Favorite childhood memory..

We all have them but do we really ever think about them? I have a younger brother whom I grew up with, he's 2 years younger than me and when we reminess about our child hood he see's things differently than I do and when I listen to him talk about an instance I an get another take on a memory that I had. It's sometimes stange to be able to see the same time period through someone else's eyes, we both saw or felt the same thing but we remember it a little differently and it makes for a really interesting conversation between us.

I was telling my younger brother that my favorite childhood memory is the firs time I remember holding him in my arms, sitting on a large rock down by the ocean and my dad taking a picture of us. If you can't tell I love my brother very much, have always been very close to him.

I used to keep that picture of us in my wallet up until a few years ago. He didn't beleive me so when I pulled it out of my wallet and saw the shock on his face, well it almost brought tears to my eyes.

The thing is, he said he remembered it too even though I was only about 4 years old and he was about 2. he said he remembed being cold, because it was winter time and that he liked his jacket. lol

Michael Vick

I just saw on tv that Michael Vick is going to have a documentanry on tv about himself or his life or whatever. No one should watch it. Instead write, phone and email the station to tell them how much you think this is incredibly not right.

Michael Vick is the football star who was caught with dogs in in place and dog fighting was going on. He went to jail, got out and got his football career back. Many of the poor dogs went to a place called "DogTown" Which has a show on animal planet where you can actually see the damage done to these dogs and it's horrifiic.

I thought that places like football teams had codes of conduct for their players and if they did something this heinous they wouldn't be able to play again. I guess I was wrong. All they are thinking about is how much money Vick is going to bring in being back. Shame on them.

In my opinion, Vick should have lost his career, all the money he made from said career and should never be able to get endorsements or play football again. What he did was awful and now there's going to be a documentary about him. Who cares about Michael Vick, I certaintly don't. He should have been booed off the field when he came back.

crazy snake man

There's a guy here in Las Vegas living in a glass box in front of a casino and in the box he started out with 50 venomous snakes. He is going to stay in the box and handlers are going to add five snakes tot he box everyday until he has 100 snakes living there with him.


http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/22265842/detail.html

Have you ever...

There are many things I haven't done. So have you ever....
Gone bungee Jumping?
Flown in an airplane?
Sang in a choir?
Had a child?

I've never been bungee jumping, I mean I would ahve to get all the way up to where you jump off in order to do that? Why the heck would I do that? I'm to afraid of heights to jump off anything. lol

I have flown in an airplane 3 times. never again. The first time I was about 5 years old and my lil brother was 2 years old, all I remember is him crying the entire time. The next tow times I was with hubby and our daughter who was a toddler. We had air turbulence and I'm a big girl so the seat belt didn't fit all the way around me in order to actually click into place. So if we had been in any really bad turbulance I would ahve hit the ceiling. Yeah, sounds like fun to me...NOT!

I have sang in a choir. I was in the school choir from 5th grade to 12th grade. It was the best time in my life. We went to hospitals and sang for the little kids who were sick.

I do have one child. A daughter who is now 18 years old. Wow, when did I get to be so old?

Why do I need it on?

So it's almost 2am. and I'm sitting here on the computer with my headphones on and the tv still on. My hubby comes out of the bedroom and asks why I have the tv on. I tried to explain to him that it feels weird in the living room when it's turned off. I can't feel the tv waves, the sound vibrations, the whatever the heck the tv is giving off and makes me feel better. lol

I don't know exactly what it is but it's calming to have the tv on, even though I put it on mute or just turn the sound down because I'm listeinging to my headphones. I just like it to be on when I'm out here.

So he said it's no different in here with it on than it is with it off. He trned it off and said, see, No difference.

Yeah right, I told him to turn it back on or I would because the room felt empty to me.

How weird is that?

swagbucks

If you haven't tried swagbucks before, what are you waiting for? You get free stuff just for doing your web searching through their toolbar or at their site. It's so easy.

Do you ever feel like you're all alone?

I ask because I remember when I was back in high school and I was so shy and would spend the majority of my time alone in the library, just reading everything I could get my hands on. But always alone and felt like no one understood me and never would.

I kept a journal of my thoughts and last year I went through my 30 different journals that I had written during that bleak time in my life and decided to destroy them all. I know what I was feeling back then and now I know why and I know how to get out of those deep, dark funks when they come along.

I don't neen anyone else reading what I was thinking and if anything ever happened to me my family might have read them and I didn't want that so I destroyed all of them.

What I didn't know then was that I was suffereing from a clinical imbalance and it cause a really bad depression in me. I also had a thyroid problem which went untreated for 20 years and that caused all sorts of depression problems for me.

Now that the chemicals in my body are finally working right I can see how easy it is to fall into a depression or get depressed and I fight every single day not to let that happen again. It must also be some sort of hereditary issue because 2 of my brothers, my mom and my sister have all tried to commit suicide and are all dealing with depression. So I'm thinking there has to be some sort of 'depression' gene in my family.

Now I think how in this morld of millions of people is it so easy for some of us to feel completely alone, like no one else in the world understand what we are feeling.

I think now that we have the internet it has really helped with depression issues because we can reach out to others without actually having to see them face to face and for alot of people talking face to face with others is harder than typing to some unknown face on the internet. It's easier to talk to people who are'nt looking directly at you and knowing that you can get up and walk away from the conversation and not talk to that person again if that's what you want to do.

It's also easier to find others who feel the same way we do, even if we think we are the only one's in the whole world who are feeling the way we are at this moment.

So whether you are depressed, shy or just feel alone. Believe me, you are not the only one feeling that way and talking to others who feel the way you do can really be helpful.

Things I like...

Family My hubby and my mother.

Family.

Here's my dad and step mother.

Crittters. Pretty much any little furry critter is cute as heck to me. Rats, hamsters, gerbils and mice, I like.

Books!

I have way over 1000 books (Mostly romance) on my three book shelves and am always adding to them. I was selling some of my books on Amazon.com but then people starting lowering the prices of the used books to 1 cent. After the gas to drive to the post office to mail it, the envelope to mail it in, the money amazon gives you for the book just isn't work the hassle. So I just keep them now.

Movies!

I love a good horror movie. I am a Vampire nut! Love anything to do with Vampires, in books and in movies. Just can't get enough of them. The last movie I watched was Avatar and it was alright, not as good as I thought it would be.

Tv shows about Vampires. lol
I used to watch Moonlight and was upset when it was cancelled. I thought it was a good show.



Food and cooking.

I love to cook and I love to eat. I have a soft spot for chocolate truffles and only get them about once a year because they are so, so rich. But so good.



I like to write about small animals and how to care for them. It's nice when I get comments on my articles that are published on Associated Content, telling me that I helped someone with their rat, or hamster.



I like music. All kinds of music. I finally figured out how to put music on my mp4 player and have't stopped since. Now I even figured out how to download songs to my computer from CD's I have and transfer songs to my mp4 player.


Right now I am loving Adam Lambert. Great oogly moogly, that man is hot as hell! He has the most beautiful eyes.



Right now onmy mp4 I have all kinds of music.
Rihanna
3 Days Grace
Disturbed
Nightwish
Esme Denters
Oingo Boingo -dead man's Paradise. Brings me back to my teenage years lol

and all kinds of others.

That's all for now. :)

Why are Tv commercials so darn loud?

I know I'm not the only one who has noticed that over the years the loudness of tv commercials has gotten louder. Because Rep. Anna G. Eshoo of California has introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (the CALM Act) in Congress in an attempt to battle excessive noise. It has yet to be passed but enough people are upset about the loudness that it has made it's way to congress.

That should tell the tv people something, maybe that we don't like what they are doing. Seriously.

I was reading different websites question and answer pages about why the commercials are so loud and have found out how and why they do it.

The people who produce and have the commercials on tv aren't allowed to let the volume go over the loudness volume in whatever we are watching right before the commercial comes on. So if we are watching a movie and in the movie somewhere there is a really loud explosion (even if it only lasts for a second), they are allowed to let the entire commercial reach the loudness level of that explosion.

They do it because they think we will look and pay attention more to the tv and what's being advertised on it when it's louder, thus they want to get out attention.

It's stupid thinking on their parts, really. I love my DVR and use it for just about every program I watch now. I can fast forward through every single commercial there is and I love that.

How long did you keep up the Christmas Decorations?

I just got the last of the Christmas stuff put back in boxes and in my closet. I had three small tree's and 8 large boxes of knick knacks to put away. lol When I started putting stuff away I was thinking to myself...I am not doing this again next year. But then I think that every year and every year I buy one more decoration and add it to the growing pile to put out and pack away.

I was not the only one though, because I saw a christmas tree in the dumpster out back...lol

How to get a free Swagbuck!

