Low Carb Recipe: Banana Pancakes

 

You will need: 

1 large ripe banana

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

butter or oil or fry the pancakes in

Mix together all ingredients until smooth. Heat a little bit of oil or butter in a nonstick pan. Pour about half a cup of mixture into a hot pan and let cook on first side before turning to cook on other side. I ate them with a little butter but you can add whatever you want to them. They were good.

Have you tried this?

Book Review: Unwanted Mate by Jade Marshall

 

Book Description

Sapphire

Every shifter longs to find their fated mate. It's one of the greatest blessings the Goddess can ever give to a shifter. But sometimes even the Goddess can get it wrong. When your mate is your childhood bully, there must be a mistake.

Marc

I started to believe I would never find my fated mate and had already accepted it as fact. Then I found her. But the woman I want to claim is a grown-up version of a girl I tortured when we were children. I wish I could go back and change things but the past is set in stone. Is there any way for me to make this right?

My Review

When Sapphire goes back to her pack, she is hoping to have some quiet time and just get a long nicely with everyone. She, like other wolves hope to find their fated mate but when she runs into her old bully, Marc and realizes that he is her mate...she has a choice to make. She can either forgive him for how he treated her when they were kids or she can refuse him as a mate. If she refuses him as a mate, there's no telling whether or not she will find another fated mate. It's happened before but the odds aren't good. 

At first she is just mad and is still hurt because of the way he treated her when they were kids. But after giving him a chance to explain himself and realizing that they both felt something for each other even as kids, she agrees to get to know him better before giving him her choice. 

I can understand not being able to believe that the bully who was so terrible to you years before is now your fated mate and having to come to terms with that. I think I might have said no right away in that predicament. But fated mates are a blessing from the Goddess so she has to consider that as well. I liked watching these two try to get to know each other better and explain away how they treated each other as kids and why. I'm glad she at least gave him a chance to explain things. This was a fun, quick read. 

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

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #339

 

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

This week the police were at the end of the street for some reason. I see them going to the apartment complex next to us all the time. 

So this is the overflow drain for my building. When the main line for my building backs up, the top on this will pop off and the excess sewer water will drain right out of this on to the sidewalk and surrounding grounds. 

The picture didn't really come out great so here's a video to better show you what was happening. Yes, that's toilet paper on the ground by the pipe. This is raw sewage and if you've been a reader for a while, you know this isn't the first time this has happened. 

Thankfully, maintenance did come out the next day and clear the drain so it stopped leaking. But they didn't clean up any of what came out of the drain but they almost never do. They let it dry up and blow away in the wind or wash away the next time it rains. 

---

Out by where the homeless people congregate and sleep, they had pulled two couches from the trash cans and had been sleeping and sitting on them for a few days. On Monday I noticed that someone had set fire to them. 

I didn't see the fire dept out here and there was no signs of water so I think it just burned until it went out. 

Even the wall behind it is singed. There was nothing left of the couches but the frames. I wonder if it was intentionally set or if one of the homeless people were sitting here hitting the crack pipe and accidentally set the couches on fire. I had seen a couple of different people passed out on the couches after doing drugs so it's possible it was an accident.

---

I'm sorry I didn't get around to anyone's blog for a few days. My internet and phone went out and it took a few days and several phone calls before someone finally came out and fixed it. They were supposed to be here the first day I called but never showed up. 

The high this week was 79F/26C

The low this week was 41F/5C

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 am loving this song by Nevertel this week. I hope you enjoy it too. 

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:

Two samples of TruSkin vitamin C serum. 

Samples of a foundation. 

Sample of Estee lauder night repair cream. 

I liked all the samples I received. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: A Bear's Protection by Dakota West

 

Book Description

Cora Leighton is a woman on the run.

Fleeing a bad relationship and an ex who’s blatantly stalking her, Cora enters the shifter state of Cascadia with one thing on her mind: freedom. Love is the last thing she’s looking for, no matter how sexy the men of Cascadia turn out to be.

Rugged, sexy bear shifters Ash and Hunter are mates. Their peaceful lives in Granite Valley are perfect, except for one thing: they need a woman to complete their triad.

When Ash looks up from his seat in his police cruiser to see Cora speeding by, he has no idea that he’s about to find just the right woman. A speeding ticket turns into a hell of a lot more, and fast. Ash can’t explain the pull he feels toward the feisty, curvy reporter, but Hunter feels it too.

When Cora’s deranged stalker shows up and sets out to kill their only chance at true happiness, Ash and Hunter will do whatever it takes to protect her.

But can their brute bear strength take on the cunning of a deranged man who’s lost his grip on reality?

A Bear's Protection is a steamy romance, complete with two sexy men in love, a threesome, and more heat than a bonfire in August.

