My Bookshelves are Out of Control

I knew that I was running out of room on my bookshelves and that's why I decided to buy two wall hanging book shelves because I don't have any more floor space either. I've tried weedling down the amiunt of books I keep...but that never works...they are all 'keepers'. If you are a reader like me you know what I'm talking about.

I thought it was funny, the other day the mailman asked my hubby what are in all the little packages he keeps delivering for me and Ken told him it's mostly books that his wife wins, buys, gets for free, ect..

The mailman looked at him very seriously and told him he should get me some help before it gets out of hand. My mailman thinks I am a book hoarder! I'm not even kidding. Ken told this guy that I have about 2000 books and he went off...I mean literally went off about how it's dangerous to ahve so many books and he should put a stop to it right now. That these little apartments can't store that many books without someone getting hurt. I kid you not, Ken said the mailman was just letting loose. lol

But anyway, I expect to be buying a couple more books with the Amazon.com gift card I should be getting for doing some surveys. Hey, I spend a little time doing surveys and get free books. I think that's a fair exchange. I could buy other stuff on Amazon and some times I do like rat food and toys and a few days ago since Ken said that I never ever get him anything with my gift cards, I bought a Figi's sausage and cheese sampler. I think he will be very happy.

Now I'm off to make some more room for those books I'll be getting next week. LOL

Had a small Health Scare Over the Weekend

The other morning I woke up and I was having slight chest pains and shortness of breath. I figured it would go away and waited most of the day until it got worst and at 2pm called an ambulance to come check me out. My blood pressure was really high but the heart monitor said my heart looked alright so I went to the ER just in case. I had all sorts of tests on my heart and they all came back clean. But they found out I do have an irregular heart beat (arrythmia) but it's nothing to worry about. My doc said a lot of people have it but most don't feel it and never know they have it, the fact that I can feel it when mine beats weird threw me into a full blown panic attack, which cause my heart rate to elevate and make my blood pressure go through the roof.

I've also had an infected cyst on the back of my shoulder for the past 3 weeks and didn't have it looked at...because again I thought it would just go away...it didn't. (I'm really stubborn that way). The darn thing turned into an abscess that was huge and terribly painful and he talked me into letting him take that out too.

But they let me come home after keeping me in the hospital over night and keeping me up all night running tests. They gave me one short of morphine for the chest pain and wouldn't you know it...it made me sick. Then when they did the CT scan with iodine contrast the iodine contrast made me sick and they had to keep giving me anti nausea meds all night. Fun night.

But at least I know the irregular heartbeat I keep feeling isn't anything to worry about, and that darned abscess is now gone..even though he left a big hole in the back of my shoulder to heal closed on its own..yuck.

I scared my family half to death because I hardly ever get really sick and haven't been in the hosipital in forever.

Oh and hospital beds suck...my butt hurts from sitting in it. lol

They took blood so many times over the course of that day, that night and all the next morning. I also had 3 EKG's, A Chest X-Ray, an Echo of my heart and a CT Scan of my lungs to make sure there were no blood clots. They did a full work up and checked for any possible heart attack signs or symptoms they could think of.

It seems that I have some sort of irregular heart beat that isn't going to hurt me and other people have the same thing and enever know it because they can't feel it thumping in their chest. I can feel it thumping in my chest like my heart is stopping and I could see it on the heart monitor I was hooked up to. All the doctors said that I had a panic attack when I started feeling the thumping from the irregular heart beat and then started getting muscle spasms in my chest, which led me to have an even bigger panic attack where I had shortness of breath, dizziness and numbness in my arms and then my blood pressure spiked way up when the ambulance got here because of everything. But now that I know what I'm feeling it doesn't worry me, I just have to learn to live with the thumping in my chest.

I've also gone on a diet and started walking a little more. I really don't want to end up in the hospital ever again. That's absolutely no fun what so ever.

I think my doc was more concerned about the abscess on my shoulder than anything else.

I was an idiot and let it go for 3 weeks and it got really bad. By the time a doc looked at it, it was about 3 inches round and almost 2 inches high sticking up off my skin. The doc really gave me a lecture about letting something like that go. But I thought it would just go away at some point...in the future sometime. Eh, live and learn.

Keeping Busy

So this weekend Ken is in California dog sitting for his sister while she is gone. So I've been keeping myself busy. I put together my corner wall bookshelf yesterday, which was easier than I thought it would be. Especially with the terrible instructions they give you. It was a page with a few pictures and some of them made no sense. I finally figured out what the little plasic things were after reading reviews on Amazon, where I bought it. They were wall anchors to screw the shelf to the wall, not that I could figure that out by the pictures in the instructions. Either way, it is up and now I have room for about 50 more books. lol Good thing because I just ordered 5 more from Amazon.

