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 perfume sample. 

A sample of NYX Face Freeze primer. 

I really liked both of the samples. The perfume smells good and the makeup primer works well. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Caleb by Summer Stanton

 

Book Description

Caleb Knightly is a Professional submissive at Carnal Pleasures. After escaping a dangerous situation and reluctantly being turned into a Vampire, he is finally happy with his life. He doesn't need, or want, anything else. Until fate decides to turn his world upside down—again.

Callum Rutters and Eli Dran have been together for an amazing sixty years. They love the time they spend playing together at Carnal Pleasures. Their complex relationship keeps things interesting and they couldn't be happier. Until fate throws them into the path of someone they never knew they needed. Now, they have to convince Caleb that being bonded doesn't mean he'll lose his autonomy. Instead, he'll gain a family, something he thought he lost a long time ago.

Just as the three men are beginning to find their footing and learning how they work as a three, Eli's past returns to haunt him, and fate steps in once more. This time in the form of Lucian Drake, local Pack Alpha. Lucian doesn't know what to make of the threesome, he just knows he wants more with them all, in whatever capacity they'll allow.

However, Eli isn't the only one facing danger and Lucian will have to fight, not just for the three men he is growing to love, but for the Pack he's spent his life building and protecting.

Separately, the four men are vastly different, but together they have something extraordinary. It may not be conventional but it can be all theirs—if they can survive.

My Review

Caleb is a submissive at the BDSM club and when he comes into contact with Eli and Callum they feel a pull of magic and Caleb is informed that it's because he is their mate. He is told he should go home with them because being apart from them now will be tough because of the mate bond and magic. So he really never had a choice and that bothered me. 

This is book 3 of a 4 book series and I should say that I haven't read the other books so I might have been missing a little as I read this. But Caleb isn't sure how to feel at first and I'm glad that Eli and Callum took things slow with him. The thing is after taking things slow, right away they have this big scene with Caleb and while things were consensual, it was weird that they would come on so strong their first time together. So that also bothered me a bit. 

Because it's the magic pulling them all together and not them taking things slow and getting to know each other, I never felt the connection between any of them. It never felt real to me. But these guys are paranormals and so are some of the other characters at the club, we get some witches, vampires and wolf shifters. So that could also account for the unnatural and rushed feelings I kept getting from all of them. 

I liked the danger they found themselves in and the new person that joined them but the romance between all of them just seemed too complicated which stalled the story so many times for me. All in all not a bad story but not a favorite. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Last week my daughter went to the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. They made a display using real, live flowers and plants. I thought the pictures were really pretty so I thought I would share them with you. 

You know it smelled good in there.

They did a good job, it's so pretty. It's also free to get in and see this.

Book Review: Wild Danger by TJ Finn

 

Book Description

Alpha wolf, Sean O’Reilly, is out for blood. The man who killed his mother and several other members of the Wolf Creek Pack always seems just out of reach, disappearing into the wind any time the pack circles in close. Nothing could keep him from finding this monster and making him pay. Nothing, except Emma. When Emma walks into his family’s brewery, Sean—and his wolf—are drawn to her instantly. But there’s something different about her. She’s his mate. But the female shifter isn’t connected to the wolf within. Sean will do everything to keep his mate safe, and make her fall in love.

My Review

Emma is a wolf shifter but she's only shifted once when she was a teenager and she can't feel her wolf. She was raised by human adoptive parents so she never had any shifters to help her figure out what was going on with her shifting abilities. Now she studies wolves and tries to care for them long enough to set them free when she is able. She is back to see how some wolves are doing after they were released a while back and she comes across Sean who is a wolf shifter also. 

Sean is consumed with finding and bringing down the hunter who killed his mother and is killing other shifters. But this bad guy is really bad. He does absolutely horrific things to these shifters once he kidnaps them before killing them. He's sadistic and Sean and his pack need to find him and stop him. But Emma complicates things because now Sean knows she's his mate and if this bad guy finds her even though she can't shift, he will probably kidnap and kill her also. So Sean has to keep her safe while getting to know her better and tracking a killer. 

This was an action packed, quick read. I loved the twist and reveal who the bad guy was. I had a good time with this one. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"We had a Vet check up and I gave the Vet a new hair do."

"I got a clean bill of health."

"And gave one of the Vet's some ratty kisses."

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

Apartment Life #274

 

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.  

