrown in every once in a while. But this is my new favorite breakfast. Who knew?

Books I'm Looking Forward To In The New Year

There were a lot of great books that came out in 2012 and I still have a few of them in my wish list yet to read. But I wanted to make sure to put some of the upcoming books that are not yet out in my wish list as well. There are some great books coming out this year that I'm really looking forward to.

I know there are more, and I'll probably have to make another list of them. So what am I missing in my list? What are you looking forward to?

Lucky The Three Legged Rat

My little guy decided to go under the blanket in his cage..he's so small he has no problem getting into the smallest of places. 

Look at that little face. We are going to try and introduce him to the boys in the big two level cage when he gets a little bigger. Right now he's the size of a mouse and the other boys are much bigger than he is.

Monday Blog Hop Quiz About Me

Welcome to Monday Quiz About Me - hosted by Acting Balanced and Touristic.

Here are FOUR QUESTIONS that everyone can answer and then you have the option to add a fifth question of your own for those who are visiting your blog to answer in the comment section, along with commenting on the four standard questions you answered!


Here are the Questions:

1. What do you think the biggest downside to being rich and famous would be?
2. What is the most interesting news article you read or heard about last week?
3. Who kissed you for the first time?
4. How much do you typically tip at a decent sit down restaurant?

And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!

My Answers

1. Getting spammed by people who you've never met wanting money, ie..charities ect..
2. This one... http://news.yahoo.com/cat-caught-sneaking-saw-phone-brazil-prison-145407675.html
3. His name was Jose and I was 15 years old. Yeah, late bloomer. lol
4. If the service is good, I would tip 15%

My 5th question this week is ...

5. What one thing makes you smile each day even when you aren't feeling so good?


Now, please link up and tell your friends to join us!

This is a Blog Hop!

Ratty Pictures

I switched cages last week and put the 4 younger boys into the bigger 2 level cage because my two older boys can't walk up and down the ramp any more and I don't want them getting hurt or falling down the ramp, so they are now in the single level cage. 

The boys are checking out their new digs. 

I think they like it. 

Bandit wondering how to get on the floor. 

Bandit, always the one wanting his picture taken. 

My two 3 year old boys went right in their bed to take a nap. 

Fang was trying to clean himself but Patches wanted to sleep on him. 

Ares and Hades. Ares is winking at you. 

(I actually think Hades whiskers were poking him in the face...lol)

My old boys just want to sleep. Elderly rats love to cuddle, fall asleep on you and aren't as rambunctious as the youngsters. 

If You do The Crime..You Should Have To Do The Time

I'm a firm believer that if you do a crime no matter what the circumstances, there should be some form of punishment. And if you do a crime under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, even marijuana ..you should get even more time for being a dumbass. You had a choice to drink and take drugs. You had a choice as to whether you were going to get so stinking drunk that you lost control of yourself and ended up committing a crime and now feel bad about it..it's not an excuse.

If you 'think' you have a mental illness and plan on using that as an excuse ...it's not an excuse.

Do I believe that most people deserve a second chance? Of course I do in most circumstances, but if you've already been given one and another and still make the same bad choices...you get no sympathy from me.

Funny Thoughts

Each Wednesday I put on here funny things that others say on Twitter, and I thought why not put some of the things I've added on twitter and Facebook over the years. So hear are some of the funny sayings I've found over the years that I've posted on Twitter and Facebook...

You my friend, should have been swallowed.

I have a bad case of Idontgiveashititis.

If I had a nickel for every stupid thing you ever said. I'd have a sock full of nickels to beat you with.

I would take your advice, but I can't go to hell. Satan still has a restraining order against me.

Respect is earned not given.

The only reason you talk about me behind my back is because you have no life.

Confucius say man with hole in pocket feels cocky all day long.

I bet you feel totally fucktarded right now, don't you? You totally mistook me for someone who was going to take your bullshit. better luck next time douche bag.

If you're smoking in here, you'd better be on fire.

So, if I were to do unto others as they have always done unto me. How much jail time would that be for me exactly?

Last night I dreamed of you, I had to sleep with the lights on the rest of the night.

I just rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain.

Go down a water slide without water and you'll understand why foreplay is so important.

You hide crazy like a bikini hides an extra 45 pounds.

I'd trust a fart after a binge at Taco Bell more than I'd ever trust you.

You know that annoying little turd that just swirls at the bottom of the bowl and won't flush? Yeah, that's you.

If you have a problem with me, then cry me a river and drown yourself in it.

I make milk...what's your super power?

I look at people sometimes and think...really? That's the sperm that won?

If you want a man to leave you alone at a bar, don't tell him you have a boyfriend...tell him you have a penis.

I have many small things on my mind, but your penis isn't one of them.

We need gun control and idiot control.

If I did half the things rumors said I did, I might have more fun.

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too.

This week was a great week. I received:

2 Diapers from Costco. I found the link for this freebie on Hey it's Free.

John Frieda Sheer Blonde shampoo, conditioner and lightening spray. I received this freebie right from the John Frieda website. If you sign up for an account with them the will send you occasional freebies.

