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. 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 book for a guest blog review and a book from a blogger friend.
4 sheets of can-am wrapping paper.
2 Christmas dream catchers and a pen.
5 samples of Zing sweetener.
2 Astroglide massage gel and lubricants.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Review: Talon by Theresa Hissong

Book Description

My name is Talon Shaw and I am the alpha of a pride of black panthers. My cat finds his mate in a human female and she wants a date! Panthers don’t date…we mate. Before my plans fall into place to court the woman who is destined to be my mate, one of my pride is taken and held for ransom.

That ransom is me.

I will do anything for my pride, but my little human mate puts herself in my place. When I find out that she has been taken, along with a young girl from my pride, I vow to bring them both home. My Guardians and I hunt to find my mate, save my pride, and deal out justice for those my enemy has harmed.

That is…if I’m not too late to save them both.

My Review

This is the first book in the Rise of the Pride series. I saw it free on Amazon and snagged it. Free books is about the only thing Amazon is good for these days. lol 

I love a good shifter story and this one is about panther shifters. These panther shifters don't touch females unless they are mated to them because shifter female feel pain if a male other than their mate touches them and they don't want to cause females pain. That was certainly a new slant on shifter mating from other books that I've read. So when he finds himself attracted to a human who owns a bar that he frequents and they accidentally touch, he knows right away that she is his mate. 

I loved Liberty, she's a strong female character and very much worthy of an alpha shifter like Talon. They were a lot of fun to watch get to know one another because Talon has no idea how to date a human and he's afraid he'll hurt her with his strength or during sexy times. But no worries they figure that out with no problems. *wink wink*

Of course right when things are going really well, another shifter kidnaps one of his people because he's pissed off that Talon outed shifters to the humans. But it really couldn't be helped since the humans had video proof. This other shifter ends up hurting two people that Talon cares for and nothing is going to stop him from exacting justice for them. 

I read this book in less than 2 hours because once I started, it was hard to put down. I love when a book completely draws me into the story from beginning to end. I'm definitely picking up the next book in this series and can't wait to get to know more of these characters. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Favorite Picture of the Week

My daughter took this picture at work and we both found it hilarious. They meant to say do not put any food in the sink. That's a fail if I've ever seen one. lol 

How to upload pictures to Instagram from your computer

This is going to sound complicated but I promise you, it's not. I don't have a smart phone so in order to get my pictures to instagram, I have to upload them to my computer from my camera and then download them to my Kindle from my laptop. It's a pain. So when H.R.Sinclair wrote a post on her blog about uploading pictures to instagram from a computer, I was so excited. Only problem was her instructions did not work for me until I started poking around my own page and figured out a way to make this work. I'm using Chrome on my laptop but I don't know if that makes any difference for these instructions. 

First, log into your Instagram account. 

Next, right click anywhere on the Instagram page and click on "Inspect" which should be the last thing in the drop down box. 

Now click on the icon at the top of that page that I have circled in red. 

Next you will click on the drop down box that I have circled in red on the left hand side of the screen. Before I clicked on it, it said 'responsive'. Then click on one of the iphone choices. It doesn't matter which iphone choice you pick. I tried all of them and they all worked for me. 

Next you will REFRESH the page. 

This is the most important step. If you don't refresh the page, the next step won't work.

After you refresh the page, the plus symbol should appear just like if you were on a smartphone. Now you can click that and upload a photo just as you would using a phone. 

Happy Raturday!

*Picture courtesy of Anisah Grace Hannah*

"I'll take 4 boxes of whatever this is. Thanks."

*Picture courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

*Picture courtesy of Rat Logic*

*Picture courtesy of Rat Logic*

Apartment Life #56

This is a new 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 20 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 20 years here in a weekly blog post.

I was out walking Falcor in the morning and this truck comes flying through the walking path. It was a city truck so I'm thinking NDOT (Nevada Department of Transportation) but it didn't say on the truck so I'm not sure. All they did was cut through this path from the parking lot behind them to the street to the right of them. They just didn't want to drive all the way around the block. Lazy bastards. But the fact that they came flying through this walking path that has yellow metal barriers right in the middle of it to stop cars from doing just this is what pissed me off. They almost hit my dog and they didn't even stop. 

I have an 18 foot retractable leash that I use for Falcor and as you can see he walks out there ahead of me. I had just enough time to pull him back to me before that idiot driver drove past us. I had my camera out already and took this picture a couple of minutes before we walked up where they drove through. He didn't even stop and say sorry or slow down and he was going so fast I couldn't even get a picture of his license plate. What an ass.

