Saturday Vittles

 

My daughter and I are trying to eat healthier, so I am sharing some of the dishes that we are eating each week. 

Sauteed Edamame and Buffalo Cauliflower

For the Buffalo cauliflower

You will need: 

1/4 cup Frank's hot sauce

3 TBSP Honey

1/2 tsp. McCormick's Mesquite seasoning

1/2 tsp. McCormick's Smokehouse Maple seasoning

1/2 head of cauliflower

What to do: 

Place hot sauce and spices in a baggie, set a side. 

Cut the cauliflower into small bite sized pieces. 

Place the cauliflower into the baggie with the mixture, close the baggie and shake well to get all the cauliflower coated. 

Place cauliflower onto a baking sheet and bake at 425F for 20 minutes. 

This makes 2 servings. This side dish has 100 calories for the 1 serving and about 50 carbs per serving. 

For the Edamame

You will need: 

1 cup of frozen Edamame

1 TBSP Butter

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. McCormick Mesquite seasoning

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt and pepper

1/2 tsp. McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning

What to do: 

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a small pan. Boil the frozen edamame for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and add spices. Add drained edamame and stir to coat all the edamame. Serve while warm. 

This side dish serves 2 and has 150 calories and 20 carbs per serving. 

I served these with some baked chicken. We both really liked this.

Would you eat this. 

Book Review: Redemption by V.E. Huntley

 

Book Description

They think his love for her makes him weak. They're about to learn it makes him unstoppable.

The breathtaking conclusion to The BloodStone Legacy trilogy—a dark, seductive paranormal romance about forbidden love, impossible choices, and the price of redemption.

For centuries, vampire commander Aden Westcott's reputation for brutality was legendary. Until her. She's his salvation and his damnation wrapped in mortal flesh and he'll tear apart heaven and hell to protect her. When enemies close in, Aden must choose: lose her forever, or become the monster that even other vampires fear.

In a society divided by power and blood, redemption demands the highest price. In this final chapter, Aden's and Ellie's choices will echo through eternity. Some say love conquers all. In their world, it might just destroy everything.

Redemption is Book 3 of a trilogy. It ends with the HEA you've been waiting for.

Perfect for fans of enemies-to-lovers romance and dark fantasy who crave high stakes, forbidden love, and a brooding immortal hero facing his own redemption.

This book contains dark themes, including scenes that may be distressing to some readers. Be mindful of the trigger warnings. For a full list of content/trigger warnings, please visit the author's website.

My Review

This is the third book in the Bloodstone Legacie trilogy but it's the first book in the trilogy that I've read. That did not make this book any less enjoyable though. This book can be read as a standalone in my opinion. 

Ellie is taken by an ancient and evil vampire named Matthais, who wants to be the most powerful vampire in existence. Matthais wanted to start a war between the humans and vampires so that vampires were in charge instead of the humans. He thought that vampires were far superior and should be at the top of the food chain, so to speak. 

Not only does Matthais have enhanced vampire soldiers at his disposal, he also has a weapon he can use against vampires that kills, even the oldest, strongest among them and Aden and his family have nothing to fight the effects of the weapon. Matthais wants Aden to pledge his loyalty to him in the coming war but Aden not only wants to save Ellie from Matthais but eliminate him too, for even touching her. 

Along the way, Aden has to make some serious choices since his father was hurt and now Aden is in charge. His actions hurt a lot of people but even though he sent the actions in motion, it was Matthais that was truly responsible for the horrible outcome. 

Aden will stop at nothing in order to save her though, which I loved. While I haven't read the first two books and I have no idea what went on between Ellie and Aden, but that didn't take away from what I have read here. 

This book was so full of action, it really kept me engaged throughout the entire book. Plus, I loved the spice level between Ellie and Aden, something that I've come to expect in a vampire romance. The ending was everything that I could have hoped for.

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.

Amazon

Book Review: Dark Hunter by Logan Fox

 

Book Description

His obsession is her addiction.

After a torrid evening spent with the billionaire founder of her rehab institute, Clover expects a gourmet breakfast in bed.

Instead, she finds herself abandoned in an overgrown forest, an unwilling participant in a twisted game.

He claims all she has to do is follow the rules. If she wins, she'll be free.

But Clover's never been one to bow to authority, even with her life at stake.

And who's to say her dark hunter is playing fair?

