Apartment Life #283

 

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.

This tweaker lives in my neighborhood somewhere and sometimes she just starts yelling for no apparent reason like this night. She was out of video shot so I didn't try to make it less fuzzy. This is just an audio of what she was doing.

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I heard the police helicopter flying overhead and looked out my bedroom window and spotted a police car around the corner. The police stopped that guy in the hoodie and talked to him for a few minutes and then let him go. Then the police got out of the car and walked into the apartments they were near and talked to a few people over there. 

Then they got back in their car and left.

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On Thursday morning at 1:30am I was woke up from two gunshots and they sounded close by. I got up after laying in bed for a minute to make sure that I wasn't gonna get a stray bullet through the wall or my bedroom window and checked on my daughter. Then I looked outside but didn't see anyone around and no one was screaming so I figured that some idiot shot off a couple into the sky. The police didn't show up so I guess no one called. I didn't see any bullet holes the next morning so I assume I was right about someone shooting into the air.

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The high this week was 60F/15C

The low this week was 32F/0 C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

So here's another one of my favorite songs. 

Tarot- Pyre of Gods

The lead singer, Marko Hietala was also the bassist and singer from Nightwish for 20 years but retired not long ago. I was sad to see he and Tarja Turunen both leave Nightwish since I really enjoyed the band more when they were a part of it. But this song really shows off Marko's vocals. 

Have you listened to Tarot or Nightwish?

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 sample of Dolce & Gabana men's cologne. 

A sample of Strivectin night moisturizing cream. 

And I won a book from a Goodreads giveaway.

The men's cologne smells good. 

The moisturizer is good, it works well.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Review: Daily Goodie Box- December

 

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?

Rise Brewing Co - Oat Milk Vanilla Latte -This tasted so good. I would definitely try this again.

Green Goo - Pain Relief - I've been using this and while I don't think it really helps with the pain much, my knee maybe feels better from all the rubbing I've been doing rubbing it in.

COBA - Coffee Chocolate Bar- Whew! This is strong. It's bitter and so strong. I couldn't eat but a small bite but my daughter ate the rest of the bar before work and she said she didn't feel any jolt of energy from it. 

Toast! - Before You Drink Gummies- I've had these before and I didn't like them. They have an off putting smell to them and my daughter said she didn't feel any benefits from taking them before having a few drinks. 

Little Secrets Chocolate - Peppermint Pieces In Dark Chocolate- This was definitely the best thing in the box this month. These are so good and I would definitely buy these again.

Bushwick Kitchen - Meyer Lemon Honey Sticks- So I didn't get the lemon flavored honey sticks. I got the habanero spicy honey sticks and let me tell you, they are hot! Very spicy. I don't know what I'll do with these.

Nailak - Cuticle & Nail Oil- I don't do much with my nails because they are so brittle. But I've used this for a few days and have been pushing my cuticles back with a metal cuticle tool I have and they do looks better. 

Kirks Soap - 3in1 Head to Toe Nourishing Cleanser- For a cleanser it's not bad. it works well and doesn't have a bad smell so I liked it alright.

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.

*As you may have noticed I used pictures from their websites instead of my own pictures this month. That's because my computer stopped working and I had already taken the pictures and uploaded them to the laptop. So I didn't have the pictures anymore and we had already eaten to used these products so I couldn't take new pictures.*

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

This past Thursday is got cold and dark outside and looked like it was going to rain. We did get some rain but only a little. It sprinkled for a few hours and I was able to get these pictures of the dark clouds as they passed overhead. 

The clouds were dark all day which was really nice. I love days like this. 

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today are courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #282

 

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. 

On Sunday night the police helicopter was flying over my apartment building again and the police were once again at the end of my street. It only lasted about an hour and I didn't see the police arrest anyone.

