17 Years Blogging! Happy Blogoversary to Me!

 

It's my Blogoversary!

It's hard to believe that 17 years ago I started this blog. At first I had no idea what to write about. I still pretty much write about whatever I want to most days so I'm glad that so many of you seem to enjoy my posts.

A lot of things have changed in the last 17 years. My daughter is all grown up and now I have an 9 year old grandson. I used to have hamsters, rats and gerbils and now have a very energetic Jack Russell Terrier/Chihuahua named Falcor who turned 8 years old this month. 

My blog has changed as I've changed over the years. I've met a lot of really wonderful people and made quite a few friends along the way.  I've ranted, reviewed, shared my thoughts and advice. I don't think I ever really thought that I would still be blogging 17 years later or that anyone would read what I had to say, but many of you do and I thank you for sticking with me through so many years.

Most of my old followers know that my husband of 30 years found out he had stage 4 lung cancer in the beginning of 2020 and he passed away just 8 short months later. All of the cards, emails and messages really pulled me through and I cannot thank you all enough for that. 

So for all of you followers that have been here for a long time and for those of you that are fairly new, I just want to thank you for visiting, commenting and enjoying what I've been posting over the years. I hope we'll all be around and blogging for many years to come.

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #306

 

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 heard a police siren outside and looked out my bedroom window and sure enough the police had a couple of tweakers pulled over on the sidewalk. I watched a while and both of them were put in handcuffs and put in the police car. They were both taken away so I assume that they were arrested. They are fairly new tweakers around here and I've only seen them down at drug dealer's apartment a couple of times. Hopefully they don't come back. 

I heard some loud noises at 7am one morning and looked outside to see a couple of trucks on my street. They were putting the reflective round plastic things in the middle of the road that you can see at night. 

I did get one good close up picture of the truck when it came back by and parked in front of my window.

It was a fairly quiet week this week.

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The high this week was 103F/39C

The low this week was 67F/19C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

 

I only recently started listening to Citizen Soldier but I really like some of their songs, this one in particular is my favorite for the week. I hope you enjoy.

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: 

Palmer's Moisture Boost Deep Conditioning Protein Pack. 

Neutrogena Gel Facial Cleanser. 

I like both bproducts. The gel cleanser works great after taking my makeup off at night. 

The deep conditioner was great. My hair felt great after washing it. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Wolf Meets His Fate by NJ Walters

 

Book Description

Orphaned at birth, Jesse is raised in the Louisiana swamp by powerful witch Lottie Broussard. Hated by her father and shunned by the pack that should be hers, she is forced to run for her life after Lottie’s death.

Searching for his life’s purpose, Aaron LaForge has left his pack and is living on a farm in West Virginia.

When their paths cross in a local bar, he sees it as fate. At first, he only wants to help but quickly realizes she’s his mate. Jesse isn’t ready or willing to trust anyone—let alone a male wolf. But Aaron is as stubborn as he is convincing. As their relationship heats up, the dangers around them mount. Can their love survive their fight to stay alive?

My Review

Jesse's mother was an unmated female who got pregnant and her pack turned their backs on her. The father was mated and already had two daughter's but wanted a son. So when her mother went into labor and gave birth by herself to a baby girl, she knew the father would kill them both. But her mother knew she only had a little while to live because she was bleeding to death, so she got them both in a boat and headed to where the witch lived. She got Jesse to safety right before she died and Lottie, the witch raised the baby herself. She kept her safe, knowing that the father would kill her if he ever found out about her. Jesse's parents were both werewolves so she is too.

After Jesse was grown, Lottie passed away and her life is thrown into danger since she no longer has Lottie's power to keep her safe. While she's on the run for her life and her father and his flunkies are hot on her tail, she comes across Aaron who is also a werewolf. 

Aaron can sense that Jesse is a werewolf but she flea's when she notices him and he doesn't understand why she's so scared of her own kind so he goes after her. Once he catches up to her he offers to help her for the night and after some convincing, she takes him up on the offer. When he finally learns from her what she's running from, he's more than a little angry that she's having to deal with this and he offers to help her but she doesn't want to get him involved and possibly killed. But he's persistent and she wants trust him but it's really only after the bad guys somehow catch up with her and put both of them in danger that he takes over and gets his father involved who happens to be his pack's alpha. 

