Happy Raturday!

 

The lady who makes the meme's that I share has 5 new baby rats. I'll be sharing their meme's in the coming weeks. Here is Baxter, Fish, Waffles, Reuben and Barry. 

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

Apartment Life #367

 

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

There were several police in the Cal Ranch parking lot right behind the alley for my apartment building on Tuesday evening. You can't see the police cars very well but you can see the lights from their cars. 

You can see the lights from the police car plus you can see how when I saw Cal Ranch and Marianas Mexican Market is right next door I mean they are right next door, just on the other side of the alley to my apartment complex. Hey, at least there's the backdrop of mountains you can see. lol 

I enlarged the last picture so you can see the police cars a little better. I'm not sure what happened but I'm thinking Cal Ranch was robbed since there were at least 5 police cars out there and the police helicopter was flying over head. 

You remember those flags that were installed last week? Well someone already broke one over the weekend. They came out and fixed it the next day but it's just a matter of time before something else happens to them. 

I saw the ambulance had shown up and went to my elderly neighbors apartment. She had been complaining about her back hurting the day before, even came and got an ice pack from me. She hasn't been home for the past few days so I think she went to the hospital. Hopefully she isn't hurt too bad.

My brother was here on Friday and he and my daughter saw the police searching this truck when they were outside. I don't know if the police found anything.

The high this week was 98F/36C

The low this week was 72F/22C

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!

 

Disturbed- Bad Man

I've said before how much I love Disturbed. I love David Draiman's voice to much. Here's another good song from the band. I hope you enjoy. 

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 Zyfe hand soap. 

Philosophy Dose of Wisdom skin serum

Nantucket Footprint laundry detergent sheets

Several perfume samples

Again the perfume samples smelled really nice. Most are ones that I have received in the past. The Zyfe soap smelled like roses which I loved. I reviewed the laundry sheets a couple of days ago and really liked them. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Low Carb Recipe: Spring Roll Bites

 

I heard that you could fry Spring Roll Wrappers so I decided to try this. 

What you'll need:

You will need 1 spring roll wrapper - cut into bite size pieces. 

1/2 cup Oil for frying

1TBSP butter

1/2 bell pepper- diced

1/4 cup fresh corn

3 mushrooms- sliced

What To Do: 

Melt butter in a small pan, all vegetables and sauté for 7 minutes. Set aside. 

Cut your spring roll wrapper into small bite size pieces. *Do Not Wet With Water First* You want the dry spring roll wrappers right out of the package. About the size of a cracker. They are easy to cut with scissors. 

Next, heat oil in a small pan. Get oil hot before adding in spring roll wrappers. Cut a small piece of the spring roll wrapper as a test piece and add it to the oil. If it immediately puffs up, the oil is hot enough. If it doesn't the oil is not hot enough. 

When your oil is hot enough, add one piece of wrapper to the oil at a time because they will immediately puff up and you have to remove them immediately. Then add the next piece until you have as many as you want. Top with your sautéed vegetables. 

My first try I made the pieces too big but I cut them in half on my second try. You want them to be just small enough to pop the whole thing in your mouth because the wrappers are very fragile and will just fall apart if you try to bite it in half. But they have such a great crunch and are only 14 grams of carbs for 2 spring roll wrappers. Which would make quite a few little bite size snacks. I only used one spring roll wrapper and it made several one bite portions. You can substitute any vegetables you like for this. 

Would you try this?

Product Review: Nantucket Footprint Laundry Detergent Sheets from Try Products

 

I was sent a sample of these Nantucket Footprint Laundry Detergent Strips, Chamomile scent from TryProducts, which is a sister site of Daily Goodie Box and Healthy Snack Box. 

I tried these laundry detergent strips in the washing machine as well as hand washing some delicates and in both instances they work as well as any other laundry detergent that I've used. But they are more lightweight, contain no added water and are easy to use. They are very thin and easy to store, and they contain no added fragrances or dyes as they are only scented with essential oils. 

They are easy to use, you just add one to your washing machine as you would detergent or a laundry pod. It fully dissolves into the water within a few seconds of the water touching it. Even when I hand washed my pajamas the laundry sheet dissolved very fast and didn't leave any white residue after rinsing them out. It left a slight, pleasant scent on my clothes that I liked. I found nothing at all to dislike about these laundry sheets. 