My Review

Ash and Hunter are bear shifters and they are also mates. They have been looking for the female who will become their third and will complete their triad. Having three mates is not strange for bear shifters even if the humans who now know about them think it's strange. So a lot of shifters live in the town of Cascadia and other cities that humans know are shifter cities and they leave them alone for the most part. 

Cora doesn't want to move away from her sister, her life and her job. But the guy stalking her won't leave her alone and the police will do nothing to help her. So she pulls up stakes, and hightails it out of town, moving far away, thinking that her stalker won't find her in this new town or at least won't follow her here. 

But she's wrong. 

Cora feels safe for the first time in months and after meeting Ash and Hunter and they make it pretty obvious they are interested in her, she falls for them really fast. But she fails to let them know that a stalker is after her, even after a window in her car is broken. She's hoping it's just a coincidence, it's not. Ash is a police officer so he investigates the crime but she still doesn't tell him it might be her stalker. It's not until the stalker makes himself known that she finally comes clean which I thought was kinda dumb of her. She should have told them or at least Ash since he's a cop so he would know it might be him. 

When She finds herself in danger, both Ash and Hunter stop at nothing to make sure she's safe. I don't know if the stalker thought he could get away with doing what he did in a town with a bunch of shifters but he wasn't thinking clearly so maybe he just wasn't thinking at all. But it ended well and I really liked this book. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Book Review: Sinister Desires by Faedra Rose

 

Book Description

It’s All Hallows’ Eve and Charleigh Llewellyn has just been dumped like a piece of trash after giving her ex-boyfriend a second chance over the holidays. Forced to walk home to her parents—through the woods—she is accosted by a pack of ravenous wolves.

But there are worse things than wolves lurking in the woods, and soon Charleigh finds herself indebted to a living, breathing monster. Following her most sinister desires, Charleigh feels compelled to repay the creature—soon learning the truth about his curse and much, much more…

My Review

After getting dumped on the side of the road by her ex boyfriend, Charleigh starts walking home. She doesn't want to call her family for a ride for whatever reason and would rather make the long trek home on foot. But then she thinks her time is up when she's surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves until a monster right out of a nightmare comes to her rescue. 

The headless Horseman right out of the creepy Halloween story appears in front of her, having just saved her from the wolves. But he wants something in return for saving her and Charleigh is ready to give it to him. But he doesn't just want her body, he wants her to help him have offspring as well. At first I wasn't sure where this story was going or how Charleigh would fare after this monster was done with her but it turns out that they were meant for each other. After some very graphic and imaginative love scenes, we find out what the future holds for both of them. 

If you like a monster romance with a little Halloween creepiness thrown in for good measure, then this will be right up you alley. It was a fun, quick read. 

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

Book Review: Darkest Desires by Raven Hush

 

Book Description

Enota, a fruit bat shifter, mans the front desk at Fray for the club’s Halloween Trick-or-Freak party. By the time midnight rocks around, Enota is bored out of her mind rating costumes and drunks when the bouncers push a non-shifter in with a wink. Freaking out that they will undo all the work Rafe has done to protect the shifter community, Enota whisks the strange man away to the only remaining dungeon until she can work out how not to expose the community and get back to her job.

Mace recognizes Enota’s fear at the whipping post and proposes a game of trust and dare to pass their hours. A spanking bench demo turns hot and steamy, but Mace has more than one secret up his costumed sleeve ... a secret Enota will have to ask for before her time is up.

My Review

Enota is a fruit bat shifter and works at a bdsm club at the front desk. This night there's a big Halloween party going on in the club for the shifters so when a human man walks into the club, she freaks out for a second and wants to keep him safe until she can get him out unnoticed so she takes him into one of the rooms. But it's not just any room, it has all kinds of equipment that you would expect to find in a bdsm club and it's her least favorite room. In fact she tries to stay as far from this room as she can because of what happened to her in there in the past. 

Enota has been searching for the right Dom for her and one of the Dom's at the club has offered to help her find someone for her but she doesn't think she's going to be able to find someone she can trust because of what happened to her in the past with a Dom that took things too far. 

When Enota realizes that she just accidentally locked herself in the room with the human, Mace she's not sure what to think about her situation until he proposes a game to pass the time. Turns out that Mace makes her feel safe even though he's human. 

Although this was a quick read, it was so much fun. it had just enough back story and just enough of a small scene between these two to make for a fun read. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Happy Halloween!

Apartment Life #338

 

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.