Have you heard of Swagbucks? If not you are losing free money, gifts and other really cool stuff...all for free!
For those of you that have a swagbucks account, here's what you do. Log into your account and click on "Ways to earn" it's at the top left of the page.
Then click on "Special Offers"
Then you'll see a blue box on the right hand side of the page that says, "No obligation offers" click that and scroll down to the bottom of each page and click on 'Skip"
You don't need to fill in any information and after a few pages...for me it was 6 pages, I was given a swagcode for a free swagbuck.

For those of you who don't know about SwagBucks, it's really easy. You create an account at ..
http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=home

And then start using their search bar as your searching for things online. Every once in a while, (for me it't once a day) they will give you a swagbuck right into your account. These swagbucks then accumulate and you can get free stuff. For 45 swagbucks you can trade it in for $5.00 amazon.com gift certificate. It takes less than a month of using their search bar once or twice a day to accumulate that many swagbucks. It's like getting free money for doing the searching you would be doing anyway.

You can also down load their tool bar which has the search bar in it but I usually just go right to the site and use their search bar because I don't want to download anything else to my computer.

Try it and get free stuff.

UMC Hospital In Las Vegas

I don't know how many people ahve heard about this woman who went to the emergency room at UMC and didn't know she was pregnant. She waited in the E.R. for several hours complaining about severe abdominal pain and when the other patients saw how much pain she was in they were telling the staff they she could even go in before them. After several hours and not getting seen, she couldn't take the pain anymore and went to Valley Hospital's Emergency room where the same exact thing ahppened...so she went home thinking the pain would go away...2 hours later she delivered a dead baby at home and her husband called an ambulance. Now UMC is under investigation.

I know first hand how bad the staff in the Emergency room at UMC is. A few years ago I went to my personal Doctor with a 104 temp and bad coughing and just really bad pain throughout my entire body. He gave me paper work to take to the ER at UMC and said they would call a doctor that worked at my doctors office who was on call there at that time and get me seen right away. But when I got there and showed them the paper she told me that I needed to hold onto the paper until I was seen in the back by a doctor and the wait time was a few hours. My temp had gone up to 105F and she gave me 2 tylenol and when I told ehr I hadn't been able to keep anything down she said either take them or she would tell the nurse in the back I had refused the tylenol.

I took them and sure enough 10 minutes later I vomited them right back up. She just looked at me and said nothing. I had a plastic vomit container in my lap because I was in too much pain to keep walking to the bathroom, so she knew everytime I vomited which was every 15 mintes for the 8 hours I was in the waiting room. I had been sick for 2 weeks but it got to be so bad I finally went to the doctors office.

When I was finally called in the back to see an actual doctor, I gave her the paperwork my doctor had given me and she called the doctor and he was very upset I had waited for over 8 hours to get seen. He told her what tests he wanted ordered and when she went to do the paperwork I heard on eof the other doctors asking who the hell ordered all these tests...She told him that my doctor who sent me here did. He just shook his head.

I was put on an IV, chest x-rays were taken, blood was taken and I was put on oxygen and then given a breathing treatment and after 6 more hours in the back...I was told that I had Pnuemonia and The Flu and one of my lungs was half way filled with fluid and that's why I was having such a hard time breathing. If I had waited one more day I would have needed a chest tube.

I learned a lesson that day.....I will never again go to the ER at UMC unless I call an ambulance because their staff up front as asses. The actual medical professionals in the back treating you are nice and they do what they are suppossed to but the people up front who have no real medical training are the ones who determine who gets seen next.

As many people that go to the UMC ER, you would think they would have more than 45 beds, because at any given time there are 80 or more people in the waiting room.

Funny Horoscopes

I found these on TheOnion.com

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19
Turns out it's not your relationship with your father that's been eating you up inside, but rather a three-foot long parasite lodged directly below your kidney.

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20
It takes a real man to admit when he's made a mistake. However, now that you're a woman, you can blame the sex-change operation on someone else.

Gemini May 21 - Jun 21
Due to its high incidence of hijinx, tomfoolery, and puns, you'll finally decide to stop answering doors during knock-knock jokes.

Cancer Jun 22 - Jul 22
The stars, in their infinite wisdom, indicate that the cute blonde you've been pointing them out to couldn't be more bored if she tried.

Leo Jul 23 - Aug 22
You'll continue to grow as a human being this week, much to the relief of all those geneticists.

Virgo Aug 23 - Sep 22
Home is where the heart is. Specifically, beneath the floorboards of the common room.

Libra Sep 23 - Oct 23
Every day on Earth is like a beautiful gift from God, which is thoughtful and all, but you'd probably prefer something you can actually use.

Scorpio Oct 24 - Nov 21
Juggling three young children isn't easy for any mother, but then, that's why you start with tennis balls and bowling pins first.

Sagittarius Nov 22 - Dec 21
Nothing will be what it seems this week, especially breakfast sausages.

Capricorn Dec 22 - Jan 19
Take heart: There are people with bigger problems than yours, and acting like you care about them will get you laid.

Aquarius Jan 20 - Feb 18
You said you'd never forget all the little people who helped you along the way, but since becoming rich and famous you haven't thought about those midgets once.

Pisces Feb 19 - Mar 20
Were it officially sanctioned, judged by an impartial panel, and taking place somewhere other than your kitchen late at night,† you'd pretty much shatter all existing hot dog eating records.

What's the dumbest thing you've done this month?

I was gonna say what's the dumbest thing you've done last year, but then I'd have to much to write...lol

I ask because I did something today that was completely eye roll, hit yourself upside the head- stupid. I drove my car over to the CVS drug store just around the corner from me. It's actually just one long drive way over and through the hole in a large cement wall but I drove my car.

When I got home and put away all of the things I bought, I went to go get back in my car to go to starbucks with my guft card and get a free frappuccino and my car was gone!

I was frantic, I was sure someone had stolen it. I went inside about ready to call the police and report it stolen when I remembered that after I bought my stuff from CVS, I walked back home and left my car in the parking lot of CVS!

Sure enough when I walked outside and looked across the parking lot, there was my car right where I parked it. lol

I still don't know why I walked home.

Cancer scare.

My mom went through radiation for her throat cancer over ten years ago and she has been cancer free since then. Her mother, my granda had cancer is her ling, and breast and had a lumpectomy as well as half a lung removed and she recovered and was cancer free until she died in 1988. My family has been full of people who've had cancer and have died and my brother is sure he's going to get it one day because of all the cancer in the family.

I made up my mind along time ago that if I ever got any type of cancer I would not put myself though all those horrendous tests, or treatments. I've had enough surgeries and tests done on me, I'm done. I hate going to the doctor and I'm sure she hates me coming in because all we do is argue about what I will and won't do.

Anyway, my husbands doctor told him all the stomach problems he's been having for the past 2 years might be because of some sort of abdominal cancer and he is sending him for some tests. We go for the abdominal ultrasound on the 7th and to a Gastrointestinal specialist on the 18th. I'm sure that GI doc will have all sorts of nasty tests for hubby to take. But he's willing to go through them in order to find out what he has and he said he's willing to do any treatments to get rid of whatever it is too.

I swear, opposites attract because we have totally different views on this subject but all I can do is be there for him while he's going through all this. But I tell you, I won't have another surgery for any reason. It's just not happening and I've allready gone to a lawyer a few years ago and had a living will drawn up and put Hubby as my executor. He did the same with his and I'm his executor...just in case either of our families has a problem with anything.

The thing is while we have lived together for more than 20 years...we aren't legally married and in the state of nevada there's no common law marriage...which is ridiculous. So we had to get papers drawn up to make sure there were no problems.

Waxing

I got a flyer left on my car the other day when I went to the book store that said one of the little salons in the area are having a special on waxing, bikini as well as eyebrows.

Now I've tried plucking my eyebrows a few times and it hurt! Seriously. So Now they are au natural as is the rest of me. *giggle*

I looked online about bikini waxing and most of the sites said the first few times would hurt and afterwards it wouldn't hurt as much. I don't see how that's possible. Plus you have to lay down on a table with all your lil bits just out there for someone to see and apply hot wax too.

Now I'm not into pain and if it really hurts and I start screaming...*giggle*...I wonder if they have a large muscled man in the back that will come out and knock you out...*I don't need a black eye along with my hurt patootie*...or if she would just tell you to suck it up and keep pulling wax from you...

In the end I decided to just throw the flyer away and stay away from any hot wax.

Dreams

So I've always had some really crazy dreams, most of my life I've had nightmares and night terrors. So when I have a funny dream I have to share it because it doesn't happen all too often.

My dream last night...

I was in the bathroom putting on my makeup and this little hairless rat ran out from under the sink. He was wearing this little red and white sweater that had writing on it. It said, "I belong to dale Ernhart Jr. Please return me if you find me." And there was a phone number.