The easiest way to get free products from Try Products is to follow their Twitter page because they give away hundreds of free product samples each day on Twitter. All you have to do for a chance to get a free product is leave a comment on their Tweets. It's really that simple. 

Disclosure: I was given a sample of this product in exchange for an honest review. 

Book Review: Slammer: Most Wanted Alien Brides #1 by Candice Gilmer

 

Book Description

Leaving the Terran Empire's POW camp, they thought they found their way home.

Home, however, is taking a different route than these cyborgs expect.

Most Wanted Alien Brides Book 1

When the Intergalactic Dating Agency mistakes a prison ship for their new clients looking for mates, cyborg Kolvin jumps at the opportunity. A new life, with the bonus of a ready-made wife? How can this go badly?

But when Kolvin meets his mate, she winds up not being what he expects.

She drives him crazy. She's not even from his dimension. His Craving, however, wants what it wants, and he finds himself at the mercy of it.

Tina Craige, an astronomer from Earth, is pretty sure she's dead. After all, one does not walk through an excavated arch and wind up in another dimension. Especially not in one where a giant cyborg humanoid wants her as a mate.

When she discovers that he's traumatized from being held prisoner of war, she can't bring herself to abandon him. Not yet.

She has thirty days to accept this giant cyborg as her mate, PTSD and all, or return to her dimension and Earth, as if she'd never left. And never see, or remember, him again.

Will she be able to give up everything for her cyborg mate?

My Review

A bunch of cyborgs were held in a POW camp for some time and they were treated badly to the point where some of them are suffering from PTSD. When they are released and think they are on their way home, the ship ends up being mistaken for clients for the Intergalactic Dating Agency, Kolvin decides to just go for it until he meets his mate and she's not what he expected her to be. 

Tina finds a strange arch in a cave and after walking though it she finds herself on an alien planet where they think she's a client looking for an alien mate. When they tell her she has to stay for 30 days and they hope she gives her potential mate a chance, she thinks it's all crazy but she decides to give it a chance. 

These two seem like complete opposites but they find a way to get to know one another and even find they have feelings for each other after a while. The only thing really keeping Tina from giving it a real chance was the thought of leaving her parents alone. 

I liked the world building and the beginning of the book explaining how the portal gets lost so Tina is able to find it when she does. Though you would think they would have had a better way of finding and retrieving a portal they lost. I really liked the secondary characters and am looking forward to reading more of this series now. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #366

 

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

On Tuesday my daughter was on her way to work and she saw some woman passed out by the bus stop she waits for the bus at. She checked on her to make sure she wasn't dead and she wasn't. Just did too many drugs. This is quite normal to see in my neighborhood.

The police showed up this week one night and went to my elderly neighbors door. I thought maybe she called police on drug dealer because I spoke too soon and he's not gone yet!!! He told me that he doesn't have to be out until the end of the month. They have all their stuff moved out and his wife is at their new apartment but he's sticking around to deal drugs and have all the druggies over to his empty apartment until they change the locks. 

Anyway, I found out the next morning from my elderly neighbor that her daughter came over to her apartment after a fight with her husband so she went to her moms apartment and called the police on him. No one was arrested. She was mad at her daughter for doing that though. She said she should have called from her own apartment, she only lives 2 buildings away and they (The daughter and her husband) fight all the time. She said her daughter has been in jail 5 times for fights she's had with her husband. I don't know how many times the husband has been in jail but it's been a few.

So in an effort to prettify the front of my apartment complex , the three maintenance guys spent the entire day digging holes, pouring concrete, so that they can install these flags. There's also new leasing posters up on the office wall trying to get new tenants in here since we have so many vacant apartments.

It would only take a prospective tenant about 10 minutes of walking the grounds to see the graffiti, at least one of the trash cans full of bullet holes, drug addicts sitting all over the property, some days there are spent needles on the sidewalk, not to mention the gunshots that we hear at least once a week in the neighborhood.

But sure, put up a few flags and a new leasing poster and hope that we get a few new tenants that will Overlook all of the other stuff. If anybody is interested in living here, I can definitely put in a good word for you. 😜

Speaking of spent, dirty needles, of course I found one near drug dealers apartment this week. I will be so glad when he's finally gone at the end of the month.