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Monday morning at 1 am I was woken up by these two screaming at each other right across the street from my bedroom window. They are in that building's laundry room. If you've been reading my blog for a while you might remember Mikey and Jessica from other posts. I made it 6 videos because they stopped arguing and so I stopped recording plus longer videos take hours to upload to Youtube for some reason. Turn the volume up.

As you can tell Jessica gives as good as she gets. She calls him names and he leaves and then comes back for more. Remember that this was happening at 1:30 am. These two don't live here, they are homeless and stay with some of the drug dealers in the area until they get kicked out and stay in the laundry room. They are both on drugs and stay up all night. Turn the volume up.

This video just shows both of them in the laundry room screaming at each other. If you have the volume turned up you can hear them.

She was trying to leave the laundry room and he was standing in front of her preventing her from leaving. They yelled at each other and then she started beating him about his head. Near the end of the video he leaves, she calls him a " Fat F*ck" and then tells him, He's gonna die. But after he walks away...she realizes she's locked in the laundry room and can't get out. There's a metal security door on there and he usually uses a screw driver to get out but he left and took it with him. It got and she spent about 30 minutes kicking the metal door, screaming for help, and trying to get the door open to no avail. 

In this blurry video I watched her trying to get the metal security door open. She even had a couple of people helping her. She kicked the door, someone handed her something and she used it to try and pry the door open. But it wouldn't open.

  

Here is the last part of my 6 part series of videos. She was kicking the door, banging on the door and had people helping her trying to get it open. Someone must have gotten tired of the noise at 2:30am and called the police because the police showed up. They had someone with a key come and open the door and they put her in handcuffs and led her around to the other side of the building so I didn't see what happened after that. But I did see her again the next day so either she got out fast or was never arrested.

I'm sorry about all the videos but the ordeal went on for almost 2 hours and I didn't want a 2 hour video. lol 

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Last Sunday night...

Three tweakers walk away from drug dealer's apartment. The woman is crying, the two guys are arguing with her as they walk by my apartment door. They stop at the end of my walkway, being loud and then walk back down to drug dealer's apartment. 

As they walk by my door, I'm standing at my door because they are making a lot of noise. The girl is still crying and then the Mexican guy walks by next. He looks at me as he's walking by all crazy eyes and says, "F*ck you." to me. Then the white guys walks by and says, "I'm so sorry about that." 

They have now walked by my neighbors door twice who put the chairs and tables in front of her door a couple of weeks ago to make it harder for the tweakers to walk by. 

They stand down by drug dealer's apartment arguing and being loud so my neighbor comes out and starts yelling at them to leave or she's calling the cops. And then my brother calls me so I answer the phone while I stand at the door listening to the argument going on. She yells at them again to leave and then says to the white guy, "You don't catch your mail here, so you need to leave. 

He says, "I damn sure do." Her reply is, "The hell you do." 

And then drug dealer comes out to lend his voice to the argument. I step outside while on the phone with my brother and yell down to my neighbor if she is ok. Drug dealer can see I have my phone with me but he has no idea I'm on the phone with my brother and not calling the cops. He goes back inside and the tweakers leave.

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The high this week was 70F/21C

The low this week was 32F/0 C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music so I'm hoping you like this band. I'm going to show you two different song because both are great. 

I love this live version of this song. They are a fun band. Have you ever listened to them before?

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 : 

Several perfume samples from Bloomingdale's. 

They all smell so good. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Forever After by Ashley R. King

 

Book Description

On the Vampire Reality Show, Forever After, an immortal bachelor isn’t the only plot twist.

Autumn Reid is in a rut. At nearly thirty, she hasn’t ventured outside the small town of Covey Crossing. When she spots an ad for a new dating show, Forever After, she jumps at the chance for adventure. But this show has a paranormal surprise—a vampire bachelor.

With the winner receiving cash or immortality, it’s an enticing prize. But Autumn doesn’t expect to get that far, she just needs a change from her dull life. Falling for the hot vampire duke isn’t part of the plan.