So I called the phone number and sure enough Dale Earnhart Jr was frantic that his little rattie had gotten loose again and said he would be right over. He asked me if the rat was alright and I told him that he was sitting in my arms eating a dog biscuit. There was a long silence and he asked me if the rat had bitten me when i tried to pick him up. I said no he came right over to me.

He said he would be right over.

I hear a knock on the door and he was standing there with three large pepperoni pizzas and a check for $100.00.

He looked amazed that the rat was letting me hold him and said that he doesn't usually take to strangers. The rat started kissing (licking) his face as soon as he got him and then I woke up.

lol

I think I want another rat...

The "I can see all of you" X-ray at the airlines

Have you heard about this x-ray machine? It's also called the "Whole Body Imaging" scan. Have you seen this? No? Well here ya go..

http://privacycoalition.org/stopwholebodyimaging/

This is a virtual strip search and more and more aairlnes are proposing to have them. Here in Las Vegas they are used on internation flights and I heard that other airlines are going to be getting them next year.

I plan on signing this petition to stop these virtual strip search x-rays because it really seems like an invasion of privacy to me. I can only guess at the things the people who would be looking at these screenings would be saying to one another or to their family members after work. And what happens to the imprint after you go on your merry way onboard the airline? Is it stored in a data base for others to look at and laugh?

I will never, ever fly on a plane again regardless of the use of this machine. With so many problems popping up with the airlines, I think people should boycott the airlines until they get their shit together.

I just wanna know...

What's up with the Im, chat, texting or emails instead of an actual phone call or handwritten letter?

You know what made me think of this? I used to write letters all the time, and then we got a computer and now I write letters jsut to the people who don't have a computer. I still call my mother almost everyday and I call my brothers. My sister called me the other night and we talked...not texted.

I don't have a cell phone and I don't need one, I don't want to be texting with my family instead of actually talking to them. I used to put my Im on when I was on the computer but I got so irritated with it that I don't turn it on anymore.

I want people to have courtesy when someone is chatting with them in IM and if they want me to converse with them, do the same for me. Otherwise it's just annoying. I used to love talking to some people on yahoo Im, others, I just sent an IM now and then, cause I am not gonna converse to LOL HAHA LOL LOL :) HAHA LOL LMAO. I'm not asking for a super IQ chat here, most people know me to be a tad goofy and sometimes there is a thought inspiring chat, but I'm not a difficult person to talk to. I only ask for people not to be idiots. Is that too much to ask?

When was the last time someone under the age of 18 wrote a handwritten letter because they wanted to? Not many I'm guessing.

Fire Safe Cigarettes

My husband got to talking about how the cigarettes have changes since they became Fire safe. I don't smoke, never have so I didn't notice anything different with them. Well, except for the cussing all the time from hubby because his cigarette goes out after less than a minute if he doesn't inhale on it.

That's the big thing on these cigarettes, you either inhale alot...alot more than some people were doing before they became fire safe, or your cigarette goes out and you have to relight it.

I was doing some research online about these cigarettes and found out that in order to make them fire safe, they had to use chemicals that have harmful proven side effects.

People are coughing more, getting headahes, light headed and sick to their stomaches just to name a few.

I don't think most people know that there are chemincals used in these new fire safe cigarettes than are more harmful now. Even the glue they use to seal the cigarette was changed and now has more chemicals in it to make the cigarette fire safe.

How crazy is that?

Now people who used to light a cigarette and for the most part just hold it in the hand and take the occasional puff...are having to take a puff every minute in order to keep it from going out...Does that sound like it's safer for people as well as being fire safe? I think not.

Great gifts..

This year I got great gifts but the best was having my entire family over for christmas dinner. That and the fact that everyone got along..lol

This year I received gift cards to:
Starbucks
Borders Books
Visa gift card
iTunes
and bath stuff, scarf and I bought myself a bunch of books with the points I turned into amazon.com gifts cards from the survey websites I have been taking surveys from all year.

My daughter got a huge surprise this morning when a neighbor came over with a brand new 10 speed bicycle for her. The neighbor had bought it because she thought she was going to lose her driverse licrense when she got a ticket, but when she went to court she got her license back and didn't need the bike. So she just gave it to my daughter. How nice was that?

Good news

So I just hear that airline passengers now have new rights. There are new rules regarding how long the airlines can keep people on the tarmack. After 2 hours food and water have to be offered now and after 3 hours they have to take the plane back to the gate and let everyone off. I think this is so much better than what had been happening. Some people have been stuck in planes for 18 hours or more with no food, no water and restrooms that didn't work. That had to stop.

Bunny

My husband found a bunny in the alley this morning. Now I need to find her a good home. I would keep her but my daughter is allergic.

Interview!

I was recently interviewed by Sabah Karimi on The AC Weekly about my articles on Associated Content. http://theacweekly.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/meet-ac-rockstar-mary-kirkland/

I really enjoyed the interview and if you want to read my articles..... http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/37985/mary_kirkland.html

You can always get to them by clicking on the links on the right hand side of this page as well.

Wrapping presents

I was wrapping a few presents today and sure enough tore through the paper a few times because the box I was trying to wrap had some small edges sticking out and it kept poking through the paper. I ended up putting the whole thing into another box and wrapping that.

Sometimes I really dislike wrapping stuff and want to just through it all in gift bags and be done with it. The thing is gift bags, at least to me don't give the same feeling as a wrapped present. I don't know if it's just me or maybe others feel the same way.

I've found some interesting ways of wrapping odd ball shaped presents though. I once had a small oblong round plastic tube shaped present to wrap and decided to to the 'tootsie roll' wrap on it. Put it in the middle of the paper and wrap the ends with ribbon so it looks like a piece of candy.

worked well enough.

The wall tree

Years ago when my daughter was really little, we didn't have enough money to buy a real christmas tree that year for christmas and we didn't know what we were gonna do. So my inventive hubby went to the dollar store and bought some cheap garland.

I had no idea what he was gonna do with it, but as you can see...we had our christmas tree. I had a few ornaments and some lights that we also put on our wall tree and we were so proud of it, we showed it to everyone that year.

Ken (my hubby) even made the star that's on top of the tree. He cut it out of cardboard and painted it.

This is one of my favorite christmas tree's we've ever had.

Christmas Pets

Well it's almost Christmas now, so I thought I would share a couple of of pets pictures.

The first two pictures are of my dwarf hamster, Chance and of my rat Romi.
Chance is eating pumpkin pie by the pine cones me and my daughter painted, while Romi is sitting in front of the snowman I made. She was sniffing around which is why her neck looks like she is bending down to see what's beneath her, because she was.

The pics of my pets were taken a few years ago and even though they have all passed away, they live on in my heart and in these pictures.

Adam Lambert

I was just listening to the radio and heard a new song and after listening to it I was like, Hey I like that....who the heck is it?
I googled some of the lyrics from the song and I could not believe who's name came up. So I looked it up on Youtube and found this ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcZiwNnxSSc&feature=related
Just copy and paste.

It's a new song called For Your Entertainment by Adam Lambert and I love it!
I was watching the video and realized it might be about some S&M...bondage and things like that...which just makes it all the more intriguing if you ask me. If you haven't heard the song....find it...seriously I loved it as soon as I heard it and I didn't even know who was singing it!

It doesn't hurt that Adam Lambert is hot as hell, right? Yeah I know he likes guys, but hey I can still look. lol

What's happened to customer service?

It seems to me that in the past 20 years or so that customer service has suffered a huge crack in it's definition. I remember when people would tell you, the customer is always right. Now it seems the customer doesn't matter all that matters is the bottom line.

Make a buck, then make another and don't worry if your product isn't as good as it used to be or isn't as good as it could be or is just plain crap. Sell, sell, sell.

I've had several run ins with terrible customer service in the past few months and it just makes me so mad when it happens.

2 months ago I went to KFC and had my family with me. I went through the drive through and asked for three 5 dollar box meals with original recipe chicken. I could not believe it when they told me they didn't have ANY original recipe all they had was grilled chicken.

Ok, maybe it can happen once, they can run out of chicken...I can deal with that. So we said sure grilled chicken is fine, three 5 dollar boxes with the grilled chicken. THEN, he says, it'll be 10-15 minutes because they have to make some chicken......*pause*

*Hear crickets chirping*

Uh, so you don't have any chicken at all?
That's right, we have to make some, you gonna wait?
I said no, were going to Burger King.... and we left.

Every single time we have gone into KFC they have a sh*t load of chicken ready in those plastic bins and this time they had no chicken and couldn't make any original recipe? I don't think so.

So I wrote to the main office, sent them an email and 2 weeks later I got an apology and a $5 gift coupon.

*I think you know what's going to happen next don't you?*

wait for it....

...

Yeah, I went back to KFC and since there's only one KFC close to my home I went to the same one.....

I walked inside this time so I could face them instead of the drive through...
I asked for the 8 piece meal...Oh and did you know they raised their prices... an 8 piece meal with 2 large sides and 4 biscuits is now $17.99....it's outrageous.