The police have been patrolling my street, the alley across the street and my alley this week. I've been seeing a lot of police cars on my street when I go outside. 

Now I know why the police are patrolling so much around here now though. My daughter and her boyfriend were in his car around 11 pm last Sunday and the cops pulled in behind them to check out what they were doing. After they figured out they were just sitting there talking and why they were not on her street because my daughter told the police she's seen too much gang activity like gang members tagging the walls, alley ect...one of the cops got very serious and asked her what she saw. She explained she saw 4 hispanic teens tagging the wall in our alley and the police gave her his card with his personal cell phone number on the back and told her to call him directly if she sees them tagging anywhere around here again or sees them doing anything sketchy. 

He told her to be careful because he thinks it was the same hispanic teens that beat up a little 12 year old boy just down the street in what he thinks was a gang initiation and also stabbed a man just down the street from where we live. And this cop really wants to catch them. We finally get rid of drug dealer and now we have this kind of thing going on in the neighborhood? C'mon! Good Grief.

---

On the 4th of July there were a lot of illegal fireworks popping off in my neighborhood. I figured there was going to be at least one fire somewhere around here so I kept looking out the window and sure enough, the dumpster in the alley across the street caught fire. This is the dumpster on fire.

When I saw the smoke and fire truck, I told my daughter and she went right over there to see what was on fire and took a few pictures for me. This is the front of the fire truck that showed up.

This is the middle of the fire truck. it's a little blurry because of the smoke and the bright lights from the truck. They put the fire out pretty fast.

----

The high this week was 114F/45C

The low this week was 78F/25C

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

 

Escape The Fate - Lightning Strike

I just heard this song for the first time this week and I loved it. I hope you enjoy this one too.

Freebie Friday! Or Is It?

 

I usually tell you what freebies or free samples I got this week but I didn't receive any free samples this week. So I will leave you with a Las Vegas sunrise picture from this week instead. It was 5:30am when I took this.

Did you receive any freebies this week or see any nice sunrises?

When Was The Last Time You Saw A Floppy Disc?

 

I was moving things around in my bedroom closet and came across this piece of ancient technology from 1995. 

It's a Canon Star Writer Word Processor. Essentially it's an electric typewriter that prints out letters and stores your work onto a floppy disc. 

The little display flips up so you can see what you're typing.

And as the title of this post implies, here are the floppy discs. I have about a dozen of them because I had this for a few years before I ever got a computer. 

So many floppy discs with all kinds of stuff stored on them. The book I wrote is on one of them and no it's not published and probably never will be because it's awful. lol 

And of course I needed a locking box to store all of my super secret floppy discs. *giggle/snort*

Oh and it still works. I turned it on and inserted a floppy disc and it came right on. I've stored it in its original box so it would stay in good shape so I can still use it if I want.

I liked this because I was able to type out a letter to a friend or family and hit print and it would print it out. And I used to be able to read this tiny print on the display with no problem. But my old lady eyes are having none of that now. Had to put on the reading glasses to read anything on the display now. Ah, to be young again. 

This is where the ribbon for the printer would go but they don't make this ribbon any long so no printing for me. I might have sold this thing years ago but then how would I read what's on my floppy discs? lol  Plus I can't bare to part with it. I spent so many hours pounding away on this thing after buying it. I paid $150 for this back in 1994. And I thought I was the epitome of sophistication. *Oh look at me, I have a typewriter that plugs into the wall!* eye/roll.  

I still have the user manual too just in case my old lady brain forgets how to work this ancient artifact. Did you ever have something like this back before we all had computers and smart phones?

Book Review: Steele by Margo Bond Collins

 

Book Description

Mila Wright spent the last year planning her dream wedding in Yellowstone National Park. But that dream becomes a nightmare when those plans fall apart in the worst way possible. Distraught, she runs, not considering the dangers that might await her if she strays from the marked roadways in the park.

When Steele Jacobs goes out for a run in his wolf form and hears a human woman crying, he knows the last thing he should do is get involved. But something about the sound draws him to her—and when he sees Mila Wright, he knows without a doubt that she is his fated mate.

But he’s expected to choose a mate who will strengthen the Moonstone Pack, not a human weakling who brings nothing to the match. Can Mila even accept his werewolf nature? And if they bond together, can the two of them protect the pack against its new enemies?

