Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made. Most pictures are from my daughter since she takes good food pics. lol

I am experimenting with things I've never tried before, like tofu!

Crispy Air-Fried Tofu

You will need:

A pack of Tofu- I used 1/3 of the square. 

2 TBSP Hot Sauce

1 TBSP Sweet Chili Sauce

1 tsp. Corn Starch

1 tsp. Soy Sauce

I used Firm tofu and you have to press it to get the water out of it. I used a large water filled pan to sit on top of the tofu to squeeze the water out of it. I wrapped the tofu into a large dish cloth, placed it in a pan and put the pot of water on top of it for 30 minutes. A lot of water came out of it. 

Then I cut about 1/3 of the square into cubes, tossed it into the sauces and then tossed it in the corn starch. Placed the cubes into my air fryer in a single layer, leaving space between each piece. Air fried this for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. 

Not gonna lie, this was not my favorite new thing I've tried. It was still quite spongy in the middle. 

But I cut a few pieces in half and added it to my mixed greens salad. And topped it with some cucumber ranch dressing. It was pretty good in the salad. Not sure I will be getting tofu again but it was fun to try something new. 

This salad has 170 calories and 10 carbs. 

Book Review: Haakon: The Drogon Prince by T.J. Quinn

 

Book Description

The Slythonians are an alien race well know for capturing the best female breeders in the galaxy.

When women are abducted from Earth by alien slavers to be sold as sex slaves they think their lives are over.

Rosalind is acquired by Haakon, The Drogon Prince to be a breeder.

Join me and let's find out what happens. 

My Review

Rosalind and a few other human women are kidnapped from Earth by the Slythinians and sold to other aliens. Haakon is the King's brother so he is sent to take care of Rosalind and make her comfortable. When Haakon meets her he knows right away that she is his soulmate. The whole soulmate thing is not explained very well so I don't know what all it entails. But these aliens buy more kidnapped human females because they are compatible with them to find their soulmates. 

The storyline was good and this could have been great but I didn't feel a real connection between these two for most of the book. Rosalind starts to have feelings for Haakon who is a Drogon (think dragon shifter) and she asks him if he's her soulmate but he doesn't give her a straight answer which makes her leery of him after all she's been through after being kidnapped. 

The other thing that didn't make sense was after the very rushed ending, then we go back to what should have been in the middle of the book when Rosalind and the other women are on the kidnappers ship before she meets Haakon. That would have made more sense for that to be in the middle of the book as it was happening instead of at the end after the ending. I felt like I was reading chapters of this book out of order. 

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

*Click on picture to enlarge*

Las Vegas Sunset. 

It was a pretty sunset but the sound wall prevented me from getting a picture of all of it.

And then the next night there were so many large clouds over the mountains at sunset that it looked like this. 

Book Review: Finding His Mate by Colleen Delaney

 

Book Description

Trading one monster for another...

After four years of imprisonment, Tella escapes the dungeons of Dragon’s Keep and lands in wolf territory. The wolves are brutal, but if they want her to breed, she’ll need to be fed. When someone saves her at the border, she questions everything she’s heard about wolves. Are they really the monsters she’s feared?

When Epsilon’s mate falls into his arms broken and starving, he must hand her over to be healed and become a part of the pack, a ritual that will tear him apart: every new pack member has to submit to the Alpha, and Epsilon does not hold that title.

While he battles over giving his mate to another, Tella must learn if she could ever love a monster, even if they are fated mates.

My Review

Many years after the world has changed, a virus killed many humans and paranormals now run different territories, Tella was sold to a dragon named Cade. He kept her in the dungeon with the other humans they called pets. She and the other humans were starving, dehydrated, humiliated and in bad health. But Tella knew that if she stayed and didn't try to escape, she would end up dead like some of the others. So she tries to make it to the wall between the dragon territory and the wolf territory. 

She makes it over the wall just before one of the dragons can tear her away and bring her back to the dungeon but she's broken a few bones and can hardly stay conscious when Epsilon finds her and brings her to the hospital to heal. 

