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.

We're finally getting rain

So after so many days with no rain we are finally getting some much needed rain. of course it won't be nearly enough and if the lake goes down anymore we are going to have some serious water restrictions going on.

Lake Mead had dropped so much in the past few years that it would be a frickin miracle to get the water level at Lake mead back up to where it needs to be for us not to ahve water restrictions soon. Sad state of things because we already have restricted days as to when you can water your lawn or wash your own car in your driveway and it's gotten so bad that there's an anonymous phone number to the health dept. that people can call to turn in their neighbors for watering when they aren't suppossed to.

I had a Great Birthday!

Yesterday I turned 41 years young! Yep, that's right I told my age...even thought my mom says that she is still 21 years old, so I don't know how that works out...lol

My daughter and mother came over to my place yesterday. Ken bbq'd some hamburgers and my mom brought me the best chocolate truffle cake I've ever had. I love chocolate truffles and this cake was even better than a chocolate truffle. Wow, I can't believe I said that. o-O

I received so many cards in the mail, my mailman should have gotten paid more...lol and I had so many birthday wishes on Fb it was so nice.

My Experience with Vons.com Delivery

So as many of you know we lost our car a few months ago and it's been kinda hard getting here and there without it. But it did last quite a long time and right now we just don't have the funds to buy another one, so having groceries delivered seemed like a great idea...in theory.

The website is pretty easy to navigate and I ordered about $200.00 worth of groceries. The shipping and handling is between $6.96 and $15.00 depending on when you have it delivered and how fast you want it. The first shipping fee is free for new customers.

The next day they arrived and I started un packing. They don't give you a total until they deliver because of the difference in meat prices and if they had to substitute some things. I had 3 things on my list that they were out of so I didn't get those items and 3 things were substituted for a different size. I also noticed that 2 packages of meat that I had ordered did not make it to me but I was acharged for them. So I called the customer service number and she said they would refund my money. I had asked if they would just bring the packages to me that I had been charged for but unless I ordered $50.00 more worth of groceries they will not deliever even to make up for a mistake they made.

So I was given a refund to my credit card.

All in all it wasn't a bad experience and I might just use their service again, I just hope they get it right next time.

My Rats being Funny

Here's a couple of pictures that I snapped the other day when my rats were out playing. I actually took over 50 pictures but they wouldn't sit still long enough for me to snap a picture so most of them were too blurry to use. lol They are just a little crazy when they come out to play. It's too cute.








Here's three of the rats all huldled around each other. Some coming from the cage and some running back into it. They do this th ewhole time the cage is open and pushed up against the couch.

Hades looking at me...awwww....I think he's thinking "food, you got food?"

Hug Please? lol This is Brodie.

And my little hellion, Jasper who chewed a small hole in the wall...yes, that's right the wall....while I was looking the other way. Ken is going to fix the hole..

Reviews, Opinions and Hurt Feelings

I have read that an author here made a blog post about a reviewer and made a lot of people very angry.

Now I realize that there are countless review sites, blogs, ect out there right now and a lot of reviewers get their books to review for free in exchange for a review. But the author, publisher ect..should not expect a good review just ebcause they gave the book in exchange for the review.

I have written a few book and movie reviews and have been given a couple of books for free for writing a review. Or I win them in contests ect..But most of the time I buy the book myself.

I do not however consider myself a book reviewer, not like on some of these blogs where that's pretty much all they do. I read a lot and sometimes I write down my opinions of the books I read or the movies I watch.

I have made reviews where I did not like a particular book or movie and let it be known. I'm entitled to my opinion just as everyone else is. But the author in this case got 2 bad reviews and decided she didn't like what was said so she decided to retaliate in her own way, on her blog. But I think she will come to regret what she said because the people she wants to read her books are regular people who sometimes review books too and she probably just made a lot of them very mad. Her post is spreading like wildfire and as more and more people read it, she might want to remove it before she regrets what she has said in a fit of anger. But that's just my opinion....

Winner Announced!

And the winner of the bookmarks are.....


Ashlyn

Thank you for leaving an email address, I will send you an email and get your info.

Almost time to pick a Bookmark Winner

So one person in entered for the great bookmarks right now...I'll pick the winner a little later today.

Heidi Betts, who just happens to be one of the fabulous authors from the bookmarks I am giving away today relayed a message to me to for all my readers. She said that if you send her a message or a SASE she is more than happy to send you free bookmarks as well as other great promotional goodies.

You can find her contact page here.