Impoverished duke Oliver Gray desperately needs money to save his estate. When he’s offered the bachelor spot on Forever After, he has no choice but to accept. But there’s a catch—he must wear Victorian clothes and pretend he’d been hibernating for the last one hundred years.

Fine. He can don a top hat and fake clueless. But a feisty human with a smart mouth? That’s more than he bargained for, especially when something deep inside insists she’s his fated mate.

But Oliver and Autumn’s dreams of love and romance may be cut short when a killer takes out the contestants one-by-one. As the show’s finale nears, will they get their forever happily-ever-after?

My Review

Autumn feels like her life is going nowhere so she chooses to go on a vampire dating show to change things up a bit, never intending to win. But then she meets Oliver, the vampire and her mind slowly changes about him and about winning. 

Oliver doesn't want to do the dating show but he needs the money to keep from losing his home so he agrees to go along with the producers on how they want him to act and the show to progress. But the show is thrown for a loop when people start being murdered. 

So when vampires came out of the shadows and humans know they and some other paranormals exist, Oliver lost a lot of money because his stocks went down so now he needs to make money to keep his family home. A vampire dating show sounds like a great idea because there are some humans that want immortality or money and those are the choices for the winner of the show. 

The attraction between Autumn and Oliver wasn't instantaneous and I really liked that. It took some time for them to get to know each other and find that they liked one another. But I did think it was weird for the show to keep going forward when people kept turning up dead. 

The setting though was way too cute. There were bat messengers, hearse transport cars and bed coffins but it wasn't creepy at all. Finding out who the killer was and why was fun because I never saw it coming. This was such a fun vampire romance. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Christmas Decorations and my Christmas Elf

 

This is my tree. 4 years ago I accidentally lost all of my ornaments, they mistakenly got thrown away the year before. I had posted what happened on FB and some of my blogger and FB friends sent me new ornaments. Then I bought a few each year as well and my daughter put some of hers on after she put her tree up.  

My daughter also has a tree and ornaments so she set her tree up too. 

This is on the shelf in the corner. I made the stuffed snowmen heads hanging on either side and the tiny Christmas trees on the shelves. 

Here's a better picture of one of them. 

Those tiny Christmas tree's are made out of pine cones, small terracotta pots, glue, beads and paint.

This red berry wreath is hanging over the door.

My daughter made this wreath for the door.

The snowmen with light up noses are on my refrigerator with my rat magnets.

My daughter and I made these sea shell angels back when she was a kid. Probably 15 years ago.

These are puppies in Christmas baskets next to the candy bowls.

Santa and a Christmas angel looking over a little Christmas town.

Here's a better look at what's on the table.

The shelves between the living room and kitchen have Christmas stuff all over them.

Snowman candy basket.

My daughter gave one of the spice racks a Christmas upgrade with some candy cane garland.

The living room wall has a bunch of stockings hung on it. 

My daughter also decorated the living room window. But several strands of lights weren't working so she ended up using a different color lights on one end. lol 

These little Christmas tree's are what's down on the bottom of the window. 

And this is what it looks like lit up. It's colorful. lol 

My daughter bought Falcor a little Elf shirt and hat. He doesn't mind the shirt but won't leave the hat on for more than 5 seconds.

But I was able to snap a couple of pictures when I bribed him with a treat.

He got tired of taking pictures and yawned. But this blooper picture was just too funny not to include.

Have you decorated for Christmas yet?

Book Review: Immortal's Honor

 

Book Description

First comes danger . . .

When Vampire-Demon Sam Kyllwood discovers he's the keeper of some mysterious circle, he laughs it off. When he finds out that his younger brother is supposed to fight to the death in said circle, he snaps right to furious. And that's before he starts uncontrollably making things explode —it turns out it's never too late to develop deadly new immortal abilities. But even those explosions are nothing compared to what happens when he tries to handle a very suspicious, brilliant and beyond sexy human female whose piercing eyes ignite a heat that rages deliciously outside even his unbreakable control…

Then comes desire . . .

