Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This one of my neighbors. He's a singer and makes his own clothes. He was wearing this outfit and had another neighbor taking pictures and video of him to use on the cover for one of his songs. I don't understand the hat because the rest of his clothes don't really match that Egyptian-looking hat and his song didn't sound Egyptian either, but he was happy with it. At least he was having fun with it.

Happy Raturday!

 

 

*All pictures this week 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 go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 24 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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

With our rents increasing, I guess management decided to do some beautifying of the property. So they trimmed the trees and bushes and removed a dead tree. When I first moved here 24 years ago, there were so many nice looking bushes and trees but so many have died and been removed because there's no sprinkler system in place to water any of the vegetation. So everything eventually dies, like this Pine Tree did. 

When I was taking pictures of the mess they made taking the tree down, I noticed that there was a couple of carts on the other side of the chain link fence at the end of my courtyard. 

I wanted to show you exactly where this is. So this cart is on the walking path that I walk Falcor on. To the far left hand hand side you can see the tall sound wall. Directly on the other side of that wall is the freeway. That's how close we are to the freeway.

It looked like this guy had a very large speaker on his cart. Maybe he was going to sell it?

The same day the tree was cut down, the landscapers trimmed the palm trees. Palm fronds scattered the sidewalks all day.

The palm trees had been really full but these guys left like 4 palm fronds on top. They look naked now.

So this place can't manage to install a sprinkler system but the water spigots get turned on and left dripping all the time from the homeless people. This is just one of them. There are 7 spigots along the front, back and sides of each apartment building. I have no problem with the homeless people being able to have access to water but maintenance is aware that some of the spigots are broken and leaking and haven't bothered to fix the leaks in over 2 years, so they sit there and drip 24/7. This wall is the outside of someone's bedroom and with the water soaking into the wall like it does for 2 years...I have no doubt there's water damage to the inside of the wall and and is probably growing black mold. Not that management will do anything about it. But by all means, make the palm trees look nice. 

There's so much water dripping by this wall that plants and moss have started growing there. It's irritating because now we have to pay an extra $40 each month for water but they can't fix these kinds of issues.

The high this week was 80F/26C

The low this week was 47F/8C

I started adding our low temperature as well since it does get cold here in the Winter time.

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

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 free, homemade lasagna from We are Lasagna Love FB page. 

They are an organization where if you are in need, you can sign up to receive a homemade lasagna from someone in your area. It took a little more than a month but I received a fresh, homemade lasagna this week. They are absolute angels to do things like this.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This week we had a couple of days where it rained just a little. Some clouds rolled off the mountains and I thought it looked really nice.

Review: Daily Goodie Box - October

 

The Daily Goodie Box has been around since about July of 2016. I signed up for an account right after I heard about them. They are 100% free, you don't even have to pay for shipping. And for a free box it's a nice sampler box of products.

What was in the box?

Heat Holders - Thermal Socks I've had these before and I really like them since my feet get cold in the Winter and these keep my feet warm.

Essential Elements - Hydration Mix I wasn't a fan of this. It was the taste that I didn't care for.

Tiesta Tea - Pomegranatopia I like trying new kinds of teas and this was a good tasting one.

Kirks Soap - Gentle Castile Bar Soap This smells so good. I like this a lot. 

Aroma Naturals - Lavender Hand Sanitizer Gel I can always use another hand sanitizer and this one works as well as the others that I have tried.

Zint Nutrition - Collagen Powder I would have tried more of this but the taste was not good.

Zolli Candy - Zolli Ball Popz I really like these. I've tried other Zolli candy and they have all been good.

Little Secrets Chocolate - Peanut Butter in Dark Chocolate Crispy Wafers This was by far my favorite thing in the box. Peanut butter and dark chocolate, yes. This tasted so good too.

All they ask you to do is try the products and leave reviews for the products you got in order to be eligible for more Free Goodie Boxes. As you guys already know, I'm a fan of all these types of boxes. I love all the different subscription boxes and it's really nice to be able to try new to me products for free. This is a great box to try for.

