Happy Raturday!

 

"Just stopped by the coffee house for some coffee."

"Waiting by the phone with my alien friend."

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

Apartment Life #335

 

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 have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 25 years that I'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 25 years here in a weekly blog post.  

One of my newer neighbors had a couple of guys staying with her and they got into a big fight. After the fight one of the guys was taken away in this ambulance and I haven't seen him around here since. The lady that lives there has two little girls living there with her and she's fighting being evicted. So I don't know how long she'll actually be living here. 

She was heard yelling at him about doing drugs while he was supposed to be watching her kids. Those kids around 7 and 8 years old are outside by themselves all the time unsupervised. I've only talked to her a couple of times and both times she was so drunk or high she could barely talk. 

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I saw the police at the apartment complex across the street. Now sure what for. There's a lot of new people over in that complex now. I know it's blurry but that car with the trunk open is the police car.

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It's not a great picture but there were some military helicopters flying over my place pretty low. They just kept circling for a while and then more would do the same thing. Maybe they were training or doing exercises? I don't know but they sure were loud. The walls in my place were shaking. 

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Oh and guess who is back in the neighborhood? Drug dealer and his wife! Drug dealer's wife told my daughter that they got evicted from their apartment in the 50+ apartment community and are now staying with a friend around here. I was wondering why I was seeing him so much in the neighborhood and all the homeless people were back around here too because they seem to follow them around.

The high this week was 102F/38C

The low this week was 74F/23C

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

Picture Dump From New Camera

 

I bought a new camera since my old one stopped working. 

It's an iShare 30 Pixels Digital Camera. 

I have to say for around $50 I'm pretty happy with this. There are some things that it doesn't work well for like up close pictures of small things but I'm saving for a better digital camera that will be better for that. So here are some of the pictures I've taken this week that came out pretty well. 

In full sunlight, it takes good sky pictures. We had some big puffy clouds and I was able to get some good pics of that. 

We had a day where the sky was very dark. I wanted to zoom in and get a better picture but if you zoom in too much it starts getting really blurry. But if you don't it comes out fine. 

Not zoomed in I can still get a picture of the entire street.

I can take pretty good sky pictures which is what I was hoping for.

I was standing across the street and zoomed in just a little to get a picture of this tree and it came out good. 

A sunset picture from this week.

 Same sunset as about just a different place I was standing. 

It doesn't take good pictures at night though. I can use the flash and get a picture but it comes out blurry and same for dark lighting inside the apartment. But other than that, not too bad. 

On the 11th it was so smokey from the Davis fire at 7AM I couldn't even see the sun. The sun is normally very bright right here where I took the picture.

The smoke from the fires made for some nice sunsets though.

There were a lot of orange and red in the sky at sunset.

And then we got some rain clouds but no rain. 

So I'm pretty happy with the camera I have right now. It takes alright pictures for what I needed it for. I'm still saving for a better one with a better zoom but this is fine for now. So if you're ever in need of a cheaper digital camera, now you know the iShare brand isn't too bad. 

Go For A Walk With Me

I don't usually walk down this far in the Summertime. Back down this way is the way back home. But we went for a longer walk when it was cooler out one morning. Other people were out with their dogs as well.

There was another of the metal tree's and bench that seem to be very popular around my neighborhood. 

There's also a gazebo with a bench so you can sit and rest along the trail.

But along the way there were also homeless encampments or what was left of one. 

And a homeless man sleeping in a chair next to his cart. I blurred his face for privacy. 

Falcor was happy for a longer walk since it's been too hot even early in the morning to go very far. 

Book Review: Alpha Exposed by Anya Breton

 

Book Description

When Samantha’s sister goes missing, all signs point to supernatural foul play. Her fellow Air witches won’t help, leaving her with one miserable choice—to beg for assistance from Dion Hebert, the odious weretiger Alpha she shot down months ago. In front of his pack. What’s a witch to do?

Dion can’t believe Samantha has the nerve to come begging after she humiliated him in front of half the supernatural Underground. He agrees to help in exchange for the one thing he’s always wanted—Samantha Avira. Naked. Wrapped around him in every delectable position he can imagine. But since the witch humiliated him publically, Dion wants the sex to be public too.

The thought of getting naked with Dion turns Samantha on, as much as she tries to deny it. The thought of getting naked with him in front of everyone leaves her part aroused and part horrified. When Dion makes good on his end of the bargain, Samantha’s deepest, darkest desires are unleashed. And the result is pure, sexy magic that can’t be tamed.