Honor McDovall is one of the best interrogators Homeland Security has ever had. But no matter how well she appears to fit in, her mystical gifts are slowly driving her mad. She doesn't understand them, she doesn't want them, but for now, she'll use them to detect and defeat danger until she completely loses her mind. Unfortunately, her job brings her face to face with the deadliest man she's ever met—and she senses Sam is even more gifted than she is. Yet once they kiss, she realizes he's also more dangerous than the enemies suddenly coming from every direction. Good thing they both like to play with fire . . .

My Review

Sam is a vampire-demon hybrid and he keeps setting off explosions and can't seem to control it so when he's taken in for questioning by Swat, he's questioned by Honor. She's different and he can sense that right away. 

Honor is an enhanced female and enhanced females are being kidnapped by the Kurjan's so now she's in danger and Sam knows it. But it's not until Honor touches him and somehow part of his fire curse is transferred to her that things take a drastic turn. 

Now that Honor has fire shooting from her fingers, she thinks that it has to do with chemicals on Sam's clothing, not wanting to believe that the fire is coming from her. So when Sam shows up at her door and kidnaps her...for her own safety, she doesn't stop trying to get away until she watches a bear shift into a man. Shifters exist, so what else could be real and maybe Sam really is trying to keep her safe. 

This is the 14th book in the Dark Protectors series and it's one of the best books yet. The world building and characters are what keep bringing me back to this series because it's been so much fun to read. 

The Kurjan's and Ulric are crazy dangerous and now we know that they have to be taken out and hopefully the seven will be able to do it soon.

I love the world that this author has created even though at times it can be confusing when you first read about it. The characters have been great and I love getting glimpses into their lives while reading the series. I'm really looking forward to reading more of this series.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #281

 

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. 

Last week the guy that lived in the second apartment in from the end of the building, moved out. He had some of the druggies from drug dealer's apartment helping him move his boxes to the moving truck. And when he was done he either left the apartment open to the druggies who were squatting in the apartment or they broke in knowing he wasn't there anymore and they were there all weekend and into Monday. My daughter and I saw them coming in and out of the apartment. So when Monday came around the maintenance man went into that apartment and kicked out all of the squatters, changed the locks and screwed plywood over the door and windows so the squatters couldn't get into the apartment again. I watched him kick out at east 6 people from that apartment. 

The only reason I didn't call the police is because I have before for situations like this and unless there's a manager on site or that they can get a hold of to verify that the people don't live there, the police won't make them leave. So there was no reason to call because the police won't do anything. 

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Around 10pm one night I spotted a police car across the street. The cop sat in the car for about 2 hours. I don't know why but I didn't see anything else going on. 

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The other day I was walking Falcor and he started barking at one of the tweakers from around here. He looked at Falcor and said, "You don't need to bark, your momma is safe. No one around here would mess with her"

Now I could take that two ways, either he thinks I'm such a badass (I'm not) that no one would mess with me (hahaha)...or, he thinks it's not such a bad neighborhood and I'm safe when I'm out at night walking the dog. 

I know he didn't mean it this way but I'm going to be believe that he thinks I'm a badass (I'm not). lol 

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I thought this week was going to be pretty uneventful until Friday night at 8PM came around. Then this happened. You have to wait a few seconds but then the police car drives by and you can see a light which is the police helicopter. You can hear the helicopter overhead and hear the police car siren for a second. 

The police had my street blocked off at both ends and the police helicopter was flying directly overhead. If you turn the volume up you can hear the police helicopter, it was flying close and was loud. I don't know what happened but it was two courtyards away from me in my apartment complex. Whatever it was, looked intense. I didn't go outside since there were so many police around so I filmed this from my bedroom window.

The high this week was 75F/23C

The low this week was 45F/7C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

 

I love Atreyu. They have a whole bunch of songs that are good but this one is my favorite. Have you ever listened to them before?