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 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. 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:

I have enough points from filling out the surveys on Degustbox.com and I cashed them in for my next Degustabox free. So next month's box will be free.

I won a book in a blog contest over at Lampshade Reader. And The Book Depository sent me a bookmark with it.

I also received an Orgain Kids bar- chocolate chip flavor.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

For those in the US that celebrate Thanksgiving...

Have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Favorite Picture of the Week

Over the years I've made some of the pictures I've taken of my animals into meme's. I thought it would be fun to share two that still make me laugh. I hope you enjoy. 

Falcor was making some weird face so this is what I wrote for it. We were actually playing with a toy and he was getting ready to bite it. Talk about good timing. lol 

Rat owners know that we make fun of male rat testicles because they are huge. LOL Well, they are. So we've come up with some hilarious names for them but when a friend called them, 'giblets' I knew I was gonna make a meme for that. This was Hades. He was such a sweetheart of a rat. 

Recipe: Seasoned Pork and Potatoes with Hominy

I like to look in my fridge, see what ingredients I have and just throw a few things together and see how it comes out. lol That's how I come up with some real winners and this was definitely a winner. 

You will need:

5 TBSP Mexican Chorizo *about 3 inches of a sausage*

2 cups diced pork

2 diced potatoes into 1" cubes

1 can of Hominy

3 TBSP oil

Queso Fresco cheese

Salt to taste

What to do: 

Add diced potatoes to frying pan with oil and fry until almost done. Add chorizo to pan and fry on low heat until it breaks down and is like a loose meat sauce. Add diced pork and fry over medium heat until meat is cooked through. Add hominy and stir until heated through. Add salt if you desire. Serve dish topped with cheese crumbles. 

The Mexican market carries the diced pork already diced so I didn't have to cut it up. The Queso Fresco cheese is something new to me and reminded me of a Mozzarella cheese that crumbles. And hominy is great for dishes like this because hominy will soak up whatever spices and flavors that it's in and it worked really well for this dish. Plus, I love hominy. If you've never had Chorizo...trust me. Eat it first and then read the label. 

How do you come up with new recipes? Do you go off a recipe or just wing it like I do at times?

Happy Raturday!

*Picture courtesy of Anisah Grace Hannah*

*Picture courtesy of Anisah Grace Hannah*

"You guys made a nice pillow."

*Picture courtesy of Anisah Grace Hannah*

"Oh, I think I drank too much last night."

Apartment Life #55

This is a new 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 20 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 20 years here in a weekly blog post.

This week has been fairly quiet around here so I thought I would share something different. I took this picture of the strip mall from the side walk in my courtyard. I'm standing on the sidewalk right before the alley to my apartment complex. 

When Cal Ranch moved into the strip mall there were already the parking lot lights in the parking lot because there used to be a Smith's grocery store where Cal Ranch is. Now I want you to look at the two really bright lights on the light poles in that parking lot. Those bright lights that are about half way down the poles were not there until Cal Ranch moved in. They said that it's for parking lot security but I can tell you that these brighter than hell lights are not even pointed at the parking lot. No, they are pointed directly at my apartment complex. I took the picture right as the sun was going down and the lights had just come on, they look bright but as it gets darker out they get brighter, it takes them a little while to get to their full brightness. And I'm not gonna lie, it's bright as hell! The people who live in the apartment with their bedrooms facing the alley asked for blackout drapes from the apartment manager because the light was so bright it came right through the regular curtains and mini blinds. It lights up my whole courtyard from way the hell over there so you know it's bright as hell coming in those bedroom windows. 

I think it's rude as hell to have two bright as hell lights pointing at an apartment complex and then try to say that the lights are for parking lot safety. There are 4 lights above the bright ones and those are the lights that light up the parking lot. Just say it is what it is...They know how bad the neighborhood is and wanted extra security lights,  lighting up this area. I'm just surprised they got away with those bright lights pointing over here like that. It's obnoxious as hell.

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 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. 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:

I received a box from Samplesource that contained....

A RXBar
Persil Pro Clean clothes soap
Replens moisturizers
Clairol Root Touch Up Sample

I also received a Free Daily Goodie Box which I reviewed earlier this week if you'd like to see what was in it.

I won a book from a Goodreads giveaway.

I received a free bottle of Hair, Skin and Nails gummies from Smiley360.