So I order an 8 piece meal and ask for mashed potatoes and cole slaw...she tells me that the cash register won't let her give me another side..I can only have one....Erm, but the sign right up there says I get 2 large sides with this meal...

She tells me I know but the register only says it comes with one...
I ask to speak to the manager. She comes over and tells me that she will have to ring up and extra side and then delete so it will be on the receipt but I won't ahve to pay for it. I'm thinking they are trying to mess with me, I mean just give me what it says I get on the damn sign. But I said, yeah ok, as long as I don't charged for it whatever.

She gives me a total of $20.05...I hand her a $20 dollar bill and the $5 coupon. She reads the coupon and looks at me in a huff and tells me that she can't ring it up and give me change because the coupon says no change back.

Now....I'm no genius but even I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I calmly asked her if she could take the $5 off the total before she rings it up and then take that toal out of the $20 dollar bill I gave her.

*crickets chirping and the air blowing through her head can be heard for a few seconds*

Then she figures out what I'm saying and she takes $5 off my order and figures out my change.

While she is doing this, I walk over about three feet to where I see the other woman putting together my chicken in the bucket and ask her is she can substitute the wings for breast pieces.
She looks at me like I just bit the head off a pigeon or something and looks back at the bucket and starts rummaging around in the bucket for the wings...She actually held up a wing and a breast peice and said, So you don't want the wing but you do want the breast?

I said yes. She had to think about it, like she didn't understand, then put the wing back and put another breast piece in the bucket.....She started counting all the chicken in the bucket and I finally got all my chicken...

By then the manager was ready with my change. Seriously.

Shifter

I just ordered this book...well I should say I got enough points from Zoompanel surveys to get this book for free!

I've been doing surveys for Zoompanel for years and when I get enough points I usually get an amazon.com gift certificate so I can get a book, or I get some other thing that I see they have that I like.

So far from them I've gotten..
Cd's
DVD's
Books
One of those fuzz ball removers that you use like a shaver on your sweaters..Love that thing.
and of course gift cards. I use to love the Starbucks gift cards but they don't have those anymore.

So this time for 1000 points I ordered this book and it's one that I've been wanting to read. My gawd this looks good.

This book contains:
- Mad Dog Love by Angela Knight -
-A Jaguar's Kiss by Lora Leigh -
-Shifter's Lady by Alyssa Day -
-Sea Crossing by Virginia Kantra-

I've read other novels by all of these authors except for Virginia Kantra and this story sounds very good. I may have found another author to read to go along with the hundreds of other great authors out there.

Headaches

So for the past few days I've had this headache that just won't go away. I hope it's not another sinus infection. I don't want to have to go to the doc for another prescription. Hopefully a few ibuprophen will get rid of it tonight.if not it's either stress...or a trip to the docs office.

Book Review- Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa

Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa

Dirty Little Angels is a fast paced, edgy and realistic look into a realm where people are twisted and families are coldhearted. The writing is edgy, realistic and paced-paced. Told from the POV of Hailey, the 16 year old little sister of Cyrus who is on parole for stealing and getting caught with weed.

The very beginning of the book starts you right off with real life situations. Hailey’s mother has a miscarriage and falls into a deep depression. Hailey also worries that they are soon going to be living on the street because her father, who lost his job can’t pay the mortgage. Hailey’s friendship with her best friend Meridian falls apart after Meridian has an abortion and finds out that Hailey slept with her boyfriend.

Hailey starts hanging out with her brother’s friends, one of them being Moses Watkins, an enigmatic, ruthless but charming character with a black heart who thinks himself a Prophet. Hailey is forced to discover how hard the world really is through unexpected times of happiness, depression, suffering and ultimately murder.

Dirty Little Angels brings together characters you want to hate but come to understand and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. The atmosphere the Author creates is dirty and real. You can sense the danger coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Chris Tusa’s style is perfectly paced and keeps your attention to the very end. I look forward to the next novel to crawl from the depths of Tusa’s imagination!

Reviewed by Mary Kirkland
November 2009

Murder, Death, Kill?

Those are the words my hubby used when he saw the roast some out of the slow cooker. He told me I murder, death, killed the roast. lol

Yes, he likes his meat a little on the rare side, like he says, as soon as it stops moving, it's done. Yeck!

I..on the other hand like my meat....wellllll done. Done, done done. So when he bought a cheap chuck roast that was going to be tough to chew because of the kind of cut it was, I decided to slow cooker it. Of course there, was carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, bell peppers and slow cooker spices in there too.

I'm telling you this cheap ass chuck roast was falling apart with just a fork when I was done with it. I thought it was tasty. But hubby will be saying...

Murder. Death. Kill. For the next few days.

Ebooks

Well I do have an ebook feature on my mp3/mp4 player and I was going to try and download an ebook to it just to see if I could. That's when the problems started. I found a free ebook and downloaded it like I think I was suppossed to, to adobe reader. Then I plugged in my player and .....yeah, that's where I'm stuck at. LOL

I have no idea how to get it from my computer to my player...At least I can read it on my computer...*sigh*

Next thing I'm going to try is downloading a CD to my computer and transferring a song to my mp3/mp4 player. I feel a headache coming on...

Laptops and Technology

A while back I had started saving all the money I was making on Associated Content so I could buy myself a Laptop. we have a computer but with three of us using it, I am usually online at midnight or in the middle of the day when I ahve others talking to me and bothering me when I'm trying to concentrate on writing. It's difficult to try and write an article when you constantly have people asking you questions or talking or have the tv going in the background.

So I was think ing a laptop would be beneficial and an easy way for me to be able to get online whenever I wanted to.

Firstly I am technology dumb, I mean seriously it's taken me a long time just to get comfortable downlaoding a song to my mp4 player. So when I started looking into the laptops, I was a little surprised at how they just made no sense to me.

How to connectto the internet? What is an internet card? How is it wireless? Do I ned to have wireless service on top of the dsl service I already have for the other computer? Will the laptop work when the desktop is online? Do I have to have to have wi-fi?

jeebus I'm a little lost. I've been reading all sorts of articles about laptops today. I think I have some more research to do before I buy anything.

This really irritates me...

I see these acronyms in different places and for the longest time I didn't know what they meant. At times I wonder if people remember how to actually spell the whole words they use in computer talk. I do use 'lol' at times, but I am trying to cut back on it. Our kids are going to forget how to spell if they keep shortening wods for texting...


SO= significant other
DH= Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife
lol= Laughing out Loud
?4U= Question for You
LGH= Lets get high
LH6= Lets have sex
LHSX =Lets have sex
LHM= Lord help me
LHO= Laughing head off
LIC= Like I care
LIK= Meaning liquor
LIMT= Laugh in my tummy
LMAO= Laughing my *a* off
LMBO= Laughing my butt off
LMFAO= Laughing my freaking *a* off
LMIRL= Lets meet in real life
LMK= Let me know
LMNK= Leave my name out
LOL= Laughing out loud
LOL= Laugh out loud
LOL= Lots of love
LOLH= Laughing out loud hysterically
LOLO= Lots of love
LOLWTF= Laughing out loud (saying) "What the *freak*?"
LOTI= Laughing on the inside
LOTR= Lord of The Rings (online gaming)
LQTM= Laughing quietly to myself
LSHMBH= Laugh so hard my belly hurts
LSV= Language, sex and violence
LTD= Living the dream
LTNS= Long time no see
LTOD= Laptop of death
LTS= Laughing to self
LULT= Love you long time
LULZ= Slang for LOL
LVM =Left voice mail
LWOS= Laughing without smiling
LY= Love ya
LYLAS= Love you like crazy
LYLC= Love you like a sis
LYSM= Love you so much
MUSM= Miss you so much
MYO= Mind your own (business)
MYOB= Mind your own business
BFD= Big freaking deal
POS= Parent over shoulder
CD9= Code 9, Meaning "parents are around"
SWMBO= She who must be obeyed. Meaning wife or partner
ILY= I love you
IM =Instant message
IMAO= In my arrogant opinion
IMHO= In my humble opinion

And these are just the ones I can think of right now.
There are so many more out there that I still dn't know.

Thoughts about PETA

I actually used to be a PETA member and thought the basics of what they were trying to do was great. I think animals, all animals even the ones that are meant to be on our dinner table should be treated with respect and given some empathy as well as ethical treatment.

I don't have a problem with eating meat. I was for a few years, a vegetarian. I eat meat now and I won't apologize for it. If I lived in a place where I could go outside my door and hunt my own food, I would do so, But I live in the city and all I'm going to find here are pigeons.

I do however something needs to be done about how we treat the animals we slaughter for food. They are mistreated, hurt, and suffer unbelievably.