Oh and one more thing, if you visit their FB Page, they give away Goodie Boxes to people who interact with their posts. So if you've tried before and weren't able to get a Goodie Box, there's even more ways to get one now.

Daily Goodie Box. It's more than just Free Samples!

Have you signed up? Have you received one of these boxes?

I'm a fan of subscription boxes and love trying new products for free so this was a huge hit with me. New products+free box = Fabulous!

Disclosure: I was given and free box in exchange for a review but all opinions are my own.

Happy Raturday!

 

"Time to get the shopping done"

"Cereal and soda are essential"

"Don't forget the fruit"

*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 go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 24 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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

My neighbor was yelling at someone down the street. Before I started recording, she went back into her apartment and brought out a bat and was swinging it around. She has it in her hand and you can hear it drop on the ground at one point. Nothing else happened and she went back inside soon after I stopped recording. But she sure was mad about something. I couldn't really understand what she was saying but if you turn your sound up you can hear her yelling and cussing. The sound goes in and out a little because the wind was blowing. The weird bright line is because I was facing the sun and it was reflecting off of the metal part of my window frame. There was nothing I could do about it.

---

Rental costs have gone through the rook here lately. I looked around at apartments to see if there are any in my price range but the prices have jumped pretty high. They are asking $800-$900 for a studio and 1 bdrm apartments are even more. That's even in bad neighborhoods. The prices are even higher right now because so many renters didn't pay their rent last year because of Covid and the eviction moratorium so when the moratorium was lifted, people just moved out and didn't pay their back owed rent and landlords are trying to recoup all those costs by raising everyone else's rent. My rent just increased from $625 a month to $890 a month. Thankfully I can still pay it but that's a huge jump and rental prices are high everywhere I look. It's kinda mean spirited to punish those of us who paid their rent each month last year by increasing it so much. But that's just my opinion. 

*This was just one news headline this week. Rents soared here*

I would move after this increase but it's still hard for find an apartment cheaper than this one and I would just be moving into another bad neighborhood for rent around the same amount. So I am signing another 1 year lease.

---

On Tuesday I received a notice and a warning on my door from management that my satellite dish was going to be removed. I've never had a satellite dish so I called the office and she fixed the warning on my account. I worried about it because after 3 warnings for breaking the lease rules they evict you. Just more BS to deal with. But next week all of the satellite dishes are being removed from the property because they are damaging the roofs. It's in our leases that we are not allowed to have satellite dishes so they can't do anything about them being removed.

The high this week was 90F/32C

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

Book Review: Wildfire Phoenix by Zoe Chant

 

Book Description

His touch makes her burn.

And that's the one thing she must never do...

Blaise can’t afford to lose control. She can’t let her inner monster rise. Not ever again.

Even if that means denying her own feelings… and her fated mate.

But that’s okay. She’s used to repressing her animal, and her desires. She can keep her distance from him, no matter what her friends think.

Nothing has to change. After all, he can’t possibly feel the same instant, soul-deep connection. Despite the way his dark eyes seem to look straight into her heart, seeing everything she tries to hide… he’s not a shifter.

At least, not anymore.

With his own animal dead, he never needs to know that she’s his mate...

Right?

My Review

Zephyr was thought to have perished when the Thunderbird set fire to his home when he was a kid but that's not what happened at all. Zephyr became one with the Thunderbird and has been lost to it because he performed the ritual without having an anchor to call him back. When his mom and sister perished in the fire, his uncle Buck thought he had perished as well but he's been around all along. 

Blaise is a black phoenix shifter but she can never let her control slip for a moment and let her animal take control. If that happens, her father who is also a phoenix, would die because there can only be one phoenix. 

Buck finally puts two and two together and realizes who the Thunderbird is, so he shoots it with a tranq full of something that should suppress the animal and bring Zephyr back to him but Zephyr sleeps in a coma for several months before waking up. Blaise is there when he wakes up and she knows right away that they are mates but it takes Zephyr a little longer to put the pieces together. As Blaise tries to keep control of her animal, she and Zephyr get to know one another and she learns more about him. Zephyr has learned how to slip into people's dreams and Blaise comes along with him several times which was fun because they see things they probably shouldn't but also get to know one another better.

