Apartment Life #391

 

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 27 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 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

Can you spot the problem with this tree? It's a nice tree, don't get me wrong but there is a small problem. See next picture.

The problem is the thousands of 2 inch long, sharp as a needle, spikey thorns on all the branches. Can you see them on the branches?  Who in their right mind thought that this kind of tree was a good idea for a residential neighborhood? If some of the branches are hanging too low and a kid tries to walk through the leaves, they are going to get messed up! Those 2 inch long thorns could take an eye out. Those things are needle sharp too. I know because before I saw the thorns I went to walk through a low hanging bunch of leaves and got cut up a few years ago. I don't know what kind of tree this is but it's dangerous. Some City official, or owner of the property who decided to plant this tree had a good laugh about it, I'm sure. He was probably thinking, "Because F*ck you, that's why!" 🤣🤣

A guy across the street has been leaving his work truck parked on the street each night and over the weekends. I'm just surprised that people haven't been stealing stuff off the truck at night. There are so many things that aren't chained to the truck that could be easily stolen. Just surprised me. 

I noticed an ambulance parked across the wall in the alley next door. For some reason they sit in their ambulance for hours waiting for a call. I didn't know they did that.

---

My daughter's best friend and her girlfriend moved into my courtyard a few months ago. She used me as a reference so I would get the $200 off my rent for one month referral bonus that management sends out emails, flyers, posted on the resident portal ect. The manager who leased them they apartment filled out a paper to give to me as proof that they used me as a referral. I had to wait 90 days and then it should have been automatically applied to my rent. Of course that didn't happen. So I started calling the office each month several times. Each time they said they would send it to their district manager and I  heard nothing back from them. I called, emailed and talked to someone face to face in the office. I finally after 3 months! Get an email...

The manager tells me that there's no record of anyone using me as a referral. I blacked out names for privacy.

So I wrote back and attached a photo of the paper the manager who leased the apartment to my friend gave to her for me. I said it looks like a clerical error could she please fix it. 

She writes me back and says since that person no longer works for her company and there are no notes and no records of me being used as a referral she cannot do anything to help me. I'm just out the $200 off my rent. 

This place sucks. You can be damned sure I won't refer anyone else here. It took 3 months to even get anyone to reply to me in the first place. And I called, and emailed a dozen times. Ugh, this place sucks.

So, here's a little life update as well:

About 2 years ago I told you all that I was diabetic and my A1C was high, 11.1 so I went on a low carb diet and last week my new doctor told me my A1C was 6.3. My blood glucose numbers are excellent. I'm no longer running a blood glucose of around 350 all the time. My cholesterol was normal and so was my blood pressure. I lost some weight and that helped. The only thing wrong was my Vitamin D levels were extremely low so he put me on a weekly supplement. For the most part it was all good news. 

The high this week was 81F/27C

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.

Saturday Vittles

 

It's Pumpkin Spice season and so I'm sharing a sweet treat I made. 

Cakey-Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

 1 cup (room temperature) butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 TBSP. Pumpkin Pie Spice

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups (1 bag) Milk Chocolate Chips

Topping:

1/2 cup sugar

2 TBSP. Pumpkin Pie Spice

(Mix together and sprinkle over cookies before baking.)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix wet ingredients together in a medium bowl. Sift dry ingredients together, then add to wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Fold in chocolate chips. Put mixture in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.  Drop by rounded teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets. Sprinkle with sugar mixture. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.

These cake-like cookies are so good, especially if you like pumpkin spice and pumpkin flavors. 

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.  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:

Decorte facial serum.

Not pictured- I got a new box spring and queen size mattress from my daughter's friend and her girlfriend who moved into my courtyard. My old mattress was old...it was 14 years old. It needed to be replaced. My daughter used to kid around and say it was haunted because my mom passed away on that bed right after she bought it. And then in 2020 my husband passed away on the bed.  It's nice to have a new mattress that's not all lumpy, bumpy. 🤣 And not haunted because it was only 3 months old when it was given to me. 

Book Review: A Monster's Treasure by Lynnea Lee

 

Book Description

CLARA

Unfairly convicted of a crime, I’m sent to serve the Kadrixan males for their rutting season.

The Kadrixans. Even their name inspires terror. Fiery-skinned and devil-like, they stand head and shoulders taller than any human man. Our colony made a terrible bargain with these monsters. The Kadrixans give us precious ore in exchange for the one thing they need.