I recently watched a video on youtube about how the chicken farmers kill baby male chickens because males don't lay egggs. They are thrown right into a grinder and ground alive. It's not right. Being held together so that the chickens, cows, pigs..ect get hurt, trampled, get broken legs ect. And no one cares because they are going to be killed anyway.

This is what I have a problem with, the mistreatment of animals has to be stopped. I think the farmers need to ahve stricter laws as to how they can treat and handle the animals. Right now they can pretty much do whatever they want to and they don't get in trouble for it.

Kanye West on the VMA's

My daughter was just watching the VMA's and said that Kanye West went up on stage when Taylor Swift won. I looked it up online and sure enough this idiot was up to his same old ridiculous behavior.

When are peopel going to see what as idiot this guy really is? When are these award shows going to stop inviting him to come, to even be a part of the audience?

After him doing this I don't think that he should ever...ever be allowed to attend another award show, not even as an audience member.

If anyone else had done this or made an outburst in the audience they would have been escorted out.

I really feel sorry for taylor Swift.

What a jerk!

Are you getting the Swine Flu vaccine?

I've alreayd decided not to get it and not to get my daughter vaccinated with it. My husband probably won't get it either. I told my mom not to get it and my dad doesn't like get any shots so I think he won't be getting it.

You may be asking why I'm against getting it?

Well, this vaccine hasn'thad enough time to show what the full set of side effects are going to be over time. I still believe that Autism is linked to childhood vaccines and if I knew then what I know now, I would never have gotten my daughter any of the vaccinations to begin with.

I fully expect that this vaccine will go the same way that so many other have and later on down the line side effects like guienne barre syndrome. Children are still dying form childhood vaccinations all the time or getting brain damage from mixing the wrong vaccinations together.

Some Girls died after getting the HPV vaccine that was suppossed to stop hvp disease. But it only prevents some hpv, not all of it and it's not known how many girls are going to have adverse reactions because enough time wasn't taken to see what the long term effects were going to be on girls before vaccinating so many.

I did not let my doctor give my daughter this vaccination either.

My daughter had chicken pox when she was 5 years old and when we went to the doctor one year to get vaccinations when she was older the doctor wanted to give her the chicken pox vaccination even though she already had the disease and it wasn't needed. You really have to put your foot down with these shot crazed doctors.

If you want to get the shot, just do some reasearch don't just trust what the doctors are telling you is the truth.

I won!

I keep telling you all where to find the great contests and freebies and one of the contests I entered I actually won. I got a $25.00 amazon. com egift card from free deals for you.
http://freedealsforyou.blogspot.com/

Now just think if you had entered, you might be saying this instead of me..lol As it is I'm probably going to order more books.
I've got Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan coming in about 2 days. I can't wait to read that. There are so many books I want to get and I can't think of anything better to get.

Swiffer Wet Jet

I was given a Swiffer Wet Jet when they first came out a while ago by a neighbor who was moving out of our apartment complex. The solution bottle was brand new and the mop itself had only been used once. I had a brand new box of the pads and an almost full bottle of the solution.

First I want to say that the idea for this I think is great but it just doesn't work the way I would have liked. One thing, the most important thing is the solution that comes with the swiffer wet jet, stinks. I mean this stuff smells awful! I woulnd't ever buy this stuff myself. But I used it a few times to see if it worked and to tell you the truth....it didn't.

My apartment isn't that big and my kitchen is small. Saying that though I still had to use 2 pads and alot of the solution to get my floor clean.

Another thing...You absolutely have to take the used pad off the mop before putting it away, even if it only looks a little dirty and you want to save some money by using it again. The reason being that you have to turn the mop upseide down in order to store it. If you don't the solution that's on the wet pad will leak all over the floor and down the mop handle while it's upside down. But if you don't store the swiffer wet jet upside down all the solution from the bottle will leak out all over the floor like mine did.

I ended up throwing my swiffer wet jet away and will never get another one.

I will say one thing though. Swiffer has a good idea, it just needs a little more thought. I also use the swiffer dusters and I love these things. I have been using them ever since they came out a while back.

Freebirthing/ Unassisted Births

I recently saw a show about this on cable. I don't even remember what channel it was on. I looked into freebirthing and the use of midwives. While I had my child in a hospital and had prenatal care, some of these women don't believe in any kind of prenatal care or doctors just in case something goes wrong.

I read one story where a couple went out in the wilderness, miles and miles away from anyone and didn't even carry a cell phone just in case. She went through labor and birth in a lake where they had set up camp. Thankfully everything was fine, but what if they had had some complication?

I had all my prenatal check ups, all my blood tests came back fine and I still had to have an emergency c-section because she had her first bowel movement before she was born and is cut down the amount of oxygen she was getting, so much so that she had 2 seizures when she was born. Can you imagine what would have happened to her if I decided to let nature take it's course and not go to the hospital?

I sometimes wonder if something were to happen to one of these babies and these parents are out in the wilderness, if they would just bury their dead child and never tell anyone what happened? Could they get away with that? I have no idea.

I do believe that women have the right to decide what's done with their bodies, but we don't have the right to endanger our childs' life when it's about to be born.

Start Sampling

Have you ever heard of Start Sampling? Well it's a great website to get samples.
http://www.startsampling.com/

I've been a member for years and ahve gotten some really cool samples from them. All you have to do is register and then start clicking on the samples you want. It's soo easy.

Self Serve cashiers

You know the ones in the grocery stores that you go up to and have to scan all the items yourself? Yeah, my grovcery store just recently switched to that and they don't have any, not even one...manned cash register. So even those senile old grannies that can't figure out how to change the channel while using a remote are in the lines holding everyone up. And there was only one...one...manager there to help with all 6 cash register lines. She was a busy girl because no one..ok, well a few people knew what the hell they were doing. Myself included thank goodness. I really hate those things.

When I go to a restuarant I want a waitress to wait on me and when I go shopping I want a cashier to check my stuff out and bag it.

Swag Bucks

http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=home

If you've heard of Swag Bucks then you allready know what I'm about to say. If you don't know about this site then you really, really need to go there...now.
http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=home

Wait...what are you waiting for? lol

Let me explain it to you. All you do is register and then use their search bar to do your searching. I haven't even downloaded their tool bar and I'm earning swag bucks. Now when you get enough swag bucks, you can exchange them for things like, gift cards, paypal cash, ipods, comic books, books, hats, shirts, ...sheesh the list goes on and on. Seriously.

In the past 2 weeks, I've gone to their site maybe once a day and have alreayd accumulated 20 swag bucks. At 25 swag bucks you can get a $5 amazon.com gift card, see how easy this is. All you have to do is use their search bar when you are doing your regular searching you do, and we all do it. And they will reward you randomly with swag bucks. It's pretty cool, and for those of us that love getting something for nothing, this is the best. So go take a look...

http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=home

Vocal point

If you've never heard of Vocal Point you are really missing out. I've been going there for less than a year and participating in the message boards and they send me coupons for free full size products they are talking about. Recently I got a coupon for a free box of cereal. I've had free kashi bars, free clothes soap and all sorts of free samples.

http://www.vocalpoint.com/index.html

You do have to participate in the forum and message boards but that's just too easy.

Freecycle

I've used freecycle a few times. I was a part of the freecycle group here in las vegas for a while a few years ago but one bad mod can ruin the experience for everyone.

I got one of my dwarf hamsters from freecycle a few years ago and he was the sweetest little thing. When I went to get him, the person who had him said her son didn't want the hamster any more but wanted me to keep the name he had picked for him. I said I would but I didn't. Why in the world she would even ask me when her son wasn't even there was beyond me. It was obvious to me she cared little about what happedn to the poor little guy because it was 55 degrees out side and she had his cage outside.

When she brought the cage is, there was just a water bottle, and some food and very little bedding. Poor little thing probably would have died if I hadn't gone to get him.

The condition the cage was in was the worst thing though. I don't think they had changed the bedding in this cage in at least a month. It reeked! The hamster himself was a matted mess since he was sleeping in his feces and urine. I wanted to slap this woman. I really did. But instead I brought him home, cleaned him and the cage and he lived for 4 years.

But my point is I stopped using freecycle because the moderators of the group made it impossible to get things on there.

One person would constantly post about wanting free money or food. All the time.

Another would put one post every week about wanting a bed and the moderator would jump his shit for it. It was crazy. I think this moderator had favorites that she let do whatever they wanted and others couldn';t.

Locks of Love

Last night I wrote an article about Locks of Love and because of some of the Pm's and emails I've been getting I wanted to clarify a few things.

1. I do not dislike locks of Love, but I do think a person should do research about them ebfore they donate their hair to them.

2. I'm not ever going to donate my hair. I would rather sell my hair if I was going to do so and then decide after doing some research pick which charity to give the money to. My first pick would be to the ASPCA.

3. If after you read about their practices you still want to donate your hair to Locks of Love then by all means do so. Just realize that some hair does get sold and they do make a profit.

just do your research.