I loved Jesse, she's a fighter and tough as nails. She's really been on her own most of her life even though Lottie raised her. But she didn't have her family or pack around her and she's had a hard life knowing that her own father wants her dead. Aaron is such a wonderful hero. He's tough when it's called for but caring and gentle when he knows Jesse needed it. 

I liked the ending and how they dealt with the problem. I'm having a good time with this series so far. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Book Review: Dark Waves by Amanda Uhl

 

Book Description

A fearless doctor

Paranormal psychiatrist Dr. Audrey Gilbert is not used to failure, especially when it comes to her career. She possesses an uncanny ability to see into her patients’ souls and mend their brokenness. When she misdiagnosis a patient and is fired, she is given a chance to regain her job. Her task? Restore the health of a deranged mind hacker. But safeguarding her heart while convincing the detached and bitter man to trust her, just might be the challenge of a lifetime.

A tormented hacker

Born into a family of powerful psychics, Kevin Jorgensen has always had a quick wit and a sunny disposition. But that was before he nearly lost his life battling a rogue mind hacker. Now he spends his days in isolation, fighting for his sanity. He swears never to use his gift, not even if he’s drawn to the woman determined to help him recover.

A battle for survival

When Audrey and Kevin discover someone has tampered with her mind, they must work together to determine why. Because if they fail, their lives and the lives of many other hackers will be destroyed.

My Review

Dr. Audrey Gilbert is a paranormal psychiatrist for powerful psychics. She has the ability to see into them and fix what's broken. But one such patient went rogue after she released him from her care and someone died. She's fired because of this but told by her boss that she can get her job back if she finds Kevin Jorgensen, talks him into letting her help him, fixes what's wrong and he comes back to work. Both Kevin and Audrey are part of the U.S. government’s Cognitive Mind Unit and they want him to come back to work. He is a level 10 telepath/psychic, meaning a very strong, talented, psychic/telepath and they want him to come back to work after 5 years and not getting better. 

Kevin Jorgensen spots Audrey in the store the day before she is going to meet him and he can hear his name in her mind so he knows she's there for him, he just doesn't know why. His mind is really messed up after his last mission and no one has been able to help him so he's given up trying. He hears and sees things that aren't there but they might be trying to tell him something if he'll only listen.

Kevin feels something for Audrey right away and he's curious about her so he allows her to come in and talk to him. But there's something strange about her and when he realizes that someone has messed with her mind and erased some of her memories, he gets his brother involved who is also a very strong psychic/telepath. Trying to figure out who messed with her mind and why his memories were erased and by whom is where this story takes us. I loved the ride. For a quick novella there was a lot of story in this book. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Book Review: Always Practice Safe Hex by Juliette Cross

 

Book Description

There's a reason no one messes with a grim...

Livvy Savoie is a people person. Not only does she have the magical gift of persuasion, but her natural charisma charms everyone she meets. She hasn't met a person she didn't like. Until her annoyingly brilliant competitor walks through the door. No matter how hard she denies it, loathing isn't the only emotion she feels for him.

Grim reaper Gareth Blackwater is rarely, if ever, moved beyond his broody, stoic state. But the witch he's partnered with in the public relations contest is destroying his peace of mind. He's convinced that the flesh-melting attraction he feels for her is merely her witchy magic at work.

But forced proximity proves there is more than magic sparking between them. Livvy learns this enigmatic grim's abilities are beyond any supernatural she has ever known. And when Livvy becomes the obsessive target of a dangerous warlock, Gareth proves just how powerful he truly is. Because no one is going to hurt his Lavinia.

*Warning: Contains attempted sexual assault and violence (on and off the page).

My Review

Livvy is a witch and is in the running and hoping to win a PR contest. She and the two other people who are finalists have supernatural causes that they hope will get the funding they need to help their cause. 

Gareth is a Grim Reaper and since they are a very secretive people, no one really knows much about them and their powers. 