Women. Like me.

When we meet our Kadrixan captors, I come face to face with a massive, brawny beast who claims I belong to him. And not just for the rutting season. He wants me forever.

KRXARE

I never expected to claim a human mate, but one look at the curvy female and I know she’s mine.

Hunger claws at my mind and that of every other warrior in my regiment. All of us are on the brink of the rut which makes us more belligerent with each passing day. Without females, we’ll tear each other apart with rage.

We depend upon our bargain. Human females for Kadrixan ore.

The females arrive and there is one who stirs my primitive desire: Clara. She thinks I’m a monster; I see it in her eyes and scent it in her fear. She vows to return to her people after the rut is over, but I vow to claim my mate, to woo her and prove she’s mine.

My Review

As soon as I saw that cover, I knew I had to read this. I have a thing for demons I guess. But the jokes on me because he's not a demon, he's just an alien who looks like a demon. Hundreds of years ago their species visited Earth and the whole demon mythology came from that meeting. Now hundreds of years later, when Earthlings meet the Kadrixan people, we think they are demons because of how they look. But their just aliens from another planet. 

Things on Earth are not good. People have chips put in their arms that carry their money, their health, their whole lives basically. If you're rich you have a good life but if you're poor like Clara, things can go from bad to worse when you are deemed unemployable. They give her a choice along with other women, either go to Utopia where you are supposedly taken care of but you never come back for some odd reason or go to Kadrixan for the rutting season and after it's over you can come back home. 

Some of the women think going to Utopia is a mistake so they choose going to Kadrixan and bringing comfort to the demon-like aliens during their rutting season. 

There's something weird going on with Utopia because the officials get really mad when Clara and other women choose Kadrixan instead. They get bonuses for the women that choose Utopia and that sends up all kinds of red flags for the women who hear about that. 

Once on Kadrixan though the women realize that these demon-like aliens are not the monsters they were told they would be. Krxare meets Clara after she arrives on the ship and right away he knows that she's his mate. Now he has a few days before the rutting season starts and his heat overcomes him to convince her to stay and be his, not just for rutting season but forever. 

The Kadrixan's made a treaty with Earth, that they would give them Kadrixan ore in exchange for healthy, women who volunteered to come there. Kadrixans don't have a lot of females and when the males go into heat they either have sex or they fight with other males and sometimes they fight to the death. So they don't want that to happen hence needing females who choose to be there for them during this time. 

There's drama going on behind the scenes about Utopia but this had a good ending. I really liked this book. The romance between Clara and Krxare was so sweet and so hot and not just because he looks like he just escaped hell. Krxare turned out to be such a loving, caring guy, I just loved him. I can't say enough good things about this book. I'm definitely reading more of this series. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Nothing but clouds in the past couple of weeks. We had a few days where it got a little cloudy and then there was this day. The amount of huge, white, puffy clouds was so cool. They sure make for a nice background.

The clouds started to get a little darker as the day went on, but we didn't get any rain out of them. 

This was 2PM. I thought for sure we were going to get some rain out of this and we did on Thursday.

I took Falcor for a walk just in case it was going to start raining. It rained right after we got home.

The wind we got came in fast and it cooled down so fast while we were out there.

We did get some rain over the weekend too. Not a lot, but some.

And here is a video I took with my digital camera of Falcor. I am now able to take video and download them to my laptop. It took about 15 minutes for it to download to Blogger for some reason but at least I can do it now. With my old laptop, I couldn't download any videos from my camera. I have no idea why. 

Book Review: The 5 Time Rejected Gamma & The Lycan King by Stina's Pen

 

Book Description

She's his bonded mate - yet she wants nothing to do with him.

After 5 rejections, she’ll do anything to escape another heartbreak…

Gamma Lucianne's reputable status on the battlefield doesn't translate to her love life. And after five rejections, she refuses to give into another mate bond, begging the Moon Goddess to spare her.

To her dismay, she’s being bonded for the sixth time, this time to the lycan king himself. She's determined to keep her walls up—even suggesting they reject each other on their first meeting…

… but he refuses.

The lycan king owns everything… except her heart.

King Alexandar can't thank the Goddess enough for gifting him a mate this perfect. But this gift seems determined to reject him and more than ready to sever their bond. He tries to connect with her but she seems so far away. He's willing to commit but she doesn’t seem to believe him.