My Review

Mila finds out her fiancé is having an affair with her supposed best friend. So she leaves for a walk but gets lost and attacked by a bear before Steele can come to her rescue in his wolf form. When Steele does get to her and runs the bear off, Mila is losing blood and is in and out of consciousness so he brings her to the pack doctor and has him stitch her up. Steele feels something for this human right away but he's a wolf shifter and doesn't know if his pack would accept a human as his mate since he's the alpha but the pull towards her is very strong. 

While these two are getting to know each other better, there's another wolf shifter pack that's after Steele's territory and his pack and they find themselves in a lot of danger because of the other alpha. 

Now this had so much promise and I went into this thinking I was going to love this book but unfortunately I was wrong. First, I don't like cheating in a romance book. I was just talking about tropes I don't like on another blog last week and cheating was one of them. 

Another thing I disliked was how many times Mila was referred to as fat. I really hated that and it detracted from the story for me. Why is it that full figured heroines are so often looked down on in books? 

Another thing was Mila had just been attacked so bad by a bear that she needed stitches but she seemed to be just fine the next day and day after. She was human so there was no speedy healing going on it was all slow, painful, human healing so why wasn't she in more pain the next day? It made no sense. 

The rival pack treated their females badly and even put a pregnant female in danger and threatened her life and the life of her unborn child. I disliked that a lot. 

I felt that all the abuse, cheating and putting down the heroine because of her weight really detracted from a sweet romance in this story. 

I give this book 1 out of 5 stars. 

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

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.

Trigger Warning: The following story contains a true story of gun violence and suicide. If this is something that will bother you, please do not read this. 

How My Mom Almost Killed Me

If you read last month's story you know that Larry committed suicide with my mom's gun when I was 13 years old. Once we were finished at the police station and headed back home, my brother and I were told to stay downstairs. I didn't realize that they were upstairs cleaning the blood and brain matter from the floor and walls. My mom helped my grandpa clean everything up but he didn't know that while cleaning it all up, my mom put some brain matter and blood in a shop rag and sealed it in a ziplock bag and hid it away. I guess in her grief she was trying to keep a piece of him...literally. 

A few months later my grandpa died from the lung cancer that had spread throughout his body. A few months after Larry died my mom went to the police station and was able to get the gun back. On the one year anniversary of Larry's death my mom got drunk and showed my brother and I what she had in the shop rag. I was 14 years old now and this shocked me. My mom's bedroom was right next to mine. That day she got drunk, locked herself in her room for a few hours and I was in my room in my bed reading. I heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot and another sound near my head and realized that my mom had fired the gun from her room. I looked behind me into the wall and saw a hole just a couple of inches above where my head had been. I knocked on my mom's door and she answered but wouldn't open the door and denied she fired the gun. 

I called my grandma and told her what happened. She came right over and when she saw the bullet hole against the wall my bed was on and I told her the bullet almost hit me in the head, she called the police because she wanted them to take the gun away from my mom which they did. They didn't arrest her or anything but she never got the gun back. When my brother and I told our grandma about the shop rag and what was in it, my mom was mad but wouldn't give it to her mother. My mom kept it for years. 

Links to past stories. 

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #273

 

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. 

I heard yelling and screaming coming from across the street in the same courtyard as before when the two guys have been fighting darn near each week for a few weeks. So I snapped a picture of the ambulance as it arrived while I was outside. 

When I got back inside, I snapped a picture from my bedroom window.

Then I saw the same man from the last few weeks being brought out on a stretcher again after fighting with the same guy from the last few times I said this happened. I don't know if it's domestic, friends, roommates, family. I just know they fight a lot.

But this time the police showed up and I was able to get a picture of the police car as it was driving by and going into the alley in the back of that apartment complex across the street. I wanted to get the ambulance in the same picture so you'd see they were here at the same time. I don't know what happened once the police were in the alley though. 

The high this week was 110F/43C

The low this week was 70F/21C

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

 

ANNISOKAY - Human

I just heard this song for the first time while scrolling through Youtube but I liked it so I added it to my playlist. Am I the only one that spends way too much time scrolling through music on Youtube? I hope you enjoy it. 

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: 

Isle of Paradise self tanning drops. 

You just add a few drops to your moisturizer and use the moisturizer as usual and it's supposed to self tan without the streaks or staining of cloths. 

