Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures this week courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #275

 

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 go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 24 years that we'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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

I saw an ambulance come for one of my neighbors across from me. She has congestive heart failure and was feeling bad and just wanted the paramedics to come and evaluate her. She didn't end up going to the hospital that day, even though they were trying to talk her into going.

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Police were blocking off my street on Friday at almost 9PM. I only saw one cop car when I took the dog out so I thought it was kinda safe to go out since there weren't that many police outside. But after I got out there more cops showed up and as I'm walking back to my apartment one of the cops comes across the street and chased me back inside because they said there was an active shooter in the area. The police helicopter was flying circles over my apartment building for a while and I got a very short video since the pictures wouldn't come out very well. 

A few minutes after I took this, I watched 6 police cars speed down my street lights and sirens going and the police helicopter went about a block away and started circling overhead there as well. 

My daughter sent me this video when she was walking home from work that night about an hour after the police left my street. They were 1 street over from me and had most of the street blocked off.  I am guessing that they caught whoever they were looking for.

The high this week was 80F/26C

The Low this week was 58F/14C

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

Book Review: Who Could Have Imagined . . . Change Your Perspective, Transform Your Destiny by Aliette St. Hilaire

 

Book Review

It’s Not How You Start…

It’s How You Finish

Before moving to the States, Aliette enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the Bahamas. But life changed abruptly when she became pregnant at twelve and married at thirteen. Written off as a teenage mom and high school dropout, Aliette made a discovery that would change her life again: faith.

With God—along with the power of prayer—Aliette surmounted obstacles that would have imprisoned her in poverty and ignorance. She worked hard for an education, ultimately building a successful career in medicine. She worked hard on her marriage, today celebrating over thirty years together while raising three terrific sons. And she continues to work hard, every day, for the betterment of the world around her.

For Aliette, a change in perspective transformed her destiny through faith in God and oneself.

My Review

Let me start by saying that I'm not religious at all so while I don't agree with everything she said, it's her memoir and her thoughts and it was written really well so I enjoyed reading this quite a lot. I was unprepared for the beauty in this book as well as the heartache she went through because of the loss of her innocence and childhood. It's a sad story, but also offers a look at the joys that come with parenthood and fighting for a better life. While this isn't my usual type of read, I found myself unable to put this book down as I was reading because her life was just so heartbreaking.

This book made me feel so many things, including not really understanding why she stayed with her husband after he got her pregnant at such a young age and how she explained how he acted on several occasions. But also understanding that she was young and even though he was twice her age, he was also very immature and they seemed to grow a lot as they got older.

This book took me on an emotional roller coaster. It's written eloquently in a simple and direct way that ends up pulling you right into the story. It's a very plainly spoken account of her life as a child getting pregnant, and then married to a man who I'm not sure I would have had the strength to stay with. Her life was a difficult one but she managed to get through it and find the will not only to come out the other side intact but find a faith that helped her better herself and become a nurse. This author has a talent for describing the things that happened in a very relatable way, so that you can really connect with them. There's a lot of pain in this book, but there's also love, hope, faith and the fight to be better.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for inspiration for a change inside themselves.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:

A bathroom shower curtain and rug set courtesy of Walmart Spark Reviewer.

Oribe perfume samples. 

Estee Lauder Foundation samples. 

Vichy face serum. 

Mylanta Gas relief samples. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Bond of Destiny by Larissa Ione

 

Book Description

Sold into slavery mere hours after his birth to werewolf parents, Tracker spent decades in service to cruel underworlders. Then the fallen angel Harvester transferred his ownership to a human woman who gave him as much freedom as the unbreakable bond would allow. Still, thanks to his traumatic past, he’s afraid to trust, let alone feel love. But when an acquaintance shows up at his door, injured and in need of help, he finds himself longing for a connection. For someone to touch. For someone to care.

Stacey Markham has had it bad for Tracker since the day her best friend, Jillian, was forced to hold his unbreakable slave bond. At first, the fact that he’s a werewolf seemed weird to Stacey, but hey, her best friend was married to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so weird is definitely a matter of perspective. Stacey knows the depths of Tracker’s trauma, and she longs to help him even as he helps her, but breaking through his walls isn’t easy. And it only gets harder when the only blood family he has, the pack that gave him away, lays claim to him…and everything he loves.