Alone

It's nice being alone at times because you get to have some "me" time. So my hubby is gone for the next 2 weeks and it's just em and my daughter here at home right now. She is 18 and goes out with her boyfriend a couple of times a week and it gives me somet ime to myself. It's nice having time to myself, I really like it. I gave myself a night at a hotel a few years ago as a birthday present to myself. It was wonderful, the cafe was open 24 hours and I went down to it at 2 am and had a coffe and a piece of chocolate silk pie. lol

I brought a book and some treats like cookies, frappuccino and money enough to go to the buffet for dinner. It was wondefful and my hubby had no problem with it. Heck he is happy watching his sisters place and her 3 dogs while she is gone because he has some alone time. I think we all need some alone time now and again.

New freebie site

I love letting other readers know when I have found a great site for freebies. I recently found another blog that lists great feebies..

http://welovefreesamples.blogspot.com/

If you love freebies and don't want to look all over the net for them, here's another blog to visit.

Media Mail

For those of you who don't know what Media Mail is...When you mail a book, cd or dvd you can have it sent Media Mail for a cheaper cost than first class mail. But and there is a big but...it usually takes anywhere from 9-21 days to deliver and sometimes more.

The packages also get put in the same stoage container as some of the bigger boxes and thus your small CD or DVD envelope can be damaged or crushed..which has happened to me on several occasions.

I do not like media mail and hate getting something I bought on either amazon or ebay and have it sent media mail because like right now.....it's been 3 weeks since I ordered 2 books and they still aren't here yet.

C'mon people. Pay the extra few cents when shipping a single book, cd or dvd and get it to the buyer alot faster and in better shape. because beleive me if it's late, broken, crushed or anything else...I will be leaving a negative rating on the transaction!

Contest on Cheryl's Book Nook

cheryl is giving away 5 copies each of:
The Moon Looked Down by Dorothy Garlock
Tamed By A Laird by Amanda Scott
Knight of Desire by Margarot Mallory

That's 15 books she is giving away. All you have to do is visit her blog here to find the details.

http://cherylsbooknook.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-giveaways.html

Do you read romance?

I know I do. Boy do I read romance, I can't get enough of them at times. I read all kinds of books, from self help to Horror and everything in between. but romance is my favorite. Of course I have my sub genres as I call them, the ever popular Vampires and Werewolf Romance novels.

Well If you like reading as much as I do, you are going to want to take a look at this site.

http://www.authorsoundrelations.com/LGR/leenasgoodieroom.htm


Did you know that if you like to win books you can do that here as well? I know it works because I won a book from Barbara Bretton just this week.

On this site you can also send a SASE for some free goodies, like signed bookmarks. This is one of my all time favorite sites and I recommend it highly.

Atlantis Unleashed By Alyssa Day

I knew when I read her first book in theis series I would be hooked and I was sooo right. I got throught ready Altantis Unleashed tonight and I actually whimpered during one of the tense sexual scenes.

My husband barely looked at me with that ever knowing smirk on his face. But whatever book this author throws at me next time I am bound to read, beacuse she really catches my and others readers attentions.

What more can I say...Go get the darn book and read it...and THEN tell me I am wrong. You won't be able to.

Uploaded new Pic.

I just updated my blog and the pic you see down there isn't of me obviously, but of none other than Nick from Forever Knight. I really miss that show, I really hate how they ened it, but they seem to do that alot.

Land Of Mary

Have you ever googled your name? lol well I did and I was surprised to see my name on a website I hadn't seen before, so I clicked on it and found myself in the land of Mary. It was made by someone on Associated Content, where I write but she has put together a whole bunch of Mary's. I thought it was kinda cool. I'm listed under Associated Content Authors.

http://www.mamarian o.biz/authors. htm

All things freebie

I don't know if you know this about me but I happen to be a free sample addict. There I admitted it and isn't that the first step?

I used to shop the free site forums and try to sign up for all the free samples I could find, that is until I found one sight that has almost all the good ones at one sight. It's called freegrabber.com
and I have been able to find soooo many good samples there. I went back through the many many pages they have and signed up for just about every free sample they offered, well except for the ones that I didn't need like diapers and things of that nature.

I also go to walmart.com and find alot of really good free samples there. They are really fast to send out their samples unlike most other plces that want you to wait 6-8 weeks for a sample. But if you are like me, you end up signing up for so many samples each day, that after a while you start to get a few samples everyday.

Another place for good free samples is teenfreeway.com
Alot of what they have is for teenagers but why should they get all the free samples? lol

Christine Feehan is giving away free books to a few members

All you have to do is sign up here and you will be in the drawing for a free copy of Wild Rain. I love her books and would recommend them to anyone who likes romance.



http://www.christinefeehan.com/membersignup.php

What have you been buying from Itunes or the other song places?

I've been going through itunes recently and trying to figure out what songs to spend my gift card on. So far I've added...
Disturbed
Skillet
Pink
Nightwish
Nickelback
Avenged Sevenfold
fuel

Traffic

Sometimes I wonder if anyone at all reads my blog here. I know I don't write much but even if a few people are reading I'll keep writing.

It's winter

We got almost 2 inches of snow here in Las Vegas this past week. Most places around town got 6 inches. It's been a weird and wonderful week.

I just got done reading Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

I will say I absolutely loved this book. If you like this authors writing this is a must have for you. I read it in one day, in one sitting. I was home alone and was uninterrupted, so it was easier. I can't wait for the next installment.

Hi and nice to see you

Yeah yeah, I know I haven't been around much. But you can still read my articles just look over ---> there and click on one of them. lol
Have a nice day and leave me a note when you read one of my articles.

Get Paid for Doing Surveys

bad survey places

You know I've been taking online surveys for years and getting pretty good rewards, prizes, cash ect..from them. I even have a bunch I do through the mail, so when my daughter asked me to help her find one she could do I did. I thought it was a good one too, she's been doing the survey's with them for over a year and last year got a $25.00 gift card when she cashed in ehr points.

Well last week when she tried logging in to do her monthly survey, she couldn't log in instead she got a message stating her account had been deactivated. They never even emailed her to tell her this. She has several thousand points saved up from the last years surveys that she was saving to get a bigger prize.

I helped her email them and they sent her back an email stating that her informatiion was no longer needed, that since her help was no longer needed her account had been deactiveated and she looses all her points. Now is that fair.?

They gave her a link to the terms of service that states what they did was in there and that she agreed to it when she signed up.

https://www.partnership-plus.com/login/

Is the link to the site, I wanted to warn others not to sign up for this site. They will rip you off.

Yeah I've posted this several times, on my blogs and I'm going to continue to post this every so often because poeple should know there are survey places out there that will scam you. It's not right that she lost 11 months worth of survey points because they decided to deactivate her account. They should have at the very least let her cash in her points.

Plaques, name plates and more

desk name plate

It's almost easter again

So are you going to visit the Easter Bunny or do they only have the frackin Spring Bunny where you are.
Spring Bunny *Walks off cursing about stupid spring bunny*
Why do we have to change his name..He's a guy dressed in a bunny costume for cripes sake.!

If you could be Immortal

If you could be immortal....would you? Would you give up growing old, aging and stay alive and young while your family members and loved one's grew old and died?
I would If I were a Vampire....

private email vs posting something on a forum thread for everyone to see

I'm not gonna say who, what where or when so don't ask, but if you're gonna post a negative remark about someone becuase they did something you don't like I really believe this should be settled in a private email and not be posted in the forum.

Because everyone else who reads it is gonna jump in and jump on that person saying, yeah why did you do that? Because most people have nothing better to do than to belittle someone else. Even someone they don't know anything about. Think about it, most people on forums think they can say anything they want, because they aren't speaking to someone face to face, so who cares if you hurt their feelings. Well people there is a real fucking person behind the screen that you are typing on and they DO have feelings.

Doesn't matter anyway, I can choose not to go to that forum anyway, I don't need the drama.

This will however make the fourth such forum that I have decided to stop going to, and they wonder why they have no traffic after a while

Wake the fuck up people!. It's because the moderators and owners choose to let shit like this go on. Maybe have a little balance between letting people speak their minds and not going to far and people wills tay, but if the members are continuosly getting internetly bitch slapped, they are going to leave and you have no one but yourself to blame when your forum has no memebrs or only members that are assholes.

end of rant.

Superbowl ads

I thought there were some really funny superbowl ads, and me being well...me...lol Of course I liked this one the best...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFLS_RexrWA

The Descent

Me and my family watched The Descent last night and all I can say is ......dayum! This movie with it's crazy ass monsters was really creepy. If you haven't seen it.....you must!
I'm not kidding, but I wouldn't watch it alone or you might find yourself to afraid to go into the darkly lit bathroom when it's over, fearing the 'monsters' are hiding just out of sight.

Cake again

Yet another cake I made.