I've been wanting to read Big Bad Beast by Shelly Laurenston and Primal Bonds by Jennifer Ashley..so I ordered both of those and a couple of others.

Review: Wicked Pleasure by Lora Leigh

Review of Wicked Pleasure by Lora Leigh

Blurb:

Jaci Wright has been running from the Falladay twins, Chase and Cam, for seven years now. Fears of the desires they arouse in her, and the knowledge of the relationship they wanted with her, spurred her to run, to find a life that kept her traveling the globe and out of their reach.

But now life has come full circle. A new job has placed Jaci in the Sinclair mansion with Chase and Cam. And they're tired of waiting. It's hard enough to face accepting a relationship with two men rather than just one, but gossip and the tattered tales of juicy secrets fill the society she now moves within. Can Jaci face the world knowing she's a lover to both men, or will her hesitancy and her fears destroy her chance of happiness forever?


My Review:

Seven years ago Jaci runs from both Cam and Chase when she learns that she isn't just about to sleep with Cam but with his twin brother Chase as well. At the time Jaci is a virgin but has wanted Cam for years and even though he thought she knew what coming to his home would entail, she had no idea that he wanted to share her with his twin brother.

Seven years later Jaci comes to Virginia to do a decorating job for one of her friends, Courtney. But what she gets is way more than just a job, she comes face to face with flirty Chase and then later Cam who makes it very clear he and his brother plan on having her in ways she can only imagine.

Jaci also finds out the there's more to the decorating job than she could ever imagine. There's a super secret club that the brothers are a part of and she will have to get over her shock at what goes on there before she can do her job.

Jaci has secrets and so does cam, but neither of them are willing to let the other one in until the very end of the story.

This is Lora Leigh's 9th book in her Bound Hearts series. I have really liked all the books so far but I did have a few small problems with this book. First, Jaci doesn't love Chase but she wants Cam so much even though she's never had another lover, she willingly has sex with both brothers but only ever calls out Cam's name.

There were glimpses where Jaci had been abused by a couple in this story and yet when cam spanks her, she has no problem with it. It would have been a little more believable to have her be scared at first and the memories of being whipped come back. Then bring the teasing spanking into the story in a way to replace those bad memories with good ones with Cam, but that doesn't happen and it was a little unbelievable and I want the story I'm reading to be at least a bit believable.

The other thing that really bothered me is that Jaci kept saying in her mind that she saved herself for Cam and even seven years later she's never taken another lover....but she took her own virginity with a vibrator? When I read that I could not believe that had been written. What woman who is saving herself for a man takes her own virginity with a vibrator?

Chase's character is very under developed in this book. Instead of being the hero right along with his twin brother he comes off like a secondary character that wasn't given much thought. We really don't get to know much of him in this book.

While I really enjoyed reading this book for the most part, there were things about it that bothered me, but not enough to tell others not to read it. I still love Lora Leigh and will be reading more of her books in the future.

I learned Something New

My hubby Ken has had the bandages on his hand for a week or so now and he wanted to take a shower without having to worry about getting the bandages wet, so he had me take all the bandages off. But you could have blown us both over when I took that last bandage off. His doctor only told him that he used wires to fix his arm....he did not tell him that the ends of those wires were going to be poking out of his skin or that he would have to pull them out after his arm healed.

Ken and I were both looking a the 5 wires stiking up out of his hand and were like, well...how the heck is this gonna work? And how does he plan on getting them out?

I taped a trash bag over his arm so he could shower and then went to looking online about these wires. I didn't know they were called K wires, so I googled surgical wires and found so much stuff that didn't pertain to him. So I went to youtube because they have all types of medical precedures and within a few minutes I found them.

The doctor takes a pair of pliers, grabs the end of the wire and twists and turns it while pulling until it is pulled out of the bone. Some of these wires are down 5-6 inches into the bone.

I'm really surprised the doctor didn't tell Ken about this before he left...I'm really surprised. This is something a person needs to know, ya know. I hope Ken gives him hell for not letting him know what was under those bandages and what was gonna happen next time he goes in to see him.

But if you want to see K wire extraction and I know you do...here's a good video I found. Just fast foward to after they get the cast off...lol

Things are looking up

Happy Saturday everyone.

Well my hubby Ken came out of surgery very well. No complications as of yet, but he is still in quite a bit of pain. The surgeon said he used wires to put the breaks in his arm back in place that it was less intrusive and should heal faster.