Schiff Digestive Advantage daily probiotics 30 day full size box. I heard about this freebie from The Dr. Oz show, he gave them away on his website. 

I got a beautiful necklace, pen, note card and fridge magnet from Cat Grant. I won this in a giveaway on Pants Off Reviews blog. 

And I was able to buy A Love Untamed by Pamela Palmer with free Amazon gift cards I got from cashing in my Swagbucks. 

Meeting People Online and Red Flags

I realize a lot of people meet other people these days by chatting online first and then meeting face to face. A lot of my friends have met after chatting online first. I myself have friends online that I've never met face to face, but that doesn't mean you don't have to be careful about meeting people online.

Regardless of the length of time you've chatted them up online, you really don't know this person and have to keep yourself safe. Always meet in a public place for first few times you meet. Let someone know where you're going to be and when you plan to be home and whom you are meeting.

Red Flags
If the person doesn't want to meet in a public place, that should throw up a red flag.
If the person shows up and doesn't look anything like their photo, or are years older than they said they were..that should be a red flag for you. It means they lied and now you can't trust anything they've said to you.

If after you meet this person a few times and find out that none of their family members talk to them, they have strange security concerns, they think people are watching them or they just seem off in some way...you may want to Google the persons name and see if they have anything written about them anywhere.

Don't share personal information with anyone until you feel comfortable with them. There are a lot of nice people out there but there are a lot of people just looking for an easy target also. It's always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to letting new people into your life.

My Newest Rat, Lucky

Here's a video of my newest rat, Lucky. My daughter's friend called and told her that the pet store she works at was going to euthanize him because he only has three legs and he wouldn't sell at their store. So she called my daughter to see if I wanted to adopt him. My daughter and her boyfriend brought him home to me today. Please excuse the green lines. I don't know why they keep appearing in my videos.

Here are a few pictures of Lucky, the three legged rat.

Resolutions

I've seen this questioned asked several times on blogs and websites in the past couple of hours. So do you make them? I stopped making resolutions years ago. I just don't see the point actually. Who actually keeps their resolutions anyway? I sure didn't.

The Real facts On Marijuana

Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/opinion/a-bad-trip-for-democrats.html?_r=0


TUESDAY’S election was a victory for the marijuana lobby: Colorado and Washington State voted to legalize recreational use, while Massachusetts will now allow doctors to recommend it as medicine.

It’s a movement around which many Democrats have coalesced. In Colorado, legalization was part of the state party’s platform. And last year, in Montana, Republicans voted to overturn the state’s medical marijuana law, but the Democratic governor saved it with a veto.

But Democrats should think twice about becoming the party of pot. I’m a lifelong partisan Democrat, but I’ve also spent 25 years as a doctor treating drug abusers, and I know their games. They’re excellent con artists.

Take, for example, medical marijuana laws. They were sold to more than a dozen states with promises that they’re only for serious illnesses like cancer.

But that’s not how they work in practice. Almost all marijuana cardholders claim they need it for various kinds of pain, but pain is easy to fake and almost impossible to disprove. In Oregon and Colorado, 94 percent of cardholders get their pot for pain. In Arizona, it’s 90 percent. Serious illnesses barely register.

It’s possible that they all really do need pot to help them. But consider this: pain patients are mostly female, whereas a recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that adult cannabis abusers were 74 percent male.

So which one do marijuana patients resemble? Though only two states release data on gender, a vast majority of medical-marijuana cardholders are male. In Arizona, it’s 73 percent, and in Colorado, it’s 68 percent. The best explanation for such skewed numbers is that most medical marijuana recipients are drug abusers who are either faking or exaggerating their problems. No one should support this subterfuge, but especially not Democrats. It turns us into hypocrites. We fumed when President George W. Bush proposed gutting the Clean Air Act and called it the Clear Skies Initiative. That’s no more dishonest than calling pot “medical” when it almost all goes to recreational use.

Indeed, marijuana activists use phony science, just as global warming deniers do. For years they claimed pot was good for glaucoma and never apologized when research found it could actually make glaucoma worse. They still insist weed isn’t addictive, despite every addiction medicine society saying it is.

They’ve even produced their own flawed scientific studies supposedly proving that medical marijuana laws don’t increase use among teenagers, when almost all the evidence says just the opposite. How can Democrats criticize Republicans for disregarding science and making up facts when people on our side do the same?

Democrats know we need government regulation to protect the public from unhealthy products. But the marijuana lobby wants us to distrust two centerpieces of the regulatory state, the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The whole purpose of medical marijuana laws is to evade the regulatory power of these agencies. We’re the political party that got the F.D.A. to regulate tobacco. How can we now say it shouldn’t regulate pot?

Legalization also runs counter to the Democrats’ commitment to education. States with medical marijuana laws have always had much higher rates of teenage marijuana use, but now the effect is nationwide. Since 2008, teenage use has increased 40 percent, and heavy use (at least 20 times a month) is up 80 percent.

Blame the drive to legalize pot. It sends the message that weed is harmless, even though research shows that teenagers who use it regularly do worse in school, are twice as likely to drop out and earn less as adults. Teenage use has been shown to permanently lower I.Q.