Epsilon is a wolf shifter and he knows right away that Tella is his mate. His first instinct is to run away with her but she needs medical help so he has to bring her there and hope she agrees to stay and become part of the pack. But in doing so, she'll have to endure a pack ritual with the alpha of the pack before any of the unmated males can choose her as their mate. Epsilon isn't sure he can make it through that and not kill the alpha but he has to try in order to be with his mate. But first Tella has a lengthy stay in the hospital in order to heal and get her health better. 

The pack ritual was a little over the top but I can understand that it would make her safe in case she encounters anyone who might try to kidnap her. But it still made me cringe. 

Once Tella agrees to stay though and finds out she already has a wolf shifter that says he's her mate and they meet, Epsilon was great. He treated her with compassion and gentleness which she wasn't used to. He was such a great hero and so kind. 

Cade does make another appearance and tries to get Tella back. It was interesting to see who the stronger, more capable creature was when that happened between Cade and Epsilon. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"I see you looking at my pancakes but I'm not sharing."

*Pictures used today are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #360

 

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 26 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 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

Sunday afternoon my daughter and I were sitting on the couch in our living room and the neighbor right across from us came outside and started pointing his gun all over the place. At one point a neighbor walked by and he said, "Don't get shot."

Really? What an idiot! Someone asked him what kind of gun it was because there were several people sitting outside and he said it was a BB gun. But at first I didn't know that and he was pointing it at my apartment and at other people!

Why come outside with a gun and start pointing it around? Unless you're looking for drama and attention?

Seriously??? 

Thankfully this guy will be moving out soon. He can't leave soon enough for me. 

My brother will be visiting for the next week so I might not be able to get around to visiting your blogs for a few days. I did schedule a few posts for this week so I will come back to visiting you in a few days. 

The high this week was 71F/21C

The low this week was 43F/6C

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

Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made. Most pictures are from my daughter since she takes good food pics. lol

Beef Shanks with Carrots and Potatoes

I made this for me, my daughter and grandson. 

You will need:

3 Beef Shanks

3 Yukon Gold/Yellow Potatoes

3 large carrots

3 Cups Beef Broth or Stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 tsp. Onion Powder

1/2 tsp. Garlic powder

1 tsp. McCormick Roasted Garlic and Bell Pepper seasoning

1 tsp. McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak seasoning

1 tsp. McCormick Roasted Garlic and Herb seasoning

What to do:

 Add the beef broth and seasonings to a deep baking pan with a lid and stir well. Add the beef shanks to the pan. Add lid and bake in a 300F oven for 5 hours. About half way through the baking process, add the vegetables to the pan, replace the lid and let bake. 

These come out so tender, they were fall off the bone tender. 

This made 3 servings. 

Each serving is about 300 calories and 26 carbs. 

1 serving of beef shank = 3 ounces which is about 1/2 cup shredded beef shank if you don't have a scale to weigh it. I trimmed the fat off of mine as well.

Sewer Flowers

 

Well that title got your attention, didn't it? lol 

So I've posted before when the washout drains backup and the raw sewage spills out. That pipe right next to these flowers is one of those pipes. Funny enough there are flowers next to a few of those pipes sprouting up. There are tiny yellow flowers on that plant. So, sewer flowers? lol 

Spring has sprung?

Maintenance twisted an end cap on the overflow pipe at the end of this building where the raw sewage will spill out when the tubs or toilets start backing up. And now there are flowers popping up next to this. More tiny yellow flowers. I just thought it was funny when my first thought was...Sewer Flowers!

My daughter's little garden is flourishing. 

She planted some flowers this time and there are a few sprouted. But they're really small still.

And then there's these plants. But mostly the one on the right. The spigot right above these plants drips all the time so they get water. Over the course of a week, I watched that plant on the right get much bigger. 

It looked like it was growing an inch or more a day. 

I wonder how much bigger it will get before maintenance starts killing all the plant life around the property like they do each year. We had beautiful wild flowers last year and maintenance came through with weed killer and killed everything. So I'm sure these plants won't last long. 

But for now whatever this plant is, is growing really fast. 

Book Review: Faerie Marked by Brea Viragh

 

Book Description

No one said escaping her bloodthirsty fated mate would be easy.

Half Fae half wolf-shifter Tavi Alderidge’s only chance to dodge a dangerous and disturbing arranged marriage is to attend the Fae Academy for Halflings. There’s just one problem: shifters aren't allowed.