My Review

Clover is doing good, she just got out of rehab and is going to get her certificate and chip at the rehab center graduation party for the people who finished too. But once there things are little weird, like where are all the others who she was in rehab with? Why are there so many people there and who are they?

While there at the party her friend, Gail tells her that she can't stay at her place because her mother said no. Now she has no place to stay. 

Hunter/Dr. Hill who is in charge and owns the Hill Institute where Clover did her rehab has been watching Clover, pretty much stalking her while she did her rehab. She's to be his next victim it seems. Clover gets a note from Hunter and thinks it's strange he would want to talk with her. He invites her to dinner, and they end up at his house, but dinner isn't all that's on the menu and they end up in bed together. 

The next morning, Clover wakes up on the ground in the forest, not knowing how she got there. Hunter is watching her because he thinks of her as a test subject in some twisted experiment he's conducting. This is a twisted Doctor/patient type story where the doctor is a bit psycho himself. 

I'm not sure whether to say this is a psychological thriller or a dark romance because it felt like a split between the two and at the same time, not enough of either to categorize it either of them. Their relationship is strange and most times didn't strike me as romantic at all, just kind of twisted on both their parts. 

I like that this story is told from both their points of view, that made it interesting, seeing what both are thinking and going through. I had no idea where this was going or how this would end. I can say that I haven't read a book quite like this so the twists and turns this book made kept me on my toes for sure. 

It was entertaining and weird at the same time. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Last week it snowed and we've had snow on the mountain to the West of us, towards Mount Charleston/Red Rock area.

Snow is on the mountains to the North of us too. 

I took pictures of the mountains as I walked the dog down the street.

Sunset on Monday.

Sunset on Saturday. It looked pink and purple.

Sunrise on Wednesday. There were so many clouds you could barely see the sun. 

On Tuesday a storm rolled in and rained off and on all day. 

I saw the storm clouds coming our way and started snapping pictures. 

As it got closer and darker.

The clouds were just about over my apartment complex at this point and the wind really picked up. We had 50 mph gusts all day and into Wednesday.

I made sure to take Falcor out right before it got here because he doesn't like getting his dainty little feet wet. lol 

It rained off and on all night. 

Book Review: Dark Joy by Christine Feehan

 

Book Description

The destinies of an ancient warrior and a reluctant shifter entwine in this riveting novel in Christine Feehan’s #1 New York Times bestselling series that unites Carpathians new and old….

Sarika Silva has come to Peru’s rainforest to learn about her family’s history and her own capabilities as a jaguar shapeshifter. What she finds is a dangerous world out of her nightmares, where jungle shifters and ravenous vampires vie for dominance and a gorgeous, lethal predator is waiting to claim her for his own.

Tomas Smolnycki and his brothers have hunted vampires for centuries. As some of the oldest Carpathians, they are accustomed to seeing the world in unfeeling gray. So Tomas is ill prepared for the emotions that rise like a tidal wave when he hears Sarika’s voice. As his world bursts into color, he knows he has finally found his lifemate—a woman he’s compelled to protect whether she likes it or not.

Despite an attraction to Tomas that defies logic, Sarika has no interest in being bound to anyone. But as an ancient enemy gathers power in the darkness, Carpathians and their lifemates from around the world must come together to fight back. And Tomas and Sarika’s bond could be the one thing that will save them from total destruction….

My Review

Sarika is a jaguar shifter and has come to Peru to learn more about her family. 

Tomas is a Carpathian. Most Carpathian males are very old and very dangerous because they have lived so long without their lifemates. Some of them are close to turning in vampires or meeting the sun so they don't turn vampire. Vampires are Carpathians that have lived too long and chosen to turn into evil vampires rather than meet the sun and now the Carpathians have to hunt and kill these evil creatures. 

Most very old Carpathian males are pushed very far without finding their lifemates to stop them from turning vampire. It's imperative that Sarika accepts Tomas as her lifemate so he can complete the lifemate bond and he doesn't turn into a vile vampire. 

This story starts out a little slow but sometimes that happens and I hoped things would pick up. They did once these two meet each other. Since Tomas is a Carpathain, he knows right away that Sarika is his lifemate right away. But Sarika stands her ground because she doesn't want to a man telling her what she can and can't do. But like with most of the other books, she does give in over time as she feels the pull towards him. 

An ancient enemy shows themselves and they know they're i trouble so when other Carpathian's come to help, I loved that. 