Here's another cake I made this week. I made the cake by scrath and made the mocha chocolate frosting from scratch too. This one came out reallllly good. The decorating could have been a little better but I'm getting threre.

First Time Using Fondant

Here's a picture of a cake I made last week. Not as good as I would ahve liked but it my first time using Fondant. And if you don't know what Fondant is, think of it like sugar flavored Play Dough for cake. yummmm

I've got even more published on Yahoo Contributor Network.

So after shana gave me the link for this place I decided to give it a try and low and behold I've now been published several times. 


Hell I plan on ranting and typing online and I may as well get paid for it, right? I could post my thoughts, and rants and views and helpful hints for free or I could do it and get a few bucks, right? Right!
So far so good.

I'm published on Yahoo Contributor Network

My Profile  

Midnight Rain by James Newman

I was lucky enough to get an autographed copy of "Midnight Rain" from James Newman. When I got it and started reading it I was hooked.

The book, "Midnight Rain" centers around a twelve year old boy named Kyle Mackey. His father is dead and his mother is an alcoholic. Kyles older brother Dan, is about to leave for college. Kyle goes off to what he calls his, "Secret Place" located in the woods, while there he witnesses a murder. Young Cassandra Belle Roarke is murdered by two men little Kyle knows. What happens next will keep you thoroughly immersed in the story. I don't want to give away the entire plot in case some of you have yet to read this novel, and read it you should!

I never put the book down from the time I started reading it until the very last page. I was totally enthralled in the story after starting it and I'm sure you will be too.

While this may not be a "horror" novel, it did have it's truly breathtaking moments, along with interesting characters and plot twists. Midnight Rain is a suspenseful and excellently written page-turner that begs to be read in one sitting.

Visiting Hours

So today I'm at the hospital visiting my mother. She's back in the hospital with a kidney infection that spread to her blood system. She's getting better, but boy they have her drugged up. I was a little worried cause yesterday when I called she could hardly talk she was so drugged. But today I find out they moved her .........again. To a room in the new part of the hospital. I had a hell of a time finding it. First I had to go to the 3rd floor, go around the back and through the double doors and over to the only elevators that will take you back down to the 2nd floor. Yes, this is weird. So when I get off the elevators I go right and walk around the corner and all of the sudden the whole interior of the hospital changes.

 The paint is this drab tan, the floors are all marked up and have black stains on them.. Now this is suppossed to be the 'new' part of the hospital. so WTF? 

I get to my mom's room and it's dark. There's no windows, like their are in all the other rooms on the other floors and some of the people seem to be locked in their rooms as they are standing inside their rooms and lookng out the small glass window on the front of the door. Now I'm thinking to myself, have they stuck my mother on the psycho ward? I mean really, what the hell is going on? Some of these people looking out their little peep holes are giving me the creeps. So I go to the nurses station and ask what kinda floor was my mother on? She tells me it's the surgical, neurological and run off floor. That they get the run off from both floor 4 and 5 when they run out of beds. They also have a few people in isolation. That's why the doors are locked.

Isolation? Are these people that are right next to my mom contagious? I don't know but these rooms are creeping me out.

Oh and remember how I said the hallways were on a curve? Oh I didn't say that, well they were, so if your in bed, 4-5 other people in their beds can see you in yours. Well as my mom sat up in bed she starts giggling and I ask her what's so funny. She pulls me over to where I can see out the door and points at her neighbor across the hall who has his door open. Well this old guy is sitting there on his bed rolled over on his side with his ass sticking out of his hospital gown, then he turns over and takes the bottom of his gown and pulls it up over his face, yep you guessed it. He flashed us then rolled over and had his ass sticking out in the wind again.

My poor mother is laughing so hard she starts coughing, sending the nurse to see if she's ok. My mom is still laughing and pointing and when the nurse see's what she's pointing at the nurse just shakes her head and says. "We can't keep his clothes on him."

I sure hope she gets to come home soon, cause if I want to see bare bottoms I know where to see them. lol

It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

Almost two weeks ago my mom fell down in a hole in her yard and broke her leg........again...

So she's been in the hospital and now is in rehab getting back on her feet. . I've been running around paying her bills, and taking care of her dog and being out in this 112 degree heat is killing me. So I started doing alot of stuff at midnight, but my hubby doesn't feel safe having me out at night. I appreciate his worrying but nothing has happened to me, I always park in the light and really close to the door of what ever place I'm going to. He has to remember there are always alot of people out cause this place is a 24 hours town, we don't sleep here. lol

Most people live on coffee. lol So it's not like I'm out there by myself, but I do appreciate him worrying while he's in bed and I'm out doing the shopping. LMAO Good thing the grocery stores never close, huh?
Anyway, things should get back to normal now that my mom should be going home on friday, but I'll have to be driving her to her doctor visits for the near future, she has to go back to the doctor and get her 47 staples taken out. I saw the staples for the first time today and damn, but it looked like there were alot of them. Ouch!

My daughter turns 15!!!!

Today was my daughters 15th birthday. Man I feel old now. LOL
I feel lucky just to have made it this far with a teenager. lol I swear I never acted as sarcastic, down, mad, at the world and me, and just all around pissed off as she does all the time. I remember being a 15 year old and I dont remember being in a bad mood all the time. I hope this passes soon. lol

Happy Father's Day

A very Happy Father's day to all the daddies out there.

Hope you all have a great day.

Coheed and Cambria

I don't know if anyone else likes them but the have this song out that I just love. Called Welcome Home. The lead singers hair is WILD! LOL and the video for that song is so totally cool. The first song they did I wasn't to sure about but as soon as I heard this song I was so hooked, I love it. Looks like another CD I'll be having to get now...lol

Erotica

Well I just found out that one of my erotic stories is getting published in a small magazine called "Uncensored Letters" that can be found in most adult stores. I have been writing erotica for free on eroticstories.com for about 3 years now and most people like my stories. So when the opportunity arose that I could get paid to write I submitted a few stories not really thinking they would be accepted, but one was and I'm getting paid for it. heh heh

Here's the easter cake I made last month.

Who would have thought the skies would openup, hands would come down and grab the brains from my computer and pull them out, leaving nothing but an empty shell.
Well that's about what happened to me last week. Now I called the Geek Squad at Best buy but they want more money just to look at it than I want to spend on my next car. So I asked around and found that alot of people around here conmsider themselves to be "computer Illiterate" Now just to clarify, I have at times used that phrase myself. I mean i didn't know what to do when my PC decided it didnt like me anymore and wouldnt work. But when you hear so many people using the same phrase over and over again, it made me think, if you don't know something, your stupid about that something. I can honestly say i am stupid about a whole slew of things, car repair, home repair, anything mechanical, plumbing.

If you don't understand computers, then you are stupid about computers. You're not bloody well "computer illiterate". It's a copout phrase, and the only reason to use a copout phrase is to attempt to delude other people and/or yourself. Admit it; you're stupid about computers. It's not a stigma, it's an admission, and it's a positive thing. It means "I don't know this", which shouldn't be seen as a negative, but as a positive. It's not a void, it's a void ready to be filled with knowledge.

My husband and myself did go to the "help" section and even though we are stupid about computers, we fixed the problem all by ourselves. So ha.

What's in a size?

So my daughter and I went to see a movie on Friday.
While at the theater, we went to buy popcorn and a coke.
The cashier asked me, "What size drink do you want?"
I said, "Small, please."
He then told me "we only have medium and large."
Wha? Huh? How is that possible?
How the Hell can you have a "medium" if you only have two options?

Went to the mall

So I took my daughter and her friend to the mall today. I should have know better. They were packed and as soon as we walked by the pet store I knew there was going to be a problem. Hamsters, ducks , bunnies.... Everywhere! man i had to get my kid outta there fast before she wanted "New Pets" We allready have enough as it is. lol

It's almost Easter

So today i went to a few differnt stores and bought Easter stuff so I could make some baskets up. My daughter loves ducks, always has. So I made sure to get her a couple of ducks to go in her basket. I had a thought, I thought I would try and make my own Peeps. Yeah right, that didn't work. LOL Take a large marshmallow, roll it in your hands and then try to shape it into something...ummmm well if you can get all the sticky mess of your hands long enough to shape something that is. Then roll it in sugar. hmmmmm I took a bite, and had to spit it out, I don't know what king of sugar they use but it sure as hell isn't table sugar. LOL Ack.

But I've been experimenting with some cake ideas, I think this year I'll make a easter basket cake.

Things can awalys get worst, right?

Sometimes I wonder why things happen the way they do. Right when I don;t think things can get any worst, I am proved wrong. My brother just told me that his doctor thinks he is gong to have to have a kidney transplant because of the Tb medication he was on after getting exposed to TB while he was transporting someone in the ambulance to the hospital. The medication he had to take for 9 months had bad side effects and now the docs think it may have really messed up his kidneys. I am hoping things will be alright, but I don;t know.