I've tried other brands of Hair, skin and nail gummies and most of them taste really good. These also have a great taste. More like candy than a vitamin. They usually make my hair shinier but that's all I've seen them do. We'll see if these are any different.

Ken loves those RX bars so I'm happy that I keep receiving them in the mail.

Did you receive any samples this week?

Review: Degusta Box- November

DegustaBox is a monthly subscription box filled with food and drink products. The price for the box is $19.99 a month.  

You do not get to pick any of the products you get, it's a surprise each month. But they say each box contains 10-15 items and each box is worth at least $30. I like trying boxes like this because they usually contain products that I've never tried or haven't seen before.

What was in this months box?

Popcorn, Indiana- White and Dark Chocolate drizzled popcorn. 

Grand Belgian Specialties- Chocolate assortment. 

Chickapea- Mac & Cheese. 

Pearson Candy Company- Mint Patties and Coconut Patties. 

Bush's Best- Black Bean dip. 

Wholesome Goodness- Tuxedo Mix trail mix. 

Bauducco- Panettone. 

Popcorners- Sweet and Salty chips-4

Nutiva- Coconut Oil samples-3

I've never liked Panattone, it's too dry for me and it's not sweet enough so we gave that to our daughter. And the coconut oil samples are just weird. What do I even use them in? I'm definitely going to have to look up how to use coconut oil in cooking. I'm assuming you can saute with it or something. But will it give what I'm cooking in it a coconut flavor? So many questions. lol 

I might have squealed like a little girl when I saw the box of candy. Ok, I definitely did. That was my favorite thing in the box this month. Well that and the mint patties and coconut patties. I have one hell of a sweet tooth. 

I've never tried black bean dip but as luck would have it, I just bought some Fritos and these were perfect with the Black Bean dip. That dip is really good. Popcorn and chips were good. I would buy that again. I love trail mix so that was the first thing I ate. 

The only real flop for me was the chickpea mac and cheese. I knew from other weird noodle box dishes that I had to make sure not to overcook the noodles. I didn't and they fell apart and made mush anyway as soon as I started trying to mix the cheese and milk in. I even tried to taste it with the noodles falling apart and it was awful.  Not my favorite thing to try. But for the most part I was very happy with this box. 

If you don't live in the US, they have a Great Britain Website.

If this box looks like something you'd like, you can use code MARYK-ACB and get your first box half off. That's a big box of food for only $10! and you can cancel anytime. So if you're interested, go to the DegustaBox site and sign up and don't forget to use my code to get your first box for just $10.

Have you tried any of these products?

Favorite Picture of the Week

My blogger buddy over at Do You Dog-ear? posts pictures of some of the comics that she reads each week. It made me wonder if I had any comics in my apartment and then I remembered that one year a while back my daughter brought me 3 comics that she got on Free Comic Book Day. So Lindsi, I do have a few comics. lol 

Review: Daily Goodie Box- November

The Daily Goodie Box has been around since about July of 2016. I signed up for an account right after I heard about them. They are 100% free, you don't even have to pay for shipping. And for a free box it's a nice sampler box of products.

What did I get in this box?

Love Grown - Kids Cereal Cups- I like cereal for breakfast and for snacks so I always look forward to trying new cereals. This was good and had a good flavor. 

Rise Brewing Co - Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Blood Orange- I took a sip of this and then gave it to Ken who liked it a lot more than I did. I'm not a coffee drinker and Ken is. I like tea more but Ken said this was good.

Ecosafe - Vitamin C Gummies- It's flu season and I already take Vitamin C drops so gummies weren't something new to me. I liked them and they had a good taste. I was surprised that I received a full size bottle. Nice surprise.

Green Goo - 100% All Natural First Aid- My first aid kit is stocked but I didn't have anything like this. Ken cut his arm the other day when he was installing a new fan switch on our daughter's car so when he (I) changed his bandage today, we used a little on his cut to see if it would be better than the other first aid cream that we have. It says it can be used as a first aid cream, and for insect bites as well.

Softer Than Brittle - Cashew- I'm always up to trying nuts, candy or a mixture of the two. I thought this cashew brittle had a great taste and wasn't hard enough to crack a tooth.

My M&M’S® - Personalized M&M’S®- I'm always ready for some M&M's. Giving this to someone and having their name on it is a great gift idea.

Eat Your Coffee - Salted Caramel Macchiato Bars- I've never been one for the 'bars' of any kind but this tasted pretty good. I shared it with Ken because he loves any of the energy bar type products.