My Review

Samantha turned Dion down and humiliated him in front of his pack so when she turns to him to help find her missing sister, he wants a little payback for helping her find her sister. I thought his proposal as his pay for helping her was wildly over the top, especially when she's worried about her sister and just wants a little help. But she agrees and he does find the sister who is a bit of a mess. 

After that drama is over, it's all about Dion and Samantha trying not to get too attached as they spend time together. But when Samantha is put in danger, Dion will let nothing stand in his way to save her so he ends up being a nice guy. 

I didn't like Dion at first but as we get to know him, we see he isn't as bad as we first thought he was, which was nice because I don't like it when the hero is a jerk. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Favorite Pictures of the Week

 

Over the past week we've had a lot of cloudy days. My daughter took all of these pictures for me.

A cloudy sunset.

We actually got a little rain out of these clouds.

Sunrise clouds.

Book Review: Tempting The Black Wolf by N.J. Walters

 

Book Description

The wrath of the black wolf is unleashed…in this scorching finale of New York Times bestselling author N.J. Walters’s enticingly sexy Lone Wolf Legacy series

I am an immortal predator, driven to hunt and protect the wolf packs from danger—especially rogue wolves. This destiny is my blood, my bone. My will.

There are two other lone wolves—one gray, one white—but I am the strongest. The most powerful. And we all share an enemy, who set a trap for each of us: a woman with our coloring who will draw us into danger and make our wolves howl with need.

But I won’t give in to lust or passion.

I already know the face of the woman who is my supposed bait: a stunning and powerful mage named Onyx. We’ve been circling each other, wary, fueled by deeply intense attraction and fierce distrust.

But the enemy of my enemy is my ally…for now. It’s a brief truce, laced with raw, primal hunger.

Because when this is over—if we survive—we’ll have to go head-to-head one last time.

And I never lose.

Each book in the Lone Wolf Legacy series is STANDALONE:

* Taming the White Wolf

* Protecting the Gray Wolf

* Tempting the Black Wolf

My Review

This is the 3rd and last book in this Lone Wolf Legacy trilogy. In this book we have Onyx and Dagen who are fated mates because a powerful mage used magic to make three lone wolves and their mates. Dagen and Onyx don't really trust each other and when Dagen finds out more about Onyx he becomes really distrustful of her for a while. But the Lone Wolves are a very distrustful bunch anyway. 

I read the first two books and thought that this book was the perfect conclusion to this series. I loved that the other lone wolves came out of hiding to lend a hand as well and we get to see them all working together as they should have been all along. 

Onyx and Dagen have a lot of hoops to jump through in order to bring the powerful mage and her partner down and they are put into danger time and time again. It was nice to watch Onyx finally come into her own and use her magic that she's been suppressing down inside her for a long time.

I loved the twists that we see in this book and the fact that we finally get to understand how evil the mage really is and why she went to all the effort to do what she did. While these books can be read as standalone books, I think they tie in with each other so much that it's better to read them in order so you have the whole picture of what's going on with all the characters. This last book really wrapped things up nice. I hate to see this series end but it had such a good conclusion to it. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

If you would like to read my other reviews of the books in this trilogy, you can find the links below. 

Taming The White Wolf by N.J. Walters

Protecting The Grey Wolf by N.J. Walters

 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"Almonds are good snacks."

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

Apartment Life #334

 

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 have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 25 years that I'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 25 years here in a weekly blog post. 

On Tuesday at 11PM I saw the flashing lights from the ambulance as it showed up. They came into my courtyard and took one of my neighbors away on a stretcher. The neighbor has been really sick and is going through cancer treatments. I haven't seen her come back home yet. 

Wednesday the ambulance was here at 1AM for someone else in my courtyard. I had been asleep until the lights from the ambulance woke me up so I have no idea what happened. Even with my curtains closed if the ambulance parks right in front of my bedroom window at night, those lights are very bright and light up my room. Hopefully whoever it was is alright.

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On Thursday the police were questioning the two women who have been living out of this U-Haul truck for at least 2 months that I've noticed. It was 7AM this morning and they were asleep in the back of the truck and had the door open about a foot to get some air. I think that's why the police stopped to check it out. I figured the U-Haul was stolen maybe. But the police didn't tow it away so maybe not. The women have been parking it in different spots in my neighborhood for a couple of months and I've seen them sleeping in the back of it. If it was stolen or they weren't paying for it I would imagine the police would have found out and towed it away? Right? I could be wrong. Who knows. Has to have gotten pretty expensive though. 