I told you guys last week that it's finally cooling down here and it's open door season. Well, it's also open window season. I used window locks so the window can't be pried open more. But instead of uninstalling the window AC I just leave it there and bought a small window screen. The only problem is the board that keeps the window AC in the window was not cut straight so there's a little gap between the board, AC and the window or screen. So I had to come up with something to go in between the board/AC and the screen or window when I slide it closed. My bright idea was to roll a little bubble wrap into a tube, wrap it in plastic wrap, tape it and shove it in the gap. I've been doing this for 2 years. When the last one disintegrated, I bought some of that black foam window insulation foam. But it started designating within a month. There was no way that was going to last all Winter. So I made another bubble wrap tube. I know the pictures aren't great but you get the picture.

The funny thing is I started out with a small tube but I kept adding more bubble wrap in order to fill this gap and that gap and oh yeah now there are two more gaps. So it ended up being this ridiculous looking bubble wrap/plastic wrap/tape monstrosity. lmao This happens every damn time I got to make a new one. Every. Single. Time. It lasts about 6 months before I have to make a new one and it fits against the board/AC and keeps the rain out in the very rare times it rains and I have to close the window. 

Yes, it works but I thought it was funny because I have no idea what I'm doing. Ken was an apartment maintenance man so I just know he's laughing his butt off in the afterlife every time I make this and stick it in there. Hey, it works. It just looks ridiculous. #ThereIFixedIt I am woman hear me roar and all that business. 

---

Last week I showed you that my daughter bought a curtain panel and put it in the doorway to keep people from looking in during open door season. Many of you seemed worried that people would be able to just walk inside my apartment. rest assured, they cannot.

I have a metal security door that we always keep locked. I thought I would show you that so you wouldn't worry about that. 

---

This past week my doorknob fell off. lol I made a work order online and thankfully maintenance came out the next business day which was Monday and fixed the doorknob. We had to be so careful with it for the weekend until it got fixed. 

---

I was finally able to get a picture of drug dealer. I know that Shirley has been waiting for me to get a picture of him. Well, here ya go. Oh and a few weeks ago I posted a picture of his wife.

She's in the middle with the walker.

Let's hope that they really are getting evicted like my neighbor says they are. The amount of traffic coming and going from their apartment recently is crazy. And it seems like drug dealer has recruited the neighbor across from me to sell his drugs because he has people at his door all day and night now too. I was up and in the courtyard with Falcor at 3am because he had an upset stomach and people were coming and going from his door. That's the third time in two weeks that I've seen that when I'm up at that hour. 

---

Y'all it was actually quiet around here this week. No police or ambulances or shouting. Isn't that wild?

The high this week was 76F/24C

The low this week was 46F/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'm pretty sure that I've posted videos from Black Veil Brides before and when I heard this song I knew I had to share this one as well. I hope you enjoy it. 

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:

6 different perfume and men's cologne samples. 

My favorite is Alien by Mugler. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Resting Witch Face by Juliette Cross

 

Book Description

Twelve years ago, Jules Savoie ended her relationship with the vampire overlord of New Orleans, Ruben Dubois. For good reasons. A woman in power must often make sacrifices to protect others. She knows the truth of it down to her aching heart.

When Ruben watches his best friend Devraj get married, a stinging realization hits him hard…he’s done waiting. They say time heals all wounds. In this case, it merely sharpened the pain and made one fact crystal clear. Jules Savoie is his soulmate, and nothing would keep her from him. Not anymore.

Forced to work side by side to fight for the werewolf cause, they campaign together at covens from New Orleans to London. The reignited spark burns hotter than ever before. But when a power-hungry vampire sets his predatory sights on Jules, will their love be strong enough against black magic? Or will he lose her again? And this time, maybe…for good.

My Review

Jules and Ruben broke up twelve years ago because Jules didn't feel like she could trust him nor did she trust herself around him. Ruben is a vampire and Jules is a witch. But Ruben hasn't completely given up hope on them getting back together some day...and that day is soon. He's done waiting for her to come to him, he lets her know that he'll be pursuing her again. She's not sure if she's scared or excited, or maybe both. Jules still has feelings for him. So when they are thrown together to try and get the different factions of paranormals together in voting so that the werewolves have a seat at the table and can also vote on things that concern the paranormals, they find themselves giving into their feelings. 

Jules and Ruben campaigning takes them into vampire territory, where something strange has been happening to some werewolves. They get invited to a masquerade, which was all kinds of lust, sex, magic and mystery. But instead of the masquerade being a fun time for them, they find themselves in danger and being betrayed by people they thought they could count on. Just when I thought that things were going to go in a totally different direction, Jules shows that she's more powerful than they gave her credit for. 

I really liked this book. The entire series has been great so far. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Low Carb Breakfast and Lunch Ideas

 

I made me and my daughter both this for breakfast one day and we both liked it. It's 2 scrambled eggs, 2 breakfast sausages, sliced tomatoes that I threw in the frying pan and let soften, along with some sautéed mushrooms and spinach. It's very filling and low carb.