I don't use a lot of self tanners but have used those lotions that turn your skin a little darker color. I haven't used this yet but I plan to just to see if it works well. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This week started out with pretty much clear skies and just a few bright white clouds. I like walking down this path next to the sound wall on the right because there's hardly any people around and it's quiet. Not a whole lot to see except for rocks though.

The next day though we started getting a few darker clouds. No rain but it was a bit cooler. 

It stayed cloudy for a few days which was nice as it got between me and the sun so it wasn't beating down on my head.

The cloud cover was nice this week as it kept things a bit overcast and not as hot.

Product Review: Walmart beauty Box

 

The Walmart Beauty box is a subscription box that comes out 4 times a year. You sign up for it and it comes automatically every 3 months. They did increase the price of the box a little bit. So instead of $5 it's just a couple of dollars more. These boxes are free and you just pay for tax for shipping, mine came to $7.48.

What was in the box?

No7 Face Serum

Vitamasques Cherry Lip Mask

Scunci Hairbands

Salon Perfect Mani To Go press on nails

I liked all of the items except for the lip mask. I don't think these kinds of cloth masks do much of anything and they are always soaked with liquid which just drips everywhere. They're messy, awkward and uncomfortable to wear.  Everything else I will use though. For the price, it's not a bad deal.

Did you get this months box?

Book Review: Wingman by Cara Bristol

 

Book Description

He has wings, but this alien is no angel…

Traumatized by the death of his family and the destruction of his planet, Wingman lands on Earth in search of a haven and the solitude to nurse his emotional wounds. When a chance decision foils a kidnapping, he’s drawn into the life of a young widow and her daughter. He’s shocked to discover the human woman is his genmate, the one he’s genetically bonded to.

To escape a stalker, Delia and her imaginative, impressionable daughter flee to a small town where nobody can find them. She’s concerned, but not overly so, when her daughter says she invited an angel to her birthday party.

Until the winged alien actually shows up and all heck breaks loose. After a rocky start, Delia begins to see Wingman for who he really is—a wounded hero, one of the most protective, sexiest men she’s ever met. As passion deepens their bond, past dangers resurface to threaten Delia and her child. Will Wingman be able to confront his demons to make the sacrifice necessary to protect them?

Wingman is the suspenseful, emotional second book of the Alien Castaways alien romance series.

My Review

Delia and her daughter flee to a small town to get away from a stalker but they aren't as safe as she thinks she might be. When Wingman stops a guy from taking Delia's daughter, the little girl invites him to her birthday party. She thinks he must be an angel since he has wings but he's not an angel, just an alien. So when he actually shows up at the little girls party, Delia is scared and surprised to find a strange man talking to her daughter and she asks him to leave. But when she finds out that Wingman stopped her daughter from probably being taken, she apologizes and realizes he might not be a bad guy. 

Once they start hanging out and getting to know one another better, Wingman tells her who and what he really is. He shows her his wings and even fly's her around when needed. Wingman is surprised to find out that Delia is his genmate and will do anything to keep her safe when danger starts stalking her again. 

Oh, this was a good one. I adored Wingman and Delia was exactly what he needed to start to heal from the tragedy that happened on his planet. I really liked the back story and their romance. I will definitely be reading more of this series. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"We're treating these bananas like jungle gyms." 

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

Apartment Life #272

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 25 years that we've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 25 years here in a weekly blog post. 

This week the police did show up once for a fight across the street. At least it wasn't for my complex this time. I think it was the same people that I saw fighting a few weeks ago but I'm not sure. 

So here's a bit of a weird mystery. I was walking the dog and spotted this rolled carpet in the middle of the street by this van. It looked brand new and there was quite a bit of it. I figured that maybe the guys in this van were installing carpet but the carpet stayed in the street for a while and the van left and it was still there. Later on the carpet was gone so someone got it.

---

I haven't been seeing as many of the drug addicts around here since drug dealer left. I actually think he took some of them with him to his new neighborhood. There are still a few around here though but I hardly see them.

---

Things were quiet this past week with drug dealer evicted but now we're seeing more gang activity. One night my daughter saw some guys tagging the alley wall and the next morning I saw 4 guys tagging the alley wall. Metro patrols around here a lot but sh*t still happens. All the tagging sure keeps the maintenance guys around here busy painting over it though.

The high this week was 96F/35C

The low this week was 66F/18C

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