So I watched a drug deal go down right in front of my bedroom window. This guy in the white truck pulled up waited for a few seconds, and a guy that we know as long-haired guy, come running over to his truck. The guy in the truck gave him something, probably money, and then I watched long hair guy run back to drug dealers apartment was only in there for not even 20 seconds, and then ran back out to the guy in the white truck. Long haired guy gave the guy in the truck something, he checked it, gave long haired guy something, probably drugs, long haired guy checked it and then they parted ways. The entire drug deal took less than two minutes. So drug dealer is still at it, probably will be doing this until the end of the month. 

I had a video of it but for some reason blogger won't post it so I just removed it. 

The high this week was 95F/35C

The low this week was 57F/13C

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!

 

Seether - Leech

I've told you before that I really like Seether. I think I have ever since he did that song with Amy Lee from Evanescence. I hope you enjoy.

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 was sent...

A set of 4 stoneware dinner bowls from Walmart Spark Reviewer for free in exchange for an honest review.

I love these. I've been using them since I got them. I think I like dinner bowls more than plates for dinner now.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Low Carb Recipe: Artichoke

 

I've always loved artichokes. But if you've never made one yourself, you might not realize how easy it is to have a low carb snack, just 13 grams of carbs for one artichoke. Now if you do know how to make them and have your own way of cooking and seasoning them, that's fine, this is just my way. 

So the first thing I do is cut about 1-2 inches off the top and cut the stem down to about an inch. The stem is stringy so I don't eat it. The top cutting just makes it easier to cook it all the way through and since you don't eat the top of the leaves, this doesn't waste anything. 

Then just put it in a pot with enough water to almost cover it, salt the water really well and cover it. Boil for around 30 minutes or until you can stick a form into the side of the stem really easily, like checking if a potato is done when boiling them for mashed potatoes. Turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. To be sure the middle gets done too. Use a slotted spoon to remove from the water and let sit in a colander with the cut side down for 3 minutes to get most of the water run out.

This is what it looks like when done.

Now you can start taking the leaves off. Now you see the white part of the leaf? That's the part you eat plus just a little of the green part right above it. You just drag your teeth across it and bite that part of the leaf off. I make a melted butter sauce with a little salt and dip each leaf into it before I bite it. 

After all the leaves are gone, it starts to look like this. You can still eat the white part of the leaves until they get too small to eat. 

At that point you are left with this. You take a spoon and carefully scoop out those inedible thorny leaves. 

It usually comes out really easily and you are left with the artichoke heart. The best part! Dip it in some melted butter and enjoy. Have you made artichokes before? Will you try it now?

Product Review: Walmart Beauty Box- Spring

 

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

What was in the box?

Marc Anthony Repair Bond Leave in Treatment for hair. 

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Gel Cleanser. 

Covergirl Skincare, Included Color correcting serum, primer and moisturizer. 

EOS Shea Butter Shave Cream. 

CeraVe Cream to Foam facial cleanser. 

AF94 Faux Lashes. 

Sweet Tooth by Sabrina Carpenter perfume sample. 

I've tried the CeraVe and Neutrogena cleansers before and really liked them both so I was happy to get them again. 

I really liked the Sweet Tooth perfume sample. It smells so nice, very sweet. 

The shave cream works great and left my skin feeling soft. I love the leave in conditioner, it made it easy to brush through my hair when it was wet and soft and shiny when it dried. 

I haven't tried the fake lashes yet. I don't normally wear them so one of these days I will try them on or at least try to get them on. lol I enjoyed this box. 

Do you get these boxes?

Book Review: Project Adapt: Found by Jade Waltz

 

Book Description

A failed human prototype. That’s all she is…Born and raised as an experiment, Selena’s life has been filled with torture, betrayal, and distrust... but one night changes everything. Sold, attacked, and on the run, Selena is picked up by a colony ship. Struggling to find her place on this ship and trying to understand the draw she feels toward two alien males, her already uncertain life becomes downright unimaginable when she learns new life is growing inside her. Terrified her captors will find her and take her and her children back to a life of horror and captivity, she must learn to trust her saviors, and herself. With the help of her two mates, Selena will fight for her freedom—or die trying.

My Review

Selena was made by using DNA of humans but the aliens who made her did something to her and made her something different. The aliens did a lot of experiments to finally make someone like her when the other experiments didn't live. They also experimented on her for years after she was born so when the ship she was on had an emergency she took the opportunity to escape in an escape pod. Only she didn't realize that the person who was attacking the ship was actually the alien male she had been sold to for a night and was now trying to rescue her. 