Livvy and Gareth start off as enemies even though they both find the other attractive and it doesn't help that Gareth puts off an aura of magic that makes people around him feel frisky or want to do things they might not normally want to do. So Livvy is always feeling attracted to him because of this. Livvy finds out that Gareth is also a telepath when he accidentally let's a fantasy of the two of them slip from his mind to hers, she intrigued and shocked at what she sees. 

As these two end up spending more time together working on their cause, they realize that they don't find the other as irritating as they thought. Gareth is exactly what Livvy needed even though she didn't know it. Who would have thought that under that introverted, grumbly exterior was a sexy, dominant, gentleman who would totally rock Livvy's world. 

I've been reading this series from the first book and this is definitely my favorite book so far. We learn more about the Grims and their powers. But the courtroom scene was amazing! We learn more about Grims when they are all in the courtroom and so do some of the other characters. This book gave us a look at the other couples and updates on their lives which I loved. Plus we see who might just become a couple in the future and I'm really looking forward to that book. I have been looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint at all. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #305

 

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.

This chain link fence separates my apartment building from the public sidewalk to the right. Cars are not supposed to drive on that sidewalk but they do in order to get from our street to the parking lot of the grocery store next door. Well one of the cars driving by ran over the fence and now it's down. It's City property so I doubt it will get fixed anytime soon.

It's a pretty large section of the fence that's now laying down on the sidewalk.

I haven't seen anymore cars trying to drive on this sidewalk though. There was barely enough room before and now with the fence fallen over into the sidewalk, there's no room for a car to drive here unless they drive over the fence. I wouldn't take the chance of that. And for those that are new here, that wall is the sound wall. Directly on the other side of that wall is the freeway and the wall is supposed to keep the noise down from it. The wall is 30-40 feet tall, I'm not sure exactly how tall it is but it's big.

---

The police showed up last Thursday night but I didn't post it last week since my post was already so picture heavy. The police were at drug dealer's apartment and had everyone there out in handcuffs. 

The police were yelling for Jessica to come out. Yes, the same Jessica that I've had on my Sunday post before. But she must have slipped out the bedroom window because they didn't get her.

My daughter took these videos. She and a few other residents were sitting outside watching the whole thing unfold. 

My daughter said the police were down there for a long time.

A bunch of cops showed up for this one and had a bunch of people in handcuffs.

People around here refer to that apartment as drug dealer's apartment because it's more than a little obvious that they are dealing drugs out of there. People come all hours of the day and night, stay for a few seconds and leave. And it's mostly tweakers and homeless people that hang out down there. But on this day, no one was arrested. They must not have found any drugs that night which really surprises me. Maybe Jessica took them with her when she escaped out the back bedroom window. Who knows. 

---

In other news the roofer's have finished and they put the gutters back on. 

The high this week was 102F/38C

The low this week was 66F/18C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

 

Some of you might have heard of Black Veil Brides. I heard this song for the first time this week and I love it. I was already a fan of this band but they just get better and better. Enjoy. 

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: 

Pepto capsules anti nausea pills. 

I haven't suffered from nausea in a while but it's in the medicine cabinet just in case someone does now. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Ruthless King by Meghan March

 

Book Description

Get ready for the darker and dirtier side of New Orleans with an anti-hero romance from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author Meghan March.

New Orleans belongs to me. You don’t know my name, but I control everything you see—and all the things you don’t. My reach knows no bounds, and my demands are always met. I didn’t need to loan money to a failing family distillery, but it amuses me to have them in my debt. To have her in my debt. She doesn’t know she caught my attention. She should’ve been more careful. I’m going to own her. Consume her. Maybe even keep her. It’s time to collect what I’m owed. Keira Kilgore, you’re now the property of Lachlan Mount.

Ruthless King is book one of the Mount Trilogy.

My Review

Keira finds out that her late husband owed a debt to Lacklan Mount, the mobster of New Orleans that everyone is afraid of. Keira is just trying to keep her family business up and running and then Mount let's her know that she has to pay back the debt that her husband owed him but he doesn't want money, he wants her. 

Lackhlan Mount is the underworld mobster in New Orleans and he's not a nice guy. People fear him for a reason and now his sights are set on Keira and she has no idea what's about to happen. 