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On Saturday the police showed up for an apartment across the street. But they were walking through several of the courtyards on that side of the street looking for something or someone. Not sure what was going on. 

The high this week was 109F/42C

The low this week was 80F/26C

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

 

Seventeen - Shadow

I like to share some of the KPOP I find and enjoy. So hopefully you'll enjoy this song. 

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.

What did I receive this week?

2 OraQuick HIV self tests

3 samples of Laura Mercier loose face powder

Obagi Firming Facial Serum

My daughter and I took the hiv home tests and they were both negative. I think it's important to know your hiv status. My late husband was hiv positive and he didn't find out until he going in for surgery on his broken ankle. There are a lots of people out there that have no idea they are positive and end up passing it around to others through sex. It's better to know for sure. So when I saw these free tests, I got them. 

The Obagi facial serum is nice. It made my face feel very soft. I don't know if it's going to help my old skin my it did feel nice. 

The Laura Mercier face powder is nice. I like the one I use and it's affordable so I won't be switching but this is nice. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Feral Instincts by Stephanie Storm

 

Book Description

Shy bookworms make horrible vampires.

Ava believes nothing could be harder than coping with her mother's death—until she survives her own. When the small-town introvert is kidnapped by a madman and turned into a vampire, she discovers just how sheltered she’s been. Although quiet wallflowers have zero business playing bait to capture their sires, not even a bossy werewolf will keep Ava from seeking justice.

No matter how hard Teagan tries to fill his legendary father’s shoes, he falls short. The aspiring packmaster will do anything to prove he’s worthy, even if it means helping the vampire authorities hunt a rogue killer. With his pack’s future on the line, the last thing he needs is to play guard dog for a tempting innocent.

Ava is torn between duty and desire when the only creature capable of satisfying her hunger is a delicious alpha who’s off the menu. And every minute Teagan spends protecting the reckless idealist weakens his resolve to put his pack’s needs first. Should either of them give in to temptation, it could lead to their destruction.

Can the star-crossed lovers resist their forbidden attraction while saving a small-town from a ruthless monster? Or will they lose themselves to their inner beasts?

My Review

Ava is living her human life when a crazy vampire kidnaps her, turns her into a vampire against her will and claims she is his resurrected bride. Salvatore is crazy and Ava knows she's in danger and thinks her life is over until people break in and rescue her. 

Teagan is a werewolf shifter and saves the newborn vampire, not know anything about her. They are after Salvatore because he's creating rogue vampires that are killing people but he can't leave Ava there. 

Once Ava is safe and the people explain to her what's going on, she has to make a choice to join them or not. In the compound she finds herself in, there are vampires and werewolves working together to bring Salvatore down. While she's learning how to be a vampire, she and Teagan are getting closer. Their relationship is pretty much forbidden because his pack would never accept her and vampires don't usually take shifters as mates. So these two are breaking all kinds of rules. 

When Ava once again finds herself in danger and Salvatore makes another move against her, Teagan finds himself facing someone who double crosses him. The twists, turns and forbidden relationship made this story very entertaining. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

I was looking at some of the unused apps on my phone and one of them is called, Maps. So after clicking on it, it shows my neighborhood. I see this. Across the street is a place called, Snacks On Da Block. What?

So I clicked on the little picture to see where it's at and it shows the alley for the apartment complex across the street. 

If you swing around using street view, it's just the alley across the street. There's no snack store over there...that I know of. Maybe someone is running a snack store out of their apartment? I've lived here for 26 years and I've never known of a snack store across the street. How did they even get this on the map?

I found this funnier than it actually is. 

Everyone Has A Story, Here's One Of Mine

 

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.

Spending Time In A Psychiatric Hospital

This post will talk about attempted suicide and psychiatric hospital stays. If that is triggering for you, please do not read this post. 

When I was 9 years old my parents were still married and they fought all the time. My dad was a very mean drunk and he hit us kids, the dog and my mom. I remember seeing some small, black nails in my dads toolbox and thinking if I swallowed them that they would travel through my veins and hit my heart, killing me. I was 9 years old and didn't know that's not how that would work. 

The nails looked very similar to these. 

So I took 4 out them and stuffed each one into a small piece of leftover steak and swallowed the meat pieces and waited. I really thought in my 9 year old brain that when I went to sleep that I just wouldn't wake up again but that didn't happen. 2 weeks went by and I started to get worried. So that weekend I was spending the night at my grandma's house, I told her what I did. She took me to her doctor who never even asked me why I did it, and told my grandma that they probably just passed. I didn't know what that meant until I was older. My grandma told me not to tell my parents that she took me to the doctor and didn't ask me any questions. But she told me not to do that again. 