Her hope comes in the form of a potion to suppress her shifter half while she works to earn her ticket to Faerie, the cost steep but one she’s willing to pay for a chance to escape. However, surviving the Academy’s cullings meant to weed out the weaker students isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when a murderer begins taking out the top students.

Soon, Tavi finds herself doing the one thing she swore she would never do: falling for another student. And when she discovers he’s the Crown Prince of Faerie, she realizes the one person she thought she could trust is the last person who can ever learn her secret.

My Review

Tavi is half human, half wolf shifter and her uncle who got custody of her when she was young after her parents were killed for being by the Fae for being together just told her that she is to be mated to the enemies alpha.  He's a mean, cruel wolf shifter and she wants nothing to do with him so she enrolls into the Fae Academy for Halflings. Only problem is they don't allow half wolf shifters there so she has to make a deal with a witch in order to magically cover what she really is and keep it a secret from everyone there. 

This book starts off so well but it is very long winded and very wordy. Some of the characters at the school were just not nice and the guy she likes ends up being a rude jerk of a guy who only really thinks about himself. The killer mystery was a good storyline and did add to the drama of this book but Tavi is very angsty and her continuous drama-filled worrying took away from the enjoyment of the story. 

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week!

 

*Click on the pictures to enlarge them*

This sunset was so cool. The cloud formations and clear area in the middle of the clouds made the sun set light up red in places. 

It looked very dramatic. 

The funny thing is the next morning the clouds still looked like this. It was really windy here so the clouds didn't stay around for too long.

But it looked interesting while they were around and over the mountains. I was standing in my alley when I took this picture. You can see how close I am to the shopping center next door. The grocery store is right there on the right side of the picture. It's very convenient for it to be that close. 

We had some clouds move over us and it was nice that it blocked out the sun for a while. No rain of course. 

Book Review: Dragon's Cupid Chase by S.R. Griffith

 

Book Description

Chels

There’s a dragon stalking me.

It’s been weeks, but I’m going to try to “get back on that horse” by going to this Valentine’s speed dating event.

Except a handsome brute prevents me from participating. The tension between us is palpable as I dive headfirst into a new relationship with this weird beast of a man.

But there is evil lurking in darkness and it wants my blood. Will I survive till Valentine’s day?

Gryndor

I don’t have my dragon anymore. Which means no hope for a fated mate.

My blackouts are getting worse.

A vampire attacked me.

There’s blood in my front seat.

What am I doing during the blackouts?

This is a fated mates short romance intended for adult audiences. There are explicit scenes.

My Review

Gryn is a dragon shifter but he and his dragon half don't speak anymore because of something that happened a long time ago. That causes him to have blackouts when his dragon beast takes over his human body and that causes more than a few problems for him. 

Chels decides to try dating again but when a vampire attacks her, she thinks she's done especially since there's a dragon who's been stalking her for weeks and no one believes her. Her friend know that dragons exist but there are rules they can't break by telling a human about dragons but all that doesn't matter when she overhears them talking about dragons and she figures out she's not crazy, there really is a dragon stalking her. 

The dragon in question is Gryn and he knows he's scaring her by following her but without his human half to help him not be so beastly, he's at a loss as what to do until he saves Chels from a vampire attack and they start to spend time together and he keeps her safe until the vampire can be dealt with. 

This story had so much promise and could have been so good but we don't get a lot of world building and the characters just kind of fall together without much difficulty which felt wrong. Their romance felt rushed and not real. A human finds out that a dragon shifter wants her as a mate and she just falls into bed with him and is ok with the whole paranormal world right away? It didn't ring true to me at all. And then to make matters worse, the ending was so abrupt and left so many unanswered questions about Gryn and his human half. 

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*Pictures used today are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #359

 

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 26 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 26 years here in a weekly blog post.