Choice Organics Teas - Earl Grey Tea- Now this was my favorite thing in the box. Not only tea but Earl Grey tea, which is my favorite. This was great and I would definitely buy this again.

All Good - SPF 30 Sport Sunscreen Lotion- I buy a non greasy sunscreen that I use on my face and arms. I don't like the greasy ones and this one was a little greasy. Ken would use this more than I will. Nice scent though. 

All they ask you to do is try the products and leave reviews for the products you got in order to be eligible for more Free Goodie Boxes. As you guys already know, I'm a fan of all these types of boxes. I love all the different subscription boxes and it's really nice to be able to try new to me products for free. This is a great box to try for.

 Oh and one more thing, if you visit their FB Page, they give away Goodie Boxes to people who interact with their posts. So if you've tried before and weren't able to get a Goodie Box, there's even more ways to get one now. 

I'm a fan of subscription boxes and love trying new products for free so this was a huge hit with me. New products+free box = Fabulous!

Daily Goodie Box. It's more than just Free Samples!

Have you signed up? Have you received one of these boxes?

Disclosure: This box was given to me for free in exchange for a blog review but all opinions are my own.

Happy Raturday!

*Picture courtesy of Count Furcula, Doctor Poo, Ratchie McCaw & Peego Mortensen FB page*

"I'm dreaming of yogis."

*Picture courtesy of Count Furcula, Doctor Poo, Ratchie McCaw & Peego Mortensen FB page*

"I has a treat."

*Picture courtesy of Rat Logic*

Apartment Life #54

This is a new 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 20 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 20 years here in a weekly blog post.

Yesterday I noticed these two police cars at the end of my street. That's where I usually take Falcor for a walk. The police were yelling at everyone to go back inside. Then I noticed that the other end of my street was also blocked off and the police helicopter was flying over head. 

So down towards the other end of my street I noticed several police officers behind a shield, pointing their guns into the courtyard across the street. This is what it looked like from where I was standing at my apartment building without zooming in on my camera. 

These next pictures I zoomed in with my camera so I could see what they were doing. A lady across the street said that she heard gunshots earlier and called the police. When the police got here they chased the armed man into one of the apartments across the street. 

They blocked off both ends of the street.

The police stayed on my street for 5 hours. Another officer was in the courtyard across the street with a bullhorn and was trying to get the armed guy to come out of his apartment.

At one point the officers lined up and slowly made their way to one of the cars to clear it. No one was inside the car so they came back to where they had been standing. 

When I zoomed in I saw that they all had their guns drawn and were walking behind the guy holding the shield.

They were yelling at anyone who came out to look to go back into their apartments. I was far enough away that they didn't say anything to me at first but then people including myself started taking pictures and they didn't like that so they told everyone to go back inside. Ken kept going back out and kept being chased back in. One time the cop actually ran across the street and Ken came running back in the apartment.

At one point that entire building was evacuated except for one lady who was directly below the apartment he was in. 8 police officers with shields went to the downstairs apartment and safely got the woman out of her apartment. Then they evacuated the building on my side of the street directly across from them where all the people kept coming out to watch them. And the police chased everyone including myself back into our apartments. So all of these next pictures were taken from inside my bedroom window. 

More police showed up and blocked the street. Swat showed up and parked somewhere on another street that I couldn't see. Ken said he saw 2 Swat snipers on our apartment managers roof, pointing their rifles across the street.

They really didn't like that I kept taking pictures out of my bedroom window. They didn't seem to want anyone taking pictures. 

While the 2 cops were chasing people back in their apartments across the street. The cop that you can only see a shadow of on the left here was waving at me to get out of my bedroom window. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Dude, I'm half way down the street, 3 courtyards away from where it's going on. You can't chase my ass out of my own window. I'm inside my apartment so you can kiss my ass. I just stayed there taking pictures and he walked away.

You can barely see see the police right next to the car there up against the wall but that's where they stayed for over an hour.

I went outside real fast when the SWAT truck pulled up on my street so I could get a picture of the truck. Then hightailed it back into my apartment before the cops saw me outside again because they started threatening to handcuff people if they didn't stay inside. I'm half a block away and they still kept telling all of us to get back in our apartments. It's not like the guy could shoot at us because there was another building between us and him. So the police just didn't want us out there watching and taking pictures. 

They stood around outside for hours before the armed man finally came out of his apartment and was arrested. He came out after Swat used a really loud flash bang that made a loud boom. Then half of the police left and the other half stayed around for another hour before everyone left.

Quite the exciting day we had yesterday. 

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