You never really realize how much you use both your hands and arms until you can use one of them. I've been putting his socks and shoes on for him as well as cutting his meat and helping him put on deodorant. I remember how I felt when I partially dislocated my shoulder and he was helping me do all those things and more. You feel like your being a burden, but he's really not and I know he would do the same for me...he did.

His next doctors appt. is on the 20th, so we'll see what the doc says then.

Going to be gone for about a week

It's been a bad week for me, so I am taking a little break.
My husband broke his arm and is having surgery to fix it on the 6th and I'm hoping all goes well with that. But he is going to need me to help him do things he can't. Just having the half cast on right now is making it hard for him to do things because he can only use one hand.

So I'll be back after things settle down at my house again.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do...

How Many Giveaways do You Enter?

Ya know a few years I hardly ever entered the online giveaways because I hardly ever won anything and the blog contests and giveaways weren't as popular as they are now. But a few months ago I got a little obsessed in entering every giveaway I sw online and for a while I was winning all sorts of stuff and had packages coming about twice a week. But then I started looking through all the stuff I was getting and had to pause for a minute because what in the heck was I going to do with all the books, rubber ducks, pens, pencils, pencil toppers, free samples of baby food, candles, and all sorts of other things I had been getting.

In one month a few months ago I entered into 150 different giveaways, sent away for 67 free samples, and won 2 gift cards to amazon.com...I ended up winning 3 of the blog contests that I had entered and whenh I got the books and read them I asked myslef why I had entered a giveaway for them when I knew form the description I wasn't going to like them.

I donated a bunch of books to my local library and gave some away to my friends. Now I make sure that I only enter giveaways for stuff I actually want or can use.

I have been using the free dog food I got for my rats because for some odd reason they love the stuff and the free baby samples I got I gave to my daughter to give to one of her pregnant friends.

I got a little obsessed there for a while but I am much better now...lol I still enter a lot of contests and giveaway and much to my husbands dismay I win quite a bit of books and get a lot of free samples. And it's nice to win things like baskets and swag bags too. I love getting stuff in the mail. lol

Review: Pleasure Me by Monica Burns

Lady Ruth Attwood is a forty one year old courtesean who's younger lover just left her for a much younger woman. The fact that she was abandonded for someone younger seriously dents her feelings about her age. But her friends talk her into going to a ball where she meets young Garrick Stratfield.

Garrick is 12 years younger than Ruth and she thinks he is just being nice when he intervenes on her behalf at the ball, but she finds out different when she finds herself up against him for the purchase of a house they both want. Neither one knows they both want the large house for orphanages they both need to expand.

The more Garrick is around Lady Ruth the more he likes her and wants to be with her but he has a closely guarded secret, Garrick is a 29 year old virgin. When Garrick was younger his ruthless uncle found out about a physical birth defect Garrick had and mercessly teased and taunted him about it, now Garrick believes no woman will ever want him in her bed.

Lady Ruth is so reluctant to enter into a relationship with Garrick because of their age difference, she feels she is too old. But Garrick can barely keep his hands off of Ruth even though he is reluctant to complete the act of love making...that is until Lady Ruth gives him a way to come to her bed where he has no worry she will see what he is ashamed of.

Pleasure me is an emotional read that was hard to put down. The eventual love scene was built up just enough that I was waiting on the edge of my seat for it to happen and when it did the scene played out better than I could have expected and with an erotic twist I couldn't have anticipated.

Monica Burns does an exceptional job of perfectly combining dramatic confrontations, emotional storylines and white hot sex scenes.

I give it a 5 out of 5

Boycott Dorchester

A writer that I really like has a blog post about what Dorchester Publishing is doing to its writers and today was the first I had heard about this. But if you want to know what I'mk talking about please click here to visit Brian Keene's blog post about what Dorchester Publishing is doing.

In a nut shell they have stopped paying their writer's their royalty checks and any other monies they are owed for the past year because they aren't making enough money to pay everyone. Dorchester is also going to an all ebook format, which so many of us readers won't like.

I am making sure that I don't buy anything from Dorchester until I read that they are treating their writer's the way they should, what they are doing is wrong.

Sizzling Hot Book Reviews Contest

Sizzling Hot Book Reviews is having a feeback giveaway just for giving a little feedback about thier site. They have a really nice set of things you can pick from if you win including some great books. Just click on this link or the title of this blog post.


Click Here For Contest

Operation Auction

Anyone in the Romance Novel or blog community knows Fatin. She recently lost her husband in a senseless act of violence, leaving her to raise her four children alone. The Romance community is coming together to help her with Ebay auctions the end of march. Read more about it at this link.