This series is a spin off from the Fire & Rescue Shifters series, so in the Wildfire Crew we see the Firefighter's kids making a name for themselves as a hotshot firefighting team. So it was a lot of fun to see the parents show up in this book since I had read that series first. When Uncegila, the serpent queen who has been fighting them and sending monsters at them in the previous books, finally makes an appearance and possesses one of their own, they all work together to get rid of her.

While this story starts out a little slowly, it picks up really quickly and the action and story just get better.

But the best part of this book was the ending. That ending made me laugh out loud. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

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: 

I cashed out my points on Thrifty Pig for a $5 Amazon gift card. 

I cashed out my points on Crowdtap for a $15 Amazon gift card. 

I didn't receive any free samples this week. It's been a slow freebies week. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Recipe: Snickerdoodle Cookies

 

Snickerdoodle Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs 

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

For Cinnamon/Sugar Coating:

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the oil, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then mix everything together to form the dough. 

Form the dough into 2 inch balls and roll each ball in the cinnamon/sugar coating.

Place cookies a few inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet, flattening them slightly if desired. 

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until slightly brown on the bottom. Do not overcook them or they will be really hard. 

I know a lot of recipes call for Cream of Tartar but I don't like that taste or tanginess so I omit it. 

Book Review: Walking In A Witchy Wonderland by Juliette Cross

 

Book Description

Getting hexy for the holidays!

Mischief and mayhem dominate the holiday season for the Savoie sisters of New Orleans. Five sexy stories set in the STAY A SPELL world you don’t want to miss.

Bewitch You A Merry Christmas: Always the peacemaker, Evie conjures Christmas magic between a hexed hottie and his witchy neighbor, while Mateo and Alpha plan to do whatever it takes to get some alone time with their girl.

Rockin’ Around The Hexmas Tree: A Dirty Santa gift with a very special hex boosts Devraj and Isadora’s sex life from sizzling hot to scorching.

Jingle Bell Jock: On New Year’s Eve, a new man puts the moves on Charlie. Tired of pining for his best friend, he’s ready to move on. Fortunately, JJ’s jealousy is just the right ingredient to move them well out of the friend zone.

You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grim: Her first glimpse of grim reaper Gareth Blackwater evokes a major case of insta-hate in Lavinia. In that same moment, Gareth is hit with insta-lust. Fate is playing with them both, and neither one is happy about it.

Jingle Spells: Nico and Violet laugh their way through their first babysitting adventure. But laughter turns to lust when Nico’s “dad” vibes tug on Violet’s maternal heartstrings.

My Review

This book is a holiday anthology in the *Stay A Spell* series. So it would be best to read these books in order and to read this after you've read the first few. This is essentially a small continuation of the characters and couples lives that we've read about in the books already in this series. 

Getting a little look into what's been happening with the Savoie sisters as well as their friends and people they know. There are 5 short novellas in this anthology that let us check in with characters and couples we already know, couples we have been wanting to know more about and a new couple who it looks like will get their own book, hopefully next. 

I already love this series so reading this and seeing characters that I have grown to love was so much fun. Getting new love interests and seeing how the sisters are doing in their relationships was so much fun. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book now. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given an E-arc via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Happy Raturday!

 

*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 24 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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

One of the people that went down to drug dealers apartment couldn't trade their cart full of garbage for drugs so instead of taking their cart with them wherever they were going they left it parked right in front of my door. I had to shove it away from my door when I took Falcor out for a walk. The porter pushed it out to the alley when he came through so the guy with the truck who collects all the stray carts could get it. The cart guy then takes the cart back to the stores and get paid for each cart he brings back. So the carts always get picked up from around here.

---

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the druggies from drug dealers apartment were coming and going from an apartment across from them. The guy that lives there though is very private and doesn't usually talk to anyone. I hadn't seen him for a few days so I thought it was weird. The next day I noticed the maintenance man was changing the locks and nailing plywood over the window  so the druggies couldn't break into the apartment so I thought he just moved out and the druggies had broke into his apartment. 