Keira thinks that she can just sleep with Mount and that will satisfy the debt and she's ready and willing to do just that. But Mount is not letting her off that easy, he wants her to submit to him, be his slave, to own her. Keira puts up a bit of resistance but it's mostly just talk on her part because she really has no backbone at all. Instead of going to the police, FBI, or some kind of official she let's herself get caught up in Mount's plan for her. 

Mount wants to own Keira and does everything he can to make that plan succeed. He stalks her, leaving her notes, tells her what to wear, how to act ect. I was looking for some hint of decency in him and found none. I kept reading because I figured in the end he would realize that he has feelings for her or something but we never get to that point because this book ends on a huge cliffhanger!

There's no closure at all, everything is left open like the book just stopped halfway through where it should have. Frankly, I don't understand how this book has any good reviews when it ends on a cliffhanger. I expected an entire book with an ending and didn't get that. Plus the heroine has no backbone and the hero is a jerk. I know this was an anti-hero romance but it's still a romance and I didn't see one ounce of hero in Mount at all. Very disappointed. 

I give this book 1 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

1950's Baby Formula Recipe

 

My grandma used to tell me back when she had my mom, she made her formula for her because my mom was a preemie and was really small. I remember the recipe my grandma used to tell me about but with the internet today, I wanted to see if I could find it and I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to. Back when I was a kid, I thought she just came up with this baby formula recipe on her own but it turns out it was a well known recipe to mother's back then. 

Now with the baby formula shortage going on, I thought I would post this in case anyone wanted to try it. It worked for my mom who was a preemie and weighed only 5lbs when she was born. And in case you're wondering I found the recipe here. 

13oz. Evaporated milk

20oz. water

2tsp. Karo Syrup

Heat all ingredients together and let cool, then pour into bottles. 

Of course today's formula is probably better and breastfeeding is best but this is a good backup in case someone needs it. It worked for my mom and she turned out just fine. 

Book Review: Off Leash by Jenna Anderson

 

Book Description

A fun, quick ebook! Approximately 77 pages. Candice Gunderson and her purebred pooch, Phoebe, are driving through the Indiana countryside on their way to an appointment with a dog breeder. If all goes as planned, the “meeting” with Charles the Conqueror will result in a lovely litter of puppies.

 Unfortunately, Candice is hopelessly lost, the GPS in her car has gone haywire, and she needs to find a bathroom in the worst way. The pair pulls up alongside a little house in hopes of finding some helpful inhabitants. What she finds is Bull Ramsey, a cute farmer, and his mutt, Jack, who is more than happy to have a “meeting” of his own with Phoebe. Candice is determined to maintain control of the situation and prove she is an independent woman. A few unexpected events and mischievous farm animals won’t interfere with her plans. She can handle this, right? 

~ * ~ Dear Reader: Are you on your way to sit through another soccer practice? Looking forward to a soak in the tub? Did you just finish an intense read and your mind is a bit frazzled? Well, I’d like to suggest this sweet romance novella for your reading pleasure. 

Off Leash is a light, quick read full of silliness, dogs, budding romance, and maybe even a goat or two. The story is 27,000 words or approximately 80 print pages. You have just enough time for that. Enjoy. ~ Jenna

My Review

Candace is on her way with her dog, Phoebe to a dog breeder in the hopes of breeding her dog with another pedigreed dog. She hopes to not only get some cute puppies but make a little money from the sale of the puppies. But she gets lost when her GPS isn't working and her phone dies. So she pulls off to the side of the road because as they say, nature calls. 

Phoebe gets loose and runs onto a farm where she meets a male dog, a mutt and Candace is not happy that the dogs end up doing what dogs might do in that situation. When Mark (Bull), the owner of the other dog comes out to see what's going on, he's met with a very upset Candace. 

Candace is from the city and a little snobbish but that's probably because the people she's around are all snobbish and fake. So she's not sure what to make of Mark and his laid back attitude. 

I found this quick read very comical. It made me laugh on more than on occasion. I really liked how Mark was so laid back and patient with her. She hadn't eaten anything and he offers to make something for her and that was the beginning of the fun between them. The dogs had me laughing with their antics like rolling around in the mud. A mud covered dog is never, not funny. This was a fun, quick read. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Happy Raturday!