I was outside walking Falcor at 11PM one night this week and spotted an ambulance down the street going into the apartment complex at the end of the street. Those red lights are from the ambulance. I'm actually surprised my camera took a fairly clear picture at night. lol 

It rained one day this week and most people have stayed in their apartments. I hardly saw anyone outside this week. It was so quiet with the exception of one neighbor who was really loud until after 1am one night. But they are moving soon so they will be gone. Good riddance. Hopefully the next people that move in across from me will be quiet and more importantly...normal. My courtyard is finally quiet for the most part with either older people or just normal people. But there are soon to be 2 vacant apartments in my courtyard and who knows what kind of craziness will move in next. 

I will leave you with a few sky pictures from this week. 

We had one day of rain.

It rained overnight.

And then the next day was cloudy. 

The big, puffy clouds over the mountains looked so pretty. 

The high this week was 68F/20C

The low this week was 46F/7C

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

Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made. Most pictures are from my daughter since she takes good food pics. lol

Baked Blueberry Oatmeal Breakfast/Dessert

You will need:

2 Ramekins

1 Cup Old Fashioned Oats

1/2 Banana

1/4 Cup milk

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

1 Egg

7 Packets of Equal or sweetener of your choice

1/2 Cup of fresh blueberries

What to do: 

Blend everything in a blender, until smooth except the blueberries. 

Pour the mixture into 2 greased ramekins, mix in the blueberries into both ramekins. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. 

I didn't have  2 smaller ramekins so I baked this in one of the bigger ramekins I have and just cut it in half. Oats spike my blood sugar especially in the morning so I actually ate this as a dessert at night. For some reason it doesn't spike my blood sugar as much if I eat more carbs at night before bed. Maybe I just sleep through the shaky feeling. lol 

This was good though especially if you like oats or oatmeal. 

This makes two servings. Each serving is 210 Calories and 27 carbs. 

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: 

A package of Mighty Patch body patches for acne. I had a couple of spots on me and tried these and they did seem to help a little. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Dragon Chosen by Mac Flynn

 

Book Description

Rose Dumont was just your average office worker toiling away at her day job. That is, until she found herself captured and carried through a portal into a different world. She was one of a group of women, and their kidnappers informed them that one among their number would be chosen to be the bride of the local dragon lord.

Rose wasn’t going to wait around for that to happen and she manages to free herself. She flees into the woods only to stumble upon a dark manor house. Unfortunately, she soon realizes that she’s walked into new trouble, for the house is owned by the very dragon lord she sought to escape.

The handsome Lord William Thorn is an ancient creature desiring a mate, and Rose is just the person. She soon finds herself falling for his gentle eyes and sensual touch, and one thing leads to another. Before she knows it she’s neck-deep in magic and intrigue as her unlikely lover and she confront a venomous foe intent on stealing Thorn’s greatest magic: his immortality.

My Review

Lord William Thorn hires some people to come to Earth through a portal and kidnap a few women so he can choose a bride/mate. Rose is the last women kidnapped but she escapes when she and all the women are together. She's in a strange new land and just runs but her bad luck has her running right into Lord William Thorn himself. When he finds her, he likes her personality and ingenuity to escape and claims her as his mate. Letting her know that he's a dragon shifter and his kind mate once and for life is a lot for her to take in so she needs a little time to agree with him. 

In the mean time she's liking him more and more and because she really has nothing special to go back home to, she gives his offer of being his mate/bride some real thought. As they get to know one another they travel to different places trying to figure out who is causing problems for him. They find out and it's a bigger deal than either of them had anticipated. Trying to find out the name of the agency that hired people to kidnap Rose from Lord William and why was a real adventure that gave Rose and William time to get to know each other as they traveled together. 

It was fun to watch as Rose got her powers for being Williams mate. She had been told that each mate gets a different power and hers was different alright, I loved that. These two were so great together and the mystery of who or what was trying to cause trouble for Lord William was fun. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week!

 

*Click on pictures to enlarge them.*

A Pink Sunrise in Vegas. The clouds sure do light up nice during sunrises this time of year. 

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.

Jose Santos Salazar Jr. 

I sometimes worry about using people's full names in my stories because I don't want drama from anyone but a few months ago I Googled a few names to see if they were still around or in jail ect...

When I googled this particular name I found an obituary and saw that he had passed away in 2013. I sent the link to my brother because I figured if I was interested he would be too and he was. 