A few days later I noticed a few guys moving the furniture, tools, and other belongings out of his apartment. One of the guys said hi to me so after saying hi I took the opportunity to ask how the guy who lived there was doing. He said his brother got sick and passed away while in the hospital. It surprised me, I gave my condolences and left. So one of my neighbors passed away and the druggies from drug dealers apartment broke in and were using the place as their own for a few days until a family member called the apartment manager and asked them to secure the apartment until they could get here.

---- 

My daughter's boyfriend took a video of one of the tweakers in his courtyard climbing the fence to get in the pool and scooting the trashcan around. The pool has been closed for a couple of years but the pool guy comes every couple of weeks to maintain it. My daughter said her boyfriend told her that this week when the pool guy came, this woman pushed him out of the way when he unlocked the gate and jumped in the pool fully clothed. The pool guy shook his head, packed up his stuff and left without cleaning the pool. I guess he wasn't dealing with any of that. *laughing*

The high this week was 95F/35C

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

Recipe: Birria Tacos

 

My daughter saw a recipe she was wanted to try so she bought all the ingredients and made them. They came out really good. So I thought I would share this recipe so you can make them too. She changed her recipe a little so I am sharing her recipe. 

Birria Tacos

2 lbs Pork Short Ribs

8 cups water

1 Red Bell Pepper sliced

1 white Onion sliced

1 Tomato sliced

5 Dried Guajillo Peppers- de-seeded and sliced

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp garlic Salt

2 tsp Chicken Bouillon

2 tsp Minced Garlic

5 Bay Leaves

1 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese

2 limes cut into quarters

oil for cooking

8 Corn Tortillas

Instructions

Cut the tops off of the dried Guajillo Peppers, slice them open and dispose of the seeds. Add them to a large pot with a lid. Add water, short ribs, bell pepper, onion, tomato, cumin, salt, garlic salt, chicken bouillon, minced garlic, and bay leaves to the pot. Cover with a lid and cook on medium low heat for 3 hours. 

Take pot off the heat and let cool for 20 minutes. Remove the ribs from the pot and set aside. Remove the bay leaves and discard them. Add the rest of the mixture in the pot to a large blender and blend until smooth. Strain the mixture and add to a sauce pan. 

Shred the meat off the bones and discard the bones. 

Get a frying pan heated with 2 TBSP of oil, dip a corn tortilla in the sauce mixture, making sure both sides get dipped, shake off excess, add to the frying pan and quickly add a little meat and cheese to one side of the tortilla and then flip the empty side over top of the meat and cheese. Fry each side for 3 minutes or until crispy. Each time you add a tortilla to the pan add a little more oil. Repeat steps for all tortillas. 

Serve with a small bowl of the sauce for dipping the tacos. Squeeze a little lime on the tacos before eating. 

I added some lime juice to my sauce before I dipped my tacos and that was really good. Let me know if you've ever had these tacos or if you plan on making them. 

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.

I received some Men's Cologne samples from Macy's. 

I cashed out a $50 Amazon gift card from Pinecone Research. 

The cologne samples smelled pretty good. 

It took me 6 months of taking surveys to cash out a $50 Amazon gift card but they only send surveys about 2-3 times a month so it really wasn't that hard. I was on a waiting list for a few months before they let me sign up. You have to wait for spots to open up in order to sign up. If you get the chance to sign up, you should if you like taking surveys. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Halloween Decorating

My daughter and I love Halloween but she likes it even more than I do. So much so that she couldn't wait for October to start decorating. This is our living room window during the day.

This is what it looks like at night with the lights turned on. 

This is the shelves and cabinet. There's a little Halloween tree in the middle there.

One of the corners in the living room. 

Another corner of the living room. 

I made that pumpkin tree a few years ago. I bought all the supplies at Michael's and glued it all together. I think it's cute.