No other drug, not even alcohol, affects academic performance like marijuana. How can we make education a focus, and then support laws that will blunt the next generation’s ability to compete?

Legalization would also undermine a successful Democratic program: drug courts, which were written into the 1994 crime bill by Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. They use coercion, the threat of jail, to keep addicts in treatment.

But the marijuana lobby opposes coercion. That’s not surprising. Drug users just want to be left alone to get high. If we side with them, we’re undercutting the Democratic answer to substance abuse.

In effect, America now has two tea parties: on the left they smoke their tea; on the right they throw it in Boston Harbor. Both distrust government, disregard science and make selfish demands that would undermine the public good. But while Republicans have completely caved in to their Tea Party, several Democrats, including the president, are standing up to ours.

Ed Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist and board member of Keep AZ Drug Free, which opposes medical marijuana laws.

__________________

I found this article and had to share it because it says a lot of the things that marijuana users don't want you to know or to think about. I made bold and underlined many of the statements that pot heads don't want you to know about so they would stand out for you.

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone has a great and happy new year. 

I've had good and bad days this year. 

The good... I found out that I'm going to be a grandma.
I adopted 4 new ratty's.
I passed the half a million mark on views on my articles.
I found some great new books.
Made some great new friends.  

The Bad...Had to cut ties with several trouble makers.
Our health isn't as good as it used to be.
Lost my Heart Rat, Jasper.
Also lost my little rat, Brodie. 

I can only hope this next year is better than this year for me and for everyone else.

When Do You Take Down Your Christmas Decorations?

So it's almost Jan.1st and my tree and decorations are still up, the decorations are still up and they'll probably stay up until after New Years Day. Some of my friends took all their decorations down right after Christmas, but I always wait until after New Years Day. It just seems like the festive thing to do, to leave it up. Plus I don't feel like pulling out the boxes and putting everything away yet. lol 

Do you take your down the day after Christmas or are you like me and leave them up for a few days?

$25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed, I will be emailing the winner shortly.

I thought it was time for another giveaway. So this time I am giving away a $25 Amazon gift card. All you have to do to be entered is leave a comment on this post with your email address so I can contact you if you win. I will be mailing this gift card to you, so you'll have to give me your address if you are the winner. This giveaway ends January 8th and I will email the winner on the 9th. The winner will have 24 hours to respond to my email or another will be picked. 

Good luck!

Review: Vons.com Delivery

But that's what I've received twice from Vons.com delivery in the past year. 

Let me explain.

2 years ago we lost out car when the brakes stopped working and a whole host of other reasons. The car was 15 years old and it did last us a really long time, but it just stopped working and it was going to take a lot of money to fix, money we don't have. So to the scrap yard it went. I'm disabled and don't walk well any longer and Ken is terminally ill and is sick quite often, so walking 4 blocks up to the grocery store especially in the 117 F heat of the summer just isn't going to happen.

So we use delivery from Vons.com a couple of times a month. Most of the time what we get is fresh, in reasonably good shape and nothing is wrong with it. But on 3 occasions over the last year I have had problems with some of the groceries I've gotten from them. Recently 3 packages of the meat I bought turned out to be rotten. I knew right away just by looking at it that something wasn't quite right with a package of the steaks. The edges were all a weird gray color and so I opened the package to see if it smelled and you could have killed a maggot with the rank smell coming from those steaks.

I looked at the other packages of meat and saw that two other packages of steaks had the same grey egdes and when I opened those, they smelled as well. 

Now I will say, when I called Vons.com to let them know, they issued a refund for that meat right away. So they did take care of my problem. The only problem with that is now I was down 3 days of dinner and in order to order from vons.com you have to spend at least $50 and then there's the delivery fee but if you spend at least $150.00 you get free delivery. So I could either order another large amount or a smaller amount and pay a delivery free which can be anywhere from $6-$12 depending on if you want it same day, one hour window or buy participating products that lower the delivery charge or get it free if you buy enough from them in one order. 

Two days later I went in the refrigerator and got out the XLNT Tamales that I had just bought, opened the package and put two in a bowl. That's when I noticed a blue tint to one of them. I thought to myself.."No damn way." So I opened the package back up and took out a couple more and sure enough there was mold on 3 of the XLNT Tamales I had just bought 2 days earlier from Vons.com. 

I didn't even bother to call and complain this time, I was just so disgusted I just threw them away.

The very first time I ordered from Vons.com a while back I had my order delivered and checked to see if everything was there. On my receipt there was a large pack of chicken legs that I was charged for, but never got delivered. I called the phone number to complain and they refunded my money right then and there. But that didn't help with the fact that I didn't have the package of chicken legs now. 

There have been other things like giving me a substitution of a product when I mark no substitutions and I end up getting a smaller size that costs more than the product I had picked out. 

For the most part I think they do a really good job getting the orders filled right and when you have a problem they do give you a refund, but from now on I won't be buying any beef from them. For some reason the beef is usually not fresh, it's brown or just plain rotten. I will buy more bulk frozen packs of meat from them. At least that way I know they won't be rotten and when Ken does go to the store he's going to focus more on the meats and I can get the non-perishables from Vons.com. Maybe that way we won't be getting any more rotten meat.