My Review

Tracker has been a slave his entire life because he was given away as soon as he was born. He's a werewolf shifter and his new master, Jillian is the nicest person he's ever known. She doesn't want to be his master but it can't be helped. So she and her mate have given him as much freedom as they can. He lives alone in a cabin built for him and watches over Jillian's cabin while she and her mate are away.

Stacey is Jillian's best friend so when she was in an accident on an icy road, she walked to Jillian's cabin but Tracker found her half frozen in the snow and brought her inside his cabin and warmer her up. Now they are stuck, snowed in together in his cabin and making the best of it. 

Stacey is exactly what Tracker needed. He's not fast to trust people because being a slave he's been treated incredibly bad his entire life. Some of the flashbacks of his life made me cringe and I felt really bad for him. It took a little time for him to warm up to Stacey but she's so full of life so it's hard not to feel good around her. 

These two are snowed in and even though the phone service goes in and out during the time they are together so they are able to talk to Jillian and let her know what's going on, Jillian is not happy that they are stuck together and let's Stacey know that Tracker is off limits to her for some reason. But that doesn't stop Stacey from kissing Tracker until he finds out that Jillian told her he was off limits. Being that Jillian is Tracker's master, he cannot go against her wishes. But Jillian gives her permission after Stacey makes her realize that she really does care about him and isn't there to play with his feelings. 

Things look like they are going well between them until a couple of guys from his families pack come to talk to him and ask him for something. When he refuses to give them what they want, all hell breaks loose. I liked that we got to see Harvester again because she's changed and I really like her. I really liked how the action really notched up towards the end of this book and how it had such a great ending. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This one of my neighbors. He's a singer and makes his own clothes. He was wearing this outfit and had another neighbor taking pictures and video of him to use on the cover for one of his songs. I don't understand the hat because the rest of his clothes don't really match that Egyptian-looking hat and his song didn't sound Egyptian either, but he was happy with it. At least he was having fun with it.

Happy Raturday!

 

 

*All pictures this week courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #274

 

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 go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 24 years that we'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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

With our rents increasing, I guess management decided to do some beautifying of the property. So they trimmed the trees and bushes and removed a dead tree. When I first moved here 24 years ago, there were so many nice looking bushes and trees but so many have died and been removed because there's no sprinkler system in place to water any of the vegetation. So everything eventually dies, like this Pine Tree did. 

When I was taking pictures of the mess they made taking the tree down, I noticed that there was a couple of carts on the other side of the chain link fence at the end of my courtyard. 

I wanted to show you exactly where this is. So this cart is on the walking path that I walk Falcor on. To the far left hand hand side you can see the tall sound wall. Directly on the other side of that wall is the freeway. That's how close we are to the freeway.

It looked like this guy had a very large speaker on his cart. Maybe he was going to sell it?

The same day the tree was cut down, the landscapers trimmed the palm trees. Palm fronds scattered the sidewalks all day.

The palm trees had been really full but these guys left like 4 palm fronds on top. They look naked now.

So this place can't manage to install a sprinkler system but the water spigots get turned on and left dripping all the time from the homeless people. This is just one of them. There are 7 spigots along the front, back and sides of each apartment building. I have no problem with the homeless people being able to have access to water but maintenance is aware that some of the spigots are broken and leaking and haven't bothered to fix the leaks in over 2 years, so they sit there and drip 24/7. This wall is the outside of someone's bedroom and with the water soaking into the wall like it does for 2 years...I have no doubt there's water damage to the inside of the wall and and is probably growing black mold. Not that management will do anything about it. But by all means, make the palm trees look nice. 

There's so much water dripping by this wall that plants and moss have started growing there. It's irritating because now we have to pay an extra $40 each month for water but they can't fix these kinds of issues.

The high this week was 80F/26C

The low this week was 47F/8C

I started adding our low temperature as well since it does get cold here in the Winter time.

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

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received a free, homemade lasagna from We are Lasagna Love FB page. 

They are an organization where if you are in need, you can sign up to receive a homemade lasagna from someone in your area. It took a little more than a month but I received a fresh, homemade lasagna this week. They are absolute angels to do things like this.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This week we had a couple of days where it rained just a little. Some clouds rolled off the mountains and I thought it looked really nice.