The wall above the couch.The spiders hanging down from the ceiling are attached to a plastic web that goes from one end to the other of my living room. 

This is the wall that leads to the hallway, bathroom and bedroom. 

The monster over the bathroom door, 

Some of the statues light up. This is what it looks like at night.

My grandson painted a pumpkin that we put on the cabinet. 

My daughter added lights to the Halloween tree on the cabinet. 

Do you decorate for Halloween?

Book Review: A Prime's Passion by Shiloh Walker

 

Book Description

Eyes down, little wolf. 

In her world, the strong were broken young or they didn’t survive. Eyes down, little wolf, Zee’s father would say. You aren’t strong enough yet.

Zennia Day kept her eyes down and stayed quiet, knowing that one day, she’d escape.

When her chance comes, she finds herself on a road that takes her far from Massachusetts, all the way to North Carolina.

She has her eyes on the future…until she meets Niko, a dominant Therian male and future Prime. When she looks at him, instead of a challenge for dominance, Zee sees a promise of forever.

Niko charmed her, teased her…and stole her heart. Mere days later, after making a public, permanent claim, he crushed that same heart in his fist, tossing her aside in front of the entire world and casting her out of pack lands.

Ten years later, she's an outcast, living  far from her own when she gets word her father is dying.

She can do nothing—she was banned. Violating Niko’s order was to court punishment, even if it was just to tell her father good-bye.

“Day is dying.”

The blunt words almost had him on his knees until Niko realized his second-in-command wasn’t talking about Zee, but her father.

No Therian is ever left to die alone, so Niko sent orders the Day family to come home.

Niko is unprepared for Zee’s message. I have no pack. I have no home.

The words leave him shattered.

Realizing what he’d done in his rage, Niko pushes harder for answers. It doesn’t take long to discover that what he’d heard a decade earlier had been based on lies. Because of those lies, he’d thrown away the love of his life.

Zee’s been paying the price ever since.

Now he must mend a heart he’d broken...and convince her to give him one more chance.

My Review

Zee left her pack after the Prime's son rejected her. But she's made a life for herself with the Mer people and is content with her life. 

Niko did a bad thing when he rejected the love of his life and she left the pack. Now he's looking for answers to questions and realizing that he made a horrible mistake years earlier. 

In the world this author has created, humans and preternaturals or preterns all live together in a sort of peace, although not everyone is happy about it. There had been a war between the preterns and humans and now there was a kind of peace between them. Niko goes to get Zee because her father was dying but what he finds is a broken shell of what she once was because of having no contact with her pack. He realizes that he acted rashly because of a misunderstanding but it's going to take more than sorry for her to trust him again. 

For ten years Niko had thought that Zee was with her old pack and was fine but turns out she's not had that at all and was far from alright. Without the pack to give her the physical touches a wolf shifter needed, she's actually in physical pain from lack of physical touch. Niko thought she had moved on maybe with another wolf but because of a misunderstanding, no other wolf would touch her because she was off limits. So when Niko shows up where she's made a life for herself with the Mer people, he's not met with open arms. Right away her friends have her back and let her know they will throw him off their land if she wishes it. But Zee doesn't want to cause problems between Niko who is Prime now and her friends or their people so after a bit of talking with him, she goes back to his pack for the funeral and wake for her father. 

Because Zee is so touch starved and Niko has made it obvious he still wants her to be his mate, they end up together. Her excuse is so that she isn't so on edge and in pain when she's around his pack but they both wanted to be together. While they're trying to deal with the past, trust issues and them being mates...there's also a group of humans trying to kill them off. When one of the pack gets shot, Zee finds a way to tap into her other half and get help. Zee isn't just a wolf shifter, she's something more and it was great to watcher her start to figure out what that meant. There's a lot more to Zee than even she thought. 

I liked how they found out who was behind the attempts on their lives and what the group had planned. 

Watching the pack not know what to do with her now that she's back but when Zee finally shows how strong she is, some of the pack respect her show of strength. Niko and Zee were really great, it's just sad that it took so long for them to get back together but I do love a second chance romance and this was such a good one. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.