The picture the obituary used was really old because this is exactly how he looked when I knew him when I was 15/16 years old and he was my mom's boyfriend. I've talked about Jose before but not a lot. He got my mom using and hooked on PCP dipped cigarettes and cocaine. We were living in Hawthorne, California. I went to Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California. We lived very close to Compton, California. If you know California, you probably know this wasn't a great neighborhood to live. Maybe that's why my neighborhood now doesn't phase me all that much. 

She went to jail for this and child neglect/abuse and spent 6 months in prison. That's when my brother and I went into foster care for a while.

Before he met my mom he had a motorcycle crash, according to him he was on the freeway going pretty fast and had an accident where he crashed. His helmet saved him from dying but he had quite a bit of brain damage. He won a $1 million dollar settlement after the accident. His mom was in charge of the money but gave him money whenever he wanted and he used it for drugs. He had an older brother, I believe his name was Raul who was in prison for something and got out in 1985. 

Jose spent a lot of time at my house smoking pcp dipped cigarettes and using cocaine with my mom, and Uncle Jack and Aunt Wanda. My mom was so out of it most of the time she had no idea what was happening around her. 

Jose would wait until my mom was passed out on a few occasions and he would try to climb in bed with me. Nothing ever happened because I would start yelling at him and he would leave. I told my mom but she accused me of leading him on if it happened which she told me he would never do. So me telling her went nowhere. 

A couple of weeks before I turned 16 Jose's brother Raul (I believe his name was) came to our house and kept staring at me. When he found out from my mom that my birthday was coming up he kept saying he wanted to take me out that day for my birthday. This guy had just got out of prison and he looked like it. He gave me the creeps but thankfully I had a boyfriend who lived next door and I told Raul this, that I couldn't go out with him. He was mad. I told my boyfriend the next day and he told me that if the guy gave me any problems to let him know. My boyfriend was 22 years old and I was 15. Yes, I know the age difference was wild but I knew I could count on him. I told my boyfriend he was staring at me weird and gave me the creeps and he talked to Raul one day. Raul left me alone after that thankfully. 

Because of the drugs my mom and Jose were arrested a bunch of times for different reasons. She would call me from jail and tell me to take care of my brother and she would be home in a few days. Jose always got them out with his money somehow. But I would sleep in the living room chair all night sitting by the phone waiting to hear from my mom. Not knowing if she would be back in a day or a few days because of the weekend. Sometimes I would call my grandma to come over because I was scared or because we needed food while we waited for my mom to get home. My grandma always came over. 

My mom did finally leave him and get clean when she moved to West Virginia to live with her mom and step father. My brother and I moved there a few months later after having a horrible time living with our dad and step mother after we got out of foster care. 

Links to past stories

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December

2024

January 2024

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April 2024

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June 2024

July 2024

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October 2024

November 2024

December 2024

2025

January 2025

February 2025

Happy Raturday!

 

"This is the only Super Bowl I care about."

*Pictures used today are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #358

 

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 26 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 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

One night this week we heard 4 gunshots and then about an hour later we heard another 4 gunshots. I didn't know where they were coming from even though they sounded close so I didn't call the police. 

---

 

This is who we call, Screamer Lady. We call her that because as you can see, she screams and yells all the time. She's been living across the street for at least the 26 years that I've been here. 25 years ago though she was the neighborhood prostitute. She propositioned Ken (my late husband) sooo many times. He'd come home and tell me about it and what kind of craziness she was wearing. Now though the drugs have taken their toll on her and so has mental illness I'm suspecting. But this woman walks up and down the sidewalk all hours of the day and night screaming and yelling all the time like she did here. 

---

My neighbor caught this homeless guy in our alley smoking something he found in the trash. She saw him from her bedroom window. He found something in some tinfoil and was trying to smoke it like drugs.

You can see he is trying to smoke this like they would meth of crack cocaine. I have no idea what was in the tinfoil.

He was lighting a lighter under the tinfoil to heat up whatever it was and sucks the smoke up through the glass pipe he has in his mouth. I've seen a bunch of the homeless people around here doing this with drugs. These are screenshots of a video that I couldn't figure out how to post. It just refused to post on blogger for some reason. So if the crack pipe looks a little wonky, that's why.

The high this week was 79F/26C

The low this week was 49F/9C

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