I really liked seeing characters from past books show up since I've been reading this series for years. It was nice to see what some of the past characters and couples have been up to. There's a lot that happens in this book so anyone who loves this series is going to want to read this one. 

If you plan to read this series, I would start with the first book in order to really get to know these characters that pop up in the books as the series goes on. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"When one of us has a birthday, we all celebrate."

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

Apartment Life #409

 

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.

These tiny wild flowers are popping up all over my street. After changing some things on my camera I was able to get a pretty good picture of them. They are tiny but cute. 

I spotted this ugly car across the street. 

What color is that? Flat periwinkle? Terrible. 

Maintenance drained our pool and they're filling it in with dirt. 

It took about a week, at least they put caution tape around the empty pool to warn people.

Almost filled.

Later this day they had the pool completely filled in with dirt. I guess we'll see what happens now. 

If they actually do anything with this, I'll let you know.

My new neighbor that just moved in a week ago into Xavier's (missing man) apartment, already is getting complaints against him from residents. The first complaint was all the noise all night long out in the alley. He and all his friends and girlfriends stay up all night yelling and screaming at each other. The manager gave them a noise warning. 

Then my daughter's best friend sent me this video she took of the guy's dog out offleash again. He has a big pitbull, which we aren't allowed to have that breed dog here per our lease.  The dog was running all over the courtyard. My friend had just gotten home and she couldn't open her door because she has 2 cats and was afraid the dog would run in her house or the cats would run out. The manager gave our friend her personal cell phone number and told her to call her if they were making noise in the alley at night again. So, she sent this video to the manager and the very next day, the manager put another notice on the guy's door. 

---

On Wednesday I noticed one of the old spigots that still had some of the old hardware from when we had sprinklers here was turned on and broken and water was shooting 20 feet in the air.

The water was shooting up in the air and over the roof of the office. It got turned off and fixed eventually.

The high this week was 59F/15C

The low this week was 36F/2C

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 healthier, so I am sharing some of the dishes that we are eating each week. 

Lunch Plates

I'm not really sure what to call these plates that we've been having for lunch. We just put a little of a few different low calorie foods on a small plate for lunch. We've been switching up what foods we eat for lunch so we have a variety of things to eat. You can change it up to suit your taste.

On this plate we had for lunch was, sliced chicken breast, Veggie Straws, raspberries, baby cucumber, radishes, black olives, green olives and blueberries. 

Each plate we have been making is about 200 calories and 10 carbs. 

Would you eat this?

Freebie Friday!

 

A picture of Falcor, just because. lol 

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 won this Hot Chocolate gift box from a FB group giveaway. It has 4 servings of hot chocolate, 4 cookies, 6 candy canes, 2 bags of mini marshmallows and crushed candy cane sprinkles for your hot chocolate. What a great prize this is. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Red's Alphas by Michelle Hercules

 

Book Description

What if Red Riding Hood didn't fall in love with one Big Bad Wolf but three?

I've been a city girl my entire life. But when my grandmother got sick, I didn't think twice before packing my bags and moving to Crimson Hollow, a small town in West Virginia. Two years later, I'm still here and finally adjusting to the quiet life. Only there's nothing ordinary about this town.

A walk in the woods proved almost deadly and left me changed forever. I was attacked by a rogue wolf, and now, I belong to the Crimson Hollow pack. I'm a shifter. To make matters worse, my arrival in the pack created a rift among the wolves, making it impossible to tell friend from foe, including the three alpha's sons who have taken a keen interest in me. If dealing with all that wasn't enough, wolves are disappearing. We must discover who is behind it, or there won’t be a pack left to fight over.

My Review

Amelia moved to Crimson Hollow after her grandmother starts to get sick. She loves her grandmother and wants to spend whatever time she has left with her. Things are going good for a couple of years and then she walks through the woods on the wrong night and get attacked by a rogue wolf shifter. Amelia doesn't know anything about wolf shifters so when the Crimson Hollow pack saves her and brings her back to her pack, all she wants to do at first is run away. The wolves weren't supposed to bring her back to their pack because the pack that bites and changes a human into a wolf shifter is supposed to bring them into their pack, if they survive the transformation at all. But these wolves didn't want to leave her to that fate. 