When Lucianne becomes a magnet for danger, Alexandar has to do everything in his power to keep her safe while slowly breaking down her walls and winning her heart.

But with creatures who don’t want her as queen, enemies lurking in the background, and ploys that are next to impossible to uncover, will this mate bond ever be sealed, or is it destined for another rejection, or worse - death?

My Review

Lucy has been bonded to 5 different mates and rejected 5 times. She's not looking to ever be bonded again. She doesn't want to go through that again. But when she meets King Alexandar - The Lycan King, she knows that they are mates and he wants to initiate the mate bond. She's not having it though and lets him know right away that if he wants to reject her, to do it fast. 

King Alexandar doesn't understand why Lucy would ever think that he would reject his mate when the goddess blessed him in finding her in the first place. So when he finds out that she's been rejected 5 times, he's shocked but pleased that he has the chance to show her that he's not like the others and has no intentions of rejecting his mate. 

Lucy is a werewolf while Alexandar is a Lycan. Lycans are traditionally bigger, stronger, faster and look down on their smaller werewolf cousins. The past Lycan King's haven't been very welcoming or helpful to the werewolf's either so when it's obvious that Alexander and Lucy are mates, the werewolves don't know what that will mean for them in the long run. But Alexandar isn't like the past King's, he's trying to help all of his subjects, but Lycan politics and Lycan government issues raise some real concerns for him when he looks deeper into what's been going on.

The fact that rogue Lycans are attacking werewolf villages and killing many of the packs, has Lucy in harms way because she is a warrior and fights the rogues when they show up. There's also some betrayal going on behind the scenes that puts some in danger. 

This is a long book, over 700 pages long. But the story kept me engaged the entire time I was reading. I never wanted to put this book down because the story was that good. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"It's time for the candy corn elf."

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

Apartment Life #390

 

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 27 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 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

The apartment complexes across the street hired armed security to patrol their grounds during the day and at night. I took a picture of one of them as he was walking away to preserve his privacy. He's a really nice guy and always says hi to me. The homeless people are still sneaking around over there though. When security is at one end you can see them running through courtyards to get to the vacant houses through the fence in their alley. The security guards have been running the homeless people off though. 

The police tactical vehicle truck has been patrolling a lot on my street lately. When I have my cameras up and I'm watching them, I see the police vehicle drive by a lot. Not that I'm complaining. But if they really want to catch people doing illegal stuff, they need to park and walk into the courtyards where people are laying around smoking their crack pipes and sleeping in the bushes. 

---

On Sunday night the paramedics came for a man who was found unresponsive in his car. I talked to the guys brother the next day and he said he found his brother unresponsive in his car after he parked and now he's in the hospital and they said he had a heart attack.

---

Yesterday (Saturday) I watched this police vehicle pull up at my apartment complex and go into this courtyard. Another police car showed up a few moments later but he took off soon after, so I didn't think it was going to be a big deal and went home. A little while later I was watching my camera and saw this police truck drive by and then the Fire Department and an ambulance. But since I didn't know they were down there until they left, I have no idea what happened.

The high this week was 90F/32C

The low this week was 62F/16C

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

Saturday Vittles

 

Since it's the season of sweet treats I thought I would share one of those that I made recently. 

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Ingredients

Makes about 10 servings.

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ½ cups white sugar

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour-sifted

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground pumpkin pie spice

 3 TBSP ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13 pan

Blend oil, beaten eggs, pumpkin and vanilla together.

Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, ground nutmeg, ground pumpkin pie spice, ground cinnamon, and salt together. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined.  Do not over mix. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. When cake is completely cooled, sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Cinnamon sugar mixture- Combine 1 TBSP cinnamon and 3 TBSP powdered sugar. 

If you like pumpkin and cinnamon flavors, then this is a must to make. This came out so good!

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.  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 some perfume samples from Macy's. 

A FB friend sent me some earrings as a surprise gift. They are great for this time of year. 

Falcor received a bag of Royal Canin skin and coat supplements from Ripplestreet. He liked them. 

I also cashed out my points on World Winner for a $50 Amazon gift card.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Monster at the Haunt by S.R. Griffith

 

Book Description

I think there is a real monster at the haunted house.

Greta

I met the guy of my dreams at the haunted house. Sweet and hot. I want him.