Operation Auction

My heart goes out to her and her family. More and more people are adding to the things that will be auctioned on Ebay at the end of this month to help her and her kids out. I urge everyone to bid on something because this is really for a great cause.

Digital signature Pads

I was reading another blog this morning and it talked about those digital signature pads that are so popular now a days for just about everything. UPS and FEDEX both use them to sign for packages and when you go to the hospital at least here, they have you sign your name on those digital pads.

I remember seeing them for the first time when UPS came to my door one day a couple of years ago and he told me how to sign the digital pad. I had never seen one and I couldn't put my entire name in because I had written my first name so big like I usually do, that I handed it back to him after writing my first name. He looked at it and asked me if that's how I was going to sign it and I said yes instead of telling him that I messed up.lol He asked what my last name was and pushed a couple buttons and went along his merry way.

Of course I've had that same UPS guy come back to deliver packages several times and I know he remembers me.

What I thought was really strange was how the E.R. used their digital signature pads. My hubby went in for out patient surgery last year and they had him sign all kinds of papers beforehand. But they told him to sign his name and then she would print the paperwork out and he could read what he had just signed but she couldn't print it out until he had signed it...Now that I thought was just weird. Why would they do it like that? What if patients didn't want to sign a form...they will not allow you to have surgery of any kind until you sign all their forms.

I remember when I went in for an emergency C-section they had me sign all the forms really fast but I refused to sign the form that would give them permission to give me a blood transfusion if I needed it. I don't beleive in taking blood from another human being, I also don't believe in donating organs, it's a personal choice and I refused to sign the paper. Well, now when you go to the hospital for a out patient service they make you sign the form and print it out and if you don't want opt in for a blood transfusing they have another form that they staple to the form you signed that says you opt out of the first form. Yeah I see this going really bad for someone like myself.

It really makes no sense to make someone sign the form in the first place if they want to refuse that service.

Having Fun In The Summertime Heat

In the summertime here in Las Vegas we usually have temps around 115F and it might be hard to find things to do with your kids outdoors because of the heat. But right near my apartment we have a really nice park that the city just fixed up 2 years ago. It has a pond as well as ducks, geese, and if you bring food even the pigeons and other birds will love you.

A little ways away there is a really nice kiddie park with swings, slides, and all sorts of other things for the little ones to do. Not all of us live in houses or can afford backyard swing sets or the other larger toys that kids love to play on. But with the free parks you don't need to have a lot of money and it doesn't have to be done during the hottest part of the day since most of the parks are open until 11pm and they open failry early in the morning.

I used to go to the park early in the morning just to feed the ducks and the geese because there aren't a lot of people there in the morning and it was so peaceful.

My husband and I used to take our daughter to the park all the time since it was so close to where we live and we have a bunch of really cute pictures of our daughter feeding the ducks, geese and playing on the toy train and slides that the park had. This particular park even has a rose garden that is free to go in and walk around it. The smell of roses always makes me feel better, I mean how could you be in a bad mood after smelling so many gorgeous flowers?

There's always something fun to do here and you don't always have to spend a bunch of money to do it.

Congratulations to both my brother's on their weddings.

This is my younger brother and his new wife, Lynnece. This is a great picture.

My older brother and his new wife, Melissa got married the other day. They look great together, what a pretty picture.




Aren't my brother's handsome guys.

Uncoorporative

I was cleaning out the rat cage this morning and most of my rats are always ready to come out and play on the couch so I can change the baby blankets for their cage. But...but this little mischief maker Brodie, will see me taking the other ratties out and he will go hide in this purple bubble and look at me like, "Ha, you can just leave me here and clean the cage, lady. Cause I ain't movin." lol





He'll watch me the whole time but he won't come out to play until I am done and move the whole cage so that the open side is up against the couch and he can come and go from the couch to the cage all by himself. Yep, I finally figured out a way to get him to come out of the cage without him totally freaking out.
As long as I keep the cage door open and close to the couch so every few minutes he can ran back inside th cage and sniffa round for whatever it is that he's checking, he's fine. I'm assuming he is making sure the cage is stll there and he can get back inside and hide is he needs too. But he is so much more friendlier now that he can come and go when he wants. He lets us pick him up, pet him and he even gives little rattie kisses.

It's so funny how all 4 of the rats can have such different personalities.

ebooks and contests

As most of you know by now *because I've talked about it before* I enter a lot of contests for free books, gift cards, ect...and I win quite a lot. I find new authors that way and spend most of the gift card money on books. Right now I have about 3-4 books arriving in teh mail each week, either from winning them or from buying them with gift cards, or from me just buying them because I want them.