For lunch I had a spinach tossed with some lime juice and a sliced boiled egg. I made some chicken salad with a half of a left over chicken breast and sautéed mushrooms. I just added a little mayonnaise to it after chopping it small. I also had some heart of palm which you can find in a can. This was a very low carb lunch and I enjoyed it. 

Would you eat this? Have you ever tried heart of palm?

Book Review: Garrett's Destiny

 

Book Description

Love and danger . . .

For most of his life, Vampire-Demon Garrett Kayrs, nephew of the King of the Realm, has carried a heavy mantle of responsibility with ease and control. Fate declared him heir to the throne, Fortune marked him with the power of the mysterious circle of Seven, and Chance promised more surprises to come. Nothing deterred him from his path. Until the nightmares began--agonizing dreams of having a female, the female, his mate, on the back of his motorcycle—only to have her torn away from his protection. He feels the menace around her, the danger she’s in, and he can’t rest until he finds her . . .

Duty and desire . . .

Destiny Applegate bears the weight of her name with a respectful balance of fear and purpose. She has been given some direction, but not nearly enough to truly understand her duty, what she was born to do. Even as a child, she had a sense of him. The him, her mate. A dream moment or two with him that might have saved her—or possibly cursed her. So now, when he finds her, she has no choice but to jump on the back of his bike and do her best to hold on until she discovers her path—even if that means ending his.

My Review

Destiny (Dessie) has an inoperable brain tumor and she doesn't have much time left. So she wants to just live her life for as long as she can. When she runs into Garrett and she recognizes him from a dream she had of him and is drawn to him, he doesn't understand why he's also drawn to her. Garrett is a demon-vampire hybrid and one of the seven and is very suspicious of Dessie. All he knows is that he can't let her go until he figures out who or what she is even though everything in him says she's just a human. So she agrees to get on the back of his bike and come with him wherever he's going. 

His friends don't really trust her but there's no talking him out of bringing her along. Dessie and Garrett feel a strong pull towards each other but she's not an enhanced female so she can't be his mate even though everything in him says she is. There are more questions than answers when it comes to Dessie for most of the book. But Garrett is not giving up on hoping that his family can somehow cure the tumor in her brain so they can figure out their future. 

There's a huge twist about her, the tumor and the past few years of her life. Not to mention the fact that her aunt puts a hit out on her because the money her parents left her. There were so many things going against her and yet she seemed to take most of it in stride while Garrett is the one who's having a hard time dealing with it all and how it all pieced together. Sometimes you can see where a story is going but the twists in this one just kept coming and I never saw them coming or where this story was headed. But they made the storyline so much fun to read.

I've been reading this series from the beginning and have loved the books. But this one was even better than the last few and now I'm looking forward to reading the next one because it looks like the evil being that The Seven have been preparing for...is going to be coming for them soon. I cannot wait! 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

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

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures this week courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #337

 

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.

The ambulance showed up for someone in drug dealers apartment this week. They were sitting up and talking so I don't know what was wrong with them.

The police also came to drug dealers apartment but I didn't know about it until afterwards. One of my neighbors saw it and told me. She said a bunch of people around here think he's a police informant and that's why the police are coming to his door so often but only stay for a few minutes and then leave with no one arrested. I mean, that would make sense. It would also explain why when he gets arrested, the police don't keep him for very long and he's still able to keep dealing from his apartment when the police know what's going on there. 

My neighbor also told me that drug dealer and his wife just got a 30 day notice and that management aren't accepting their rent money because they were informed that they know they are selling drugs from their apartment and they just want them out. Ha! Drug dealer's wife told the other neighbor that she's going to fight it in court but I think the most she'll be able to get is an extra 30 days. We have something here called a 30 day No Cause. Meaning a landlord doesn't have to give you a reason for evicting you, all they have to say is they want the apartment back and the judges usually side with the landlords. So they might be gone in a couple of months. I can only hope.

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My neighbor parked his car with his back wheel completely up on the sidewalk. Someone doesn't know how to park their car. lol 

My daughter bought a small curtain rod and a curtain panel to hang in the doorway. It's almost open door season and we got sick of the nosy neighbors walking by looking in. I swear some of the tweakers look in making me think they are casing my place to see what they might steal. Now they can't see anything and the curtain is light enough to still let in the cool air.

---

The high this week was 89F/31C

The low this week was 59F/15C

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've posted Slipknot before a few times but I like this song so I wanted to post this one too. You've probably gathered that I listen to them quite a bit. 

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 Christmas Mug set from Walmart Spark Reviewer. 

It's so cute and they are nice size mugs. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?