My mom is doing better, though. She has another docor appointment on tuesday, they'll x-ray her leg and make sure it is healing up good. But then next month I have to take her to get her heart checked out. They think she has a blockage in her heart and she may have to have an angioplasty. I wish things would just be alright for a little while. All this drama is making my head hurt.

been a while

I have been at my mom's place while she is recovering and am just now getting back home for a couple of days. I'm going to rest, sleep in my own bed, rest, eat, rest...lol get the picture? Then go back to my mom's house for about a week and hopefully be home for good. She is getting batter everyday, she won't be able to walk for another 3 months but she can stand on her other foot and skip across the floor in her walker. I'll still be busy as I''ll probably have to go to her house to check on her every other day and still taker her to the doctors visits, since my brothers havent bothered to come and help at all.

I'll get back in touch with everyone soon. :)

I finally have 5 minutes to myself!

LOL Yeah and 5 minutes from now I'm sure I'll be doing something else. But now that I'm here...the reason I've been gone is my mom fell and broke her femur, pelvis, and hip. Damn I know that hurt. She had surgery to put it all back together and now she is in rehab. I am waiting on approval for my biopsy from my insurance, hopefully this week. I hope so cause I want to do allready and get it done. I don't want to do it at all, but my family is pretty much telling me I have to. I know that, but I also rememebr how uncomfortable it was. Not a nice thing to have done. I hate needles..doctor...insurance companies...dieseases...cancer...damn I just hate everything right now. I am a little stressed, a little angry, a little overwhelmed, and a little better than last week.
I'll get back here as often as possible. but after my mom gets out of rehab in a a few weeks I may have to go and live with her for a month.

Prophet Mohammad cartoons

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=12146

Here is the link to see the cartoons that were published in a danish newspaper if you havent seen them. This is what has sparked all the controversy? You have got to be kidding. I am sick to death of hearing how these people aren't violent and then a cortoon is published and they go and kill people and burn embassys because of it.

So here I was siting on the comfy couch watching tv, when this stupid fly started buzzing me. I thnk he was trying to commit hary carey by flying into my head a few times, but anyway. So It wouldn't leave me lone and then I wake up today to find we have even more flys in the apartment. Hey damnit ti's still winter! Don't flys know that they are supposeed to be hybernating or what ever they do in the winter?

So today I go and get these fly paper catchers, they are a vomit yellew paper that hangs down from the ceiling. I open it up, damn thing is sticky! sticky fly paper gets stuck to my fngers, damn fly is still buzzing over my head as I tack the paper to the ceiling, wobbling precaresly on my chair as I finally get the thing up there.

Now I have this horrible looking yellow vomit colored sticky fly paper hanging from the ceiling with 7 dead flies hanging from it. Niiiice.

Out with mom.

I took my mom to the indoor swapmeet today. We were there for about 2 hours. My mom can look at everything in a pace. lool She bought some pepper spray, I jsut hope she doesn't spray herslef with it. Anyway I bought some new nail art stuff, cause I bought some acrylic nail tips to do at home.

I also found a great place or avon stuff and bout some thing sfrom them.

I sold about 10 books on amazon.com so I found a book place in the swapmeet and stocked up on more books.

I sold 2 mystery boxes on ebay, so I got rid of some stuff that I would have never used, but they seemed to have liked the boxes. I also sold a box of vhs tapes, I made out pretty good his week.

You ever think....

some strange shit? Well I do. This morning I was wondering about my ancestry. Like how do I know if I do a family tree that it would be accurate? think about it. Now stay with me....What if ....lets say back in 1800 my ancesters had 5 kids then somehow they, the parent s die, house fire, ot shot what ever. All the small kids got places with surrounding neighbors and since they were to small to remember they were never told about their real parents. Are ya with me so far? Now those ive kids had kids who had kids, and so on never kowing they were form lets call them the smith famil. They thought they were from a, b, c, d, and e families. So now My ancesters were from one of those kids that got placed with another family and my real ancestry line was stopped. Or was it? There might have been uncles or aunts that came looking for the kids and never found them, now their familes are my real ancesters but I'll never know that. Are you confused yet? Good cause my brain hurts. lol

Pain....is only temporary...

or so I'm told. Heh.

I took my daughter to the Mall today and she had decided tog et her ears pierced today , but there was another girl there ahead of us when we got there and while we waited for them to be finished we picked out the pair of earrings she wanted. So the girl was getting her ears pierced and she started crying, the mother had to hold the kids head still in order for the woman to do the other ear. All the while I'm watching my daughter's face and just had this feeling that she wouldnt go through with it. LOL SO I was bad. I asked the woman if she had any velcro restraints cause we might have to tie my daughter to the chair in order to keep her form running out of the store, LOL The woman looked horrified at me and I saw my daughters face and knew the moment she had decided not to do it. LOL We walked out of there with no ear piercing done. LMAO

Perks

Today I got in the mail my $20.00 gift certificate to Borders books and my new Cd Pink Floyds the Division Bell. I got these as perks for doing some online surveys for the past few months. I only do them every once in a while and they give me pretty cool perks. I love going into a book store and being able to buy stuff for free. I bought Incubus Dreams by Laurel K. Hamilton and a few books from Christine Feehan. Just love those Vampire Romances. Heh eheh

When Gerbils attack!!!!

Argggggg! WTF! I had my gerbils out on the couch with me tonight and they were jumping around like crazy gerbils do, when my tan colored one (Honey) comes up to me and sits on my shoulder, turns around and nibbles on my ear, well, I shushed him away from my earring, since that's what I thought he was going for, but it turns out he doesn't like to get shushed away when he is attacking a piece of jewely. He comes back, juming here and there and latches on to my dangle earring and starts a munchin. Ok, no biggie, I take it off. problem solved, right? WRONG!!!

I think he is coming up to my face to sniff me, like they do so often, when all of the sudden. CRUNCH. He latches on to my bottom lip and starts crunchin. ouch! Damn he has some sharp ass teeth. I have 2 holes in my bottom lip, I'm bleeding and here comes (spirit) The white gerbil to see what that yummy red stuff is all over my fingers and lip. ouch! little shit bit my finger trying to taste the blood. WTF! Is it a full moon? Did some vampire rodent bite my babies last night? I'm thinking what the hell is going on? They don't usually bite me. I put them back in the cage, take care of my wounds, should I get rabies shots? lol

then go back to pet them and let them know everything is allright. I can't believe Honey bit me again! I now have a sore lip a sore finger and a bite on my forearm.
Is it something in the water?

Crazy

So I went to the mall with my daughter and used out gift certificates to a shop in the mall. I used my gift certificate online a few days ago and thought I had only $5.00 left on it so I only got one thing while I was there. But the guy tells me that the ful $25.00 isstill left on it, so I got more stuff, I was happy as hell. ;) But figured that whatever I got online didn't go through. So I get home and what is waiting for me? A box of stuff from the same shop I just shopped at. Yep, somehow they never took the money off the gift certificate when I ordered online and so I go all that stuff for free, then I look in the box and there is a pair of $38.00 jeans that just happen to fit my daughter in the box that I didn't order and they aren't on the receipt, they just gave them to me by mistake! So with my $25.00 gift certificate I got $50.00 worth of merchandise and a free $38.00 pair of jeans for my daughter. How cool is that. (the shops name was left out of this post for apparent reasons.) heh heh

Optimistic VS Pessimistic

You ever wonder why some people are optomistic and others are pessimistic? I have. I myself am overly pessimistic...even negative. I'm the only one in my family to have this disease. I call it a disease because that's the way my family thinks of it, even my husband. I've endured years of therapy to try and 'fix me' I've recently come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with me. I stopped seeing the therapist and I'm not going back...to hell with her and her you'll be 'normal' one day. Why is it that happy people don't think you are normal unless you are happy right along with them? I have lived with this negative, pessimistic outlook all of my life and frankly I am comfortable being me. I am not going to change who I am just cause the people around me want me to. I don't want to.


By now, you are probably wondering why I have such a negative outlook on life. The reason why I have this negative outlook on life is actually rather simple: because life and humans in general do indeed suck. People die, cheat, steal, lie and kill. I realize this is a rather recursive argument, but I don't care. Why do I believe that life sucks? Because, everything I have experienced in my 35 years of life has proved to me that this is so. Sure, there is the occasional bright spot every now and then, but life on the whole still remains as horrid as ever.

Some people grow up with everything handed to them, money, love, things, all the luxuries of life and still they are not happy. That should tell you something. Life can suck even if you have everything. To me I think it is an individual thing. Why do therapists think they have to 'fix' you if you are a negative person? Maybe some people are just suppossed to be negative, like some people are born to be happy and positive. Some people are tall and some are short some are happy and some are not. That's what makes us different. We don';t live in a utopia and we never will. To me that old saying is true....Life sucks...then you die.