The thing is right now for me some of the cntests are irritating because they don't tell you that the book you are winning is an ebook until you have already won it. Now I don't have anything against ebooks, I really don't but I refuse to buy an ereader. I am not going to start buying ebooks where I can't even trade, send to my mom and daughter or sell if I want to. I've sold over 100 books on amazon and will again sometime in the future. You can't do any of that with an ebook and I'm not gonna start buying the right to read the book and delete it aftwerwards. it seems like a waste of money to me.

Winning the ebooks I will read them but I have to read them on my computer which isn't the most comfortable thing to do. But I have found that so many of the ebooks that I've won are very short, novella length type books. I'm not real big on novellas unless they are in a book with a few more novellas.

My point right now, because I seem to have made so many points in this post...is during contests where authors are giving away books or where the blog is giving away a book...it would be really helpful if they would let us know beforehand if the book is a paperback or an ebook. Most do but it seems like some do not. I like to know what I am entering the contest for. Sometimes I won't enter a contest if it's for an ebook unless I really want to read it or it's from a favorite author.

Talking Kitty

Talking Kitty

If you haven't seen this funny funny series of videos on Youtube here is just one of them. The guy that does this is so darn funny and there are more than 15 videos with his 'talking kitty" each one funnier than the last one.

My Rant: Work Ethic and Keeping Customers

I remember back when I was a kid people had a good work ethic and it seems as I ahve gotten older that work ethic has gone by the way side for the most part. And along with the work ethic has gone the though of keeping your customers happy. Do you remeber that old saying that the customer is always right? Yeah, probably not because most places don't think that way anymore.

I'm upset because not only are people not trying really hard at their jobs anymore they just don't care and that rubs off on everyone else. This past week I saw my mailman pass our apartment compplex up three days in a row and not deliver any mail to the entire complex for three days in a row. Now I figured he was a new guy I would give him the benefit of the doubt and think he was just running behind and didn't want to get in trouble. I'm nice like that. But after a few days my hubby went to talk to him when once again he totally passed our complex by and delivered no mail to anyone here. We have over 80 apartments and all the mailboxes are in a central location so we can see if he comes in and some of the older people wait out in the pool area for him to come each day...so we all saw what he did.

My hubby walked down the street and asked him why he passed up our apartment complex once again...he said with a straight face that he delivered the mail and it was illegal for my hubby to come and bother him about it. So hubby told him if he didn't deliver the mail he was going to call the post off and complain..he said go right ahead that he was a state employeed worker and wouldn't be fired.

He delivered the mail the next day though.

I never thought we would ahve so much trouble with the mailman..what ever happened to relaying on the mailmen in the sleet, the snow, the rain no matter what? Yeah right.

Not only does the mailman do it, my FedEx delivery person tends not to even knock on my door when they have a package for me. They will just drop the box off at my front door as they are running by...I'm not making this stuff up. So all my purchases make sure that they need a signature and you can tell they just want to go. Maybe their bosses are giving them to much to deliver but don't drop a small envelope off from Fed_ex on my front door step and not even tell me about it. I had them do that one time and it got stolen. I had UPS deliver a Tv my sister in law bought for us to a neighbors house and then more than a week later go back to that hosue to get it, pack it back up in a box and try to deliver it to me in a smashed box. By that time my sister in law had cancelled the order so all I had to do was refuse delivery and have it sent back....he was not happy about it either.

But it's not only these places. I was listening to some teens talk about their jobs at places in the mall and at fast food places and they are actually mad they have to be nice to the customers. They were getting mad at their bosses about not being to have a break every hour and were talking about how they did things to people's food and got orders wrong on purpose just to piss their managers off.

It's all so irritating.

Stress

Stress is not good for me, it does all kinds of nasty things to my body that I have no control over. Right now whenever I get stressed out I get hives...or I should say more hives than I have everyday. For the past 6 months or more I've had hives...every single day and when I get stressed out....I get even more or the patch of hives on my leg flares up really bad.

I've resorted to wrapping my leg in gauze just so I can't easily scratch it because the itching it driving me insane but I think this patch of hives is leaving a permanent scar on my leg and it just looks really bad. My daughter saw it for the first time the other day and the look on her face pretty much said it all.

I've tried several medications for stress, anti- histamines and steroid cream for the hives and nothing is working. My doctor tells me to get rid of some of the stress in my life....yeah ok...I'll just move to a small cave and keep to myself...it's just not possibe.