The only problem is, having Amelia around the Crimson Hollow pack is causing some problems in the pack because some of the other wolf shifters don't want her there. But her three alpha wolf shifters can't let her go, they all want her there and they all want her. 

Things start going on around the pack, things start changing and some of the others aren't happy about it. She's not sure if the entire pack will ever accept her and her abilities. It sounded to me like some of them were jealous of her. Amelia is different because she didn't know that she came from a family of witches so she's different from the other wolf shifters which makes for some interesting problems and makes her different. 

Tristan, Dante and Sam all want Amelia and I really liked the slow burn romance between the four of them. 

I liked the story but it ends in a cliffhanger and I really hate those so I'm not sure I'll read the next book is this series or not now. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

We had some cloudy days this week.

And then this day as the sun was setting it just looked so blue.

The blue was so pretty. 

But when the sun started setting behind the clouds, some of the blue turned red and it was so pretty. 

Book Review: Creatus by Carmen Desousa

 

Book Description

Derrick's desire to save one human girl will ignite a war...

For four thousand years, creatus have concealed themselves from the humans who hunted them almost to extinction. Unwittingly, one creatus will endanger them all...

As with most of his family, Derrick Ashton knows his future and what position he's destined to fill within his unique society. Everything changes, however, when he breaks one of his family's strictest laws and falls in love -- with a human.

In his quest to protect the woman he can never have, a twist of fate propels him into a new role that will cause dissension among his family and endanger the anonymity that they've spent thousands of years protecting.

Now, he will risk everything to save the girl from humans and his own kind. The one thing he can't save her from, however...is herself.

The Creatus series is not your normal paranormal story...it's a realistic supernatural romantic suspense based on the myths you've heard your entire life. Prepare to believe...

My Review

I love a good vampire story and this turned out to be one of the best ones I've read in quite a while. 

Kristina's life has been hard, like really hard but she believes she has a guardian angel. Only he's no angel at all. He's a vampire, one that has no business falling for a human. Vampires have kept themselves hidden from humans because they don't trust humans and know they would probably hunt them to extinction, but he can't help falling for Kristina. 

When Kristina does something to draw Derrick out, both her and Derrick's life take on a totally different twist because they shouldn't be together, it's forbidden but that isn't going to stop either of them in the end. Derrick already knows her because he's been watching out for her for a long time. He seemed a little like a stalker at first to me. 

I really liked the world building and some back story, it made this story easier to read. The characters were great. I am looking forward to seeing what happens to all of them in the next book because I will definitely be reading more of this series at some point. 

This was seriously so entertaining to read and I loved the romance between them. I can't wait to read more now. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #408

 

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.

An ambulance showed up for someone in the building next to me. No cops showed up so I'm thinking it was a medical emergency. 

---

This is what my old Air Conditioner looked like. I asked the manager for a new one because this thing was soooo noisy last year. It squeaked, clanged and froze up all the time. And it leaked water into the wall that spilled out and soaked my carpet twice last year. Plus the maintenance man who put this is, secured around it with ugly tape. lol It was terrible. 

So on Thursday maintenance came out and removed the old AC, boarded up the hole that was left there. Spackled it, so it looked like the hole was never there. 

And installed one of the new, quiet AC's. Oh, this thing makes no noise in my apartment because the motor is on the roof. Another blogger told me this was called a Mini-split AC, Thank you for letting me know what this was called. I love the new AC. 

---

I told you a couple of weeks ago that maintenance started installing nighttime lights all over the property, so that it would discourage any drug activity and anyone from sleeping around the property at night.  So I took some night pictures to show you the difference after the lights were up. It's pretty dark around the complex.

Down the street.

My complex is on the right. The street lights light it up some but not a lot. 

This is what it looks like now with all the lights on. It's very bright out around my complex now. 

The lights are spaced out about every 20 feet. All the way down the street.

It's not dark anymore. Some of the crackheads across the street are already saying how they are going to break some of the lights.

Well, as fast as they are doing things around here, I bet they fix any broken lights fast.

Maintenance hasn't completed any of the things they are doing right now except for the lights. They are still putting in new decorative rocks, painting the buildings, filling in the pool with dirt and doing maintenance. Hopefully their bosses let them finish some of these things before telling them to change something else. But the lights aren't all that bad. If it discourages people from doing drugs in the dark around here and sleeping in the corners, I guess that's a good thing. 

The high this week was 69F/20C

The low this week was 47F/8C

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