 

*Todays pictures courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #304

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.

My daughter went outside to get these pictures since my phone doesn't take good pictures at night. There were actually two police cars there, one was behind the other. They had two of the tweakers from that apartment building on that side of the street pulled aside and were talking to them. They were out there for about an hour and one guy went to jail eventually.

My daughter took a few pictures while the police were across the street. 

I'm not sure what happened but it was enough of something for one person to go to jail. 

2 hours later at midnight, there were two more police cars out here but my daughter was asleep so I don't have pictures of that. But they were talking to different people so it was a different incident. I happened to get up at 5am with Falcor so he could go out and I was standing in front of my door in my courtyard and a police car drove slowly by the fence, stopped and shined their light on two of the tweakers who were camped out in front of drug dealers apartment. But then they moved on without talking to anyone. Then, the next morning I saw several police cars driving up and down the street, just patrolling. 

---

Last week I told you the roofers had been replacing the roof on my building. Well on Saturday the gutter started to fall off down at the end of the building. The roofers had to of loosened it from the side of the roof when they were working. I figured it wasn't a big deal. One section fell off and it would be fine and maintenance would fix it on Monday. 

And then we started getting some high winds and more sections of the gutters started coming down and hanging off the roof. 

They just kept falling like metal puzzle pieces that no longer fit together. 

But not only were the metal gutter sections falling to the ground and hanging off the roof, the wires and cables to residents cable tv, and internet were also getting messed up. You can see one cable in this picture of my neighbors internet. Of course this was a Saturday and no one can come out to fix it until Monday. There are two hanging gutter sections here. 

Saturday night my daughter took more pictures because more gutter sections were hanging off and falling to the ground and even more cables were getting pulled off the roof. 

More cables and more gutter sections. 

By Sunday morning the gutter sections that were falling off had made their way all the way down to my next door neighbor's apartment. 

The next gutter section would be hanging right in front of my door when it came loose. 

Which did happen around 2pm on Sunday. There are 4 sections of the gutter hanging off the roof in this picture. That piece that is hanging at an angle is in front of my door. And then the wind picked back up and we started getting gusts up to 75mph. 

So my daughter went out and took pictures of the rest of the gutter sections that had come loose down on our end of the building. That white chair is in front of my apartment. At this point there were two gutter sections down at the other end of the building that were hanging on for dear life that hadn't yet fallen down. 

That's my door that's open right there. You can see our chairs and table that I'm always talking about having to tell people to get away from. lol But you can see one gutter section directly in front of my door. Now realize that these are hanging from one single nail and are swinging wilding back and forth in the wind that's gusting to 75mph. 

If we opened our door to go out, this gutter section was right there and we had to carefully scoot around it as it blew back and forth in the wind. It was like a dangerous maze when I had to take Falcor out. 

What made it even more dangerous is that there were these 5-6 inch long nails sticking out from the gutter pieces. 

It's not a great picture but that's one of the nails that we had to try and avoid on all of these gutter sections. 

Those last two gutter sections did eventually fall down overnight and ended up in the courtyard. After counting all these gutter sections in this post I've started to feel like The Count on Sesame Street. One gutter piece blah blah blah. Two gutter pieces blah blah blah. 

The cable and internet wires for a couple of residents were pulled even further down when the gutter pieces came down.

If all of that wasn't bad enough, the roofer's left the pile of boards that they ripped off the roof while they were redoing it on Friday and just left it there in the rocks with the nails sticking up. There are a lot of kids around here and this sure looks like a hazard to me. 

The boards.

Monday morning I emailed the office and let them know what happened since there's no one available on the weekends. I knew calling the main office would do no good since they don't answer the phones anymore, it's all automated and you can leave a message but they never get back to you. I never got a response from the email so I was glad to see one of the maintenance guys cleaning the grounds and showed him the gutters. He started taking pictures and got on his phone. Within an hour two maintenance guys had taken down the gutters and put them away. The roofer's never showed up on Monday. 

Sorry that this post was so picture heavy, there was just a lot going on. 

I posted some of this on Twitter this week as it was happening. If you're on Twitter you can find me at 

@scarymary66

The high this week was 95F/35C

The low this week was 53F/11C

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