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When I was 17 years old, me my brother and mother were all living in West Virginia with my step grandfather and my grandma who had some brain damage from being in a coma for weeks after she had heart surgery that she had complications from. My step Grandfather, Buster was a mean ole drunk. He yelled at all of us all the time. He would turn the breakers off so the lights wouldn't come on and we would all go to bed. My grandma wasn't in her right mind and one day she picked up and huge butcher knife and came at me with it. She tried to stab me in the chest but I was able to hold her off long enough for Buster to pull her off me. She ended up staying in a Psychiatric unit in the hospital for a month until her meds were regulated again. 

My mom fell down the stairs and broke her pelvis one night because Buster, my step grandfather would turn the breakers off at night so we couldn't turn the lights on after 8PM. My mom was drunk and couldn't see so she fell. After a lengthy hospital stay, she came home. Once she was almost back to her normal I decided I'd had enough.

 I got into my grandma's old prescription bags and there were a lot of them and I took handfuls of Thorazine, Xanax, and Valium. All together I took 6 almost completely full bottles of pills. Then I laid down in my bed and hoped that I wouldn't wake up again. But I did wake up about 3 hours later and I walked over to the stairs and started walking down them. My mom said she saw me and she knew something wasn't right and I stumbled and fell the rest of the way down. I barely remember anything but bits and pieces after that. My mom yelled for Buster and she told my grandma to keep me awake so my grandma kept slapping me across the face whenever I would closed my eyes. My mom called 911 and when they got there and got me on the gurney. In the yard, I was told my heart stopped and they had to perform cpr and shock my heart a couple of times. 

They got me into the ambulance and my brother who was there told me he kicked the ambulance as they were driving off because he was so upset, and I was taken to the ER. In the ER I remember the doctor kept doing the sternum rub on me to keep me awake. I had my stomach pumped but I was unconscious for 7 days. When I woke up I had a feeding tube and a breathing tube which they took out fairly soon after I woke up. 

Someone from the psychiatric unit came to talk to me and told me if I didn't sign the papers to go to the psychiatric unit for a little while that a judge would sign them and I would be committed either way, so I signed the papers. I was on that unit for 6 months before they let me leave. They sent me to a group home with several other people and I stayed there for a month before I got suicidal again. I was sent back to the Psychiatric hospital for another 6 months.

My mom and my brother ended up in the same hospital for drugs and alcohol so they were on different floors than me. We all got better and my mom moved out of Busters house and we moved in with her. 

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My 3rd suicide attempt was when I was 19, here in Las Vegas. I took a bunch of pills again but this time my mom didn't call 911. She found the heart medication that I took and called poison control. A few days later after I had recovered I told her I wanted to get help and she took me to the ER. I told them that I was suicidal and they put me in a room to wait for a room at the psychiatric hospital which took about 3 hours. My mom stayed with me until they took me away. I was there in that hospital for 6 months and then I was sent to a group home for another 6 months. I met Ken (My late husband) in the psychiatric hospital and we were sent to the same group home. I know it was a crazy place to meet someone but we were both there for the same reasons. I think it gave us both something to look forward to when we finally got out. I was sent to a transitional housing with 3 other women and we all lived in a 3 bdrm apartment that the state paid for while we got counseling and Vocational Rehabilitation. Ken and I started dating while I was there and he was at his own transitional housing placement. We both got jobs and several months later we moved in together. We were together for 30 years after that and had a beautiful daughter. 

We both had some mental problems during our time together before he passed away in 2020 of lung cancer but we were there for each other and knew what it was like to have suicidal feelings so we were able to help each other through it when it happened again. But I think finding someone who understood what it was like really helped each of us. The people at the mental hospital and then the group homes sure didn't like the fact that we wanted to date each other. They thought it was a bad idea. Turns out they were wrong. 

This is a picture of the backside of the Psychiatric Hospital that Ken and I were in here in Las Vegas. This fenced in area is the yard that we all were allowed to go out into. There is a metal wired fence surrounding the top and bottom so that no one could escape. I spent a lot of time out here while I was there. It's just a few streets away from where I live right now.

Links to past stories

2023

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December

2024

January 2024

February 2024

March 2024

April 2024

May 2024

June 2024

July 2024

August 2024

Happy Raturday!

 

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