But there’s something hunting me from the shadows. The shadows themselves wrap around my ankles when I’m not paying attention. I’ll have to figure out how to save myself from the them before they catch me for good. On top of that, I have to figure out the mixed signals Eithor is sending me.

How do I save myself and my heart?

Eithor

The light shined so bright that night that I thought they were flood lights. It wasn’t. It was my fated mate.

I crave to eat every emotion from her. Her happiness, desire and more. But she fears the shadows that lap at her feet. She’s running to the witches to get rid of the shadows—me. After a steamy afternoon, I know I can’t control the shadows around her. I will have to tell her the truth.

Will she accept the monster I am. 

My Review

Eithor is a shadow monster and when he meets Greta while he's working at a haunted house, he makes her sit and eat something because she got really scared.  He asks her out on a date, and they are happily getting to know one another, but she's scared of the shadow tendrils that keep following her around and has no idea that those tendrils are just Eithor because he doesn't tell her. He's afraid she won't be able to accept his true form. She is the light to his darkness. 

Greta gets the witches involved when someone at the hospital she works at tells her about the "Nameless" and they fill her head with all kinds of horrors. Eithor should have told Greta what he is when she goes to a store and asks someone about a book on "The Nameless". So she has to make up her mind who to believe and who to trust. 

Eithor should have told her the truth of what he was before he tried to have sex with her and then panicked because his shadow tendrils moved on her on their own. He would have had no reason to panic if he'd been truthful with her in the first place. His lying and omitting the truth from her didn't sit right with me at all. But when he was finally truthful and showed her his true form I really liked how he used his tentacles/tendrils. *If you know, you know* Use your imagination. LOL 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Pictures of the Week

 

My daughter found something interesting on Google Maps. You can go back in time and see what your street looked like. I've been here in my apartment since 1998, that's 27 years. And in that time this street has changed a lot. So this is what it looked like back in 2009. It looked like this for a long time before this too.  Lots of green bushes, tree's and this place was taken care of. All of these pictures are courtesy of Google Maps. 

2011

2013 Now watch as things start to change because the owner of my property passed away, the property was passed to his grandkids and they sold my apartment complex to someone who doesn't care about anything but money, 

2014

2015 The bushes are almost all gone. And a lot of the trees are gone.

2019 This made me smile because The Google Maps car caught my late husband standing in our alley. He's at the end in the yellow shirt. He was always standing out there with his friends.

2022 All the trees and bushes are gone now.

2025 This is what it looks like now. That's some change isn't it? It was so nice when we first moved in here. Now it looks terrible. 

Book Review: Mismatched by Ava Benton

 

Book Description

Charlotte Perkins loves Shotgun Falls. Always has. Loves the town. Loves the people. So when shop owner Sylvia Redferne asks her to help her test a new dating app, she doesn’t think twice about spearheading the operation.

What Charlotte hadn’t counted on?

Logan Fourier. Logan’s a wolf shifter that’s damned good on computers. He doesn’t mind doing Sylvia Redferne a favor and building a dating app. Who would, considering how much Sylvia’s offering to pay him for his services.

What Logan hadn’t counted on?

Charlotte’s a spitfire with a tough shell. How’s he supposed to crack that shell when she thinks he’s an alphahole instead of an alpha. Things don’t go so well when he decides to create a dummy account and fools her into falling for his alter ego.

Things really go to hell in a handbasket when the secret he’s been harboring resurfaces. Can busybody Sylvia Redferne help this couple find their way back to each other or have Logan’s bullheadedness and Charlotte’s defenses put up more obstacles than a witch stripped of her powers can handle?

My Review

Sylvia wants Logan to help her build a dating app for the supernatural shifters that live in her town. Logan is all for it until Sylvia also wants to help Charlotte with a dating app she wants for humans. But as a witch that's been stripped of her powers she puts up a lot of obstacles in her way from finding a good guy to date. When she and Logan get off on the wrong foot, Logan sets up a fake account on the dating app to get to know Charlotte better. She's mad when she finds out what he's done because she really liked his fake persona. 

Logan was a bit of a jerk for so much of this book and I wasn't sure that I was going to like him but he was trying and in the end he proved to be a really nice guy. Charlotte was kind of closed off and because they didn't kick it off at first she didn't trust him and it took a bit for them to warm up to each other. 

In the end this turned out to be a fun story. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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