Her escape pod is found by another ship full of all kinds of aliens who treat her better than she's even known before and it takes her a little while to get used to it. Right away though she makes a kind of mating bond with one of the male aliens on the ship without knowing what she was doing and he takes care of her. They get incredibly close really fast and everyone on board can see she's a really nice person even after everything she's been though. 

When she finds out that she's pregnant by the other alien who had bought her for a night, she's naturally shocked but the aliens on board assure her that she'll be alright. When yet another alien comes aboard the ship sent from baby daddy to make sure she is kept safe, there are a lot of male aliens that seem to start having feelings for her. 

These aliens are actual aliens in looks and customs. They have tentacles, vine like appendages, can read minds and talk telepathically. It was refreshing to find an alien romance that had actual alien looking love interests in a book. There was a bit of a cliffhanger but only in that baby daddy who no one knows the name of or who he is has not made an appearance as of yet. They are still on their way in the ship to where he is going to meet them so this is part of the story and I was ok with that. I'm interested in seeing what will happen next with her and getting to know the aliens on board the ship she's on. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #365

 

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

That is my daughter talking on the video, not me.

Last Saturday evening my grandson spotted some smoke when he took out the trash. My daughter and I headed out to see if we needed to call 911 but the fire truck and firefighters were already out there putting the fire out. This is located right behind the alley to my apartment complex. After the fire in the apartment across from me, this was a little too close to home. The drug addicts hang out right here all the time and they probably set this fire. It was a bunch of tree branches that someone had dumped here that was set on fire.

These are the power boxes (as I call them) that I sometimes refer to that the drug addicts will sit behind to do their drugs. The sun was shining really brightly so you can barely see the fire engine right there. There was a second engine that showed up but they weren't needed and left.

That small pile of burned branches had been about 8 feet tall before the fire so it must have been burning a little while before someone spotted the fire and called 911. There wasn't much left by the time they got the fire out.

That wall is the only thing that separates my apartment complex alley from this fire. That was a little close.

There was a lot of smoke when we got out there. They much have just arrived when we got out there.

You can see on the right side of the picture that my alley and apartment complex is really close. Right where the fire fighters are standing is where the drug addicts set up camp a lot of times. They get run off, the leave and a few days later they are back. I'm just glad the fire was put out before embers could travel over to the buildings and catch them on fire. 

The next day this is what the burnt pile of tree branches looked like.

And someone dumped another pile of tree branches near the first pile that the set on fire. 

---

The black pitbull that I've been telling you about for over a month was off leash again last week and when I saw him running up to us, I picked Falcor up really fast and got out my tazer. The dog was jumping on me, trying to bite Falcor while I was holding Falcor about neck high.  I was able to shoot off my tazer which scared the dog and he ran off. If the sound alone hadn't scared him, I would have tazed the dog but I really didn't want to have to hurt the dog if I didn't have to. 

I came inside, called Animal Control again (this would make the 3rd time I'd called on the dog) and they never came out, again. I went back outside and yelled at the drug addicts who keep the dog and I was really mad so I was screaming at them. The female drug addict said he just gets off his leash. I told her she should give the dog away if she can't take care of it and stop it from being so aggressive towards people and dogs. 

On Wednesday of this week the homeless man who had been out there when I was yelling at them came up to my daughter and told her I didn't have to worry about the dog anymore because he got offleash again, ran up to someone who shot it. I figured there was more to the story and I was right. 

I found this on the Nextdoor app for my neighborhood. The black pitbull had attacked another dog who was being walked by his family near the McDonalds I live by and the owner of the dog who was attacked, shot the black pitbull and killed it. I blacked out the ladies name who posted about it. I never wanted the dog to be hurt or killed and if Animal Control had done their job it wouldn't have ended like this. Also I think I am very lucky that the dog hadn't bitten me or killed Falcor last week.

---

I do have some good news this week though. 

DRUG DEALERS AND HIS WIFE MOVED OUT!

They are gone!

The high this week was 98F/33C

The low this week was 50F/10C

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

 

Atreyu - Watch Me Burn

I've liked Atreyu for a long time and I really liked this song when I heard it. I hope you enjoy.