Favorite Picture of the Week And Falcor Turns 11 Years Old Tomorrow

 

This is what the mountains to the West of me look like on a clear day.

And when we had a bunch of clouds one day, I took this picture back in March. This is what the same mountains look like covered in clouds. They got a bit of snow that day. 

I thought I would show some nice things I saw in my neighborhood this week. The apartment complex down the street from mine planted a couple of Birds of Paradise plants. This one is blooming.

Our Oleander bushes are big and blooming. I figured I should get a picture of it before maintenance comes by and hacks it to hell and back and all the flowers are gone. 

Monday morning the clouds looked like a painting. I didn't use any filters or enhance this picture in any way. This is just how the clouds looked that day.

This is also from Monday morning at the same time but I pointed my camera in a different direction.

Same time that day. The clouds just looked very fun to me. Later on that day the clouds all disappeared but they were nice while they lasted. 

It rained for 3 days this week so some of the sunset's were really cloudy and nice.

Happy birthday to my little boy who turns 11 years old tomorrow.

My little 12 lb dog who still has all the energy of a puppy. lol 

Book Review: Thunder Game by Christine Feehan

 

Book Description

Two broken souls find a love worth fighting for in this captivating GhostWalker novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.

Diego Campos has come home to die. The GhostWalker is tired of walking a dark path shaped by countless losses. There has never been a moment of good in his life that wasn’t followed by something bad. But as he makes his way to his family’s homestead in the Appalachian Mountains, his plans are interrupted by a violent ambush that sets his life on a new course.

In between fighting off a small army of assailants, Diego is struck by a beautiful, brutal warrior woman unlike anyone he’s encountered before. Compelled to rescue her, Diego uses his psychic gifts to make Leila’s broken body whole again and save her from certain death. With each new breath she regains her strength, showcasing her humor, intelligence and courage as she reveals the truths of her past and inspires feelings Diego never thought his heart could experience.

After a lifetime alone, in the middle of firefight, Diego has finally found a light to guide him through the darkness—and one brief touch is enough to set them both aflame.

My Review

Diego has come home to die, he's had enough of life and goes to the one place he knows his brother will find him and carry out his last wishes. Diego is a Ghostwalker- an enhanced and experimented on soldier who thinks he's not as good as his brother. Ghostwalkers are men who had volunteered to be enhanced psychically so they would be more use to their country. But Dr. Peter Whitney also performed experimental gene coding on them without their consent or knowledge. And because of his connection and the government who wanted his enhanced soldiers, he was pretty much untouchable and continues to experiment on people.  Diego and his teammates are more like family to each other and will help each other out. 

 Before Diego can get to his cabin, a bunch of soldiers come for his elderly neighbor who is an ex Ghostwalker. But he's not alone, his two nieces are with him and one gets kidnapped while the other gets hurt. Diego has to trust Leila and show her some of his psychic gifts that no one else knows about in order to save her life. 

Leila is a surprise because he's never had such a reaction to a woman before and he feels a pull towards her. Once they have both rested and she is healing and feeling better they want to go after her sister but more soldiers show up. Diego and Leila work together to take them out and keep each other safe. But when Diego's brother finds out what's going on and finds out some secrets that Diego has been keeping, the rest of the Ghostwalker team make their way to them to help out. 

Diego and Leila's romance was a slow burn because neither of them had ever felt anything like the instant attraction they felt for each other. They let themselves get to know the other as they grew closer and tried to find a way to rescue her loved ones from Whitney before he could experiment on them more. There was so much action in this book, so much fighting so we get to see Leila and Diego in action. 

I really liked that the rest of the Ghostwalker team shows up and we get to see how his teammates, the characters from past books and their families are doing. I really loved that. It's nice to see how characters from previous books that you really liked are doing. This is the 20th book in Christine Feehan's Ghostwalker series and I can completely recommend this book as well as this series. But I would read the books in order to understand what has been happening and how it all started. This was a great addition to the series and I am looking forward to reading more. 

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.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

April 4th was World Rat day and it sure looks like he was about to enjoy the day. lol 

*All pictures this week are courtesy of 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 have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I'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 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

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On Monday around 7:30PM we heard about 8 gunshots. Sounded close like it was coming from the alley across the street. But someone over there shoots their gun off probably in the air all the time. At 8PM I took Falcor out for his last walk of the night and the two apartment owners that own the building across the street were out walking. They saw me and asked if I heard gunshots. They came across the street to talk to me and I said yes I heard them. The taller guy asked me if I was scared to walk around here alone at night and I pulled my tazer out of my pocket and said no. 

The shorter guy looked at me and said, "It doesn't surprise me that you would arm yourself. You seem like the type of person to do that." 

Now let me tell you, this shorter man does not like me. It might have to do with the incident a couple of months ago where he came rushing up to me when I was across the street and he yelled at me asking me if I had a poop bag for the dog, because he was tired of cleaning up dog poop from the grass. I pulled one out of my pocket and then I yelled at him not to ever aggressively rush up on me again and be rude. I might have told him if he ever yells at me again I would tell all the homeless people in the area I know to sh*t on his lawn. How would he like to clean that up? He waddled off when I said that. That might have something to do with why he doesn't like me. LOL 

Don't be rude to me, you won't like the response. 

So the taller guy said he had called the police and they were waiting for them. Right then 3 police cars showed up and they went to talk to them. I walked off with Falcor to finish our walk. On our way back the shorter man pointed at me and told the police officer that I heard the gunshots too. So all three of them walked across the street and I talked to the cop. 

He asked me if I heard the shots and I told him yes. He asked if I heard any screaming or yelling and I said no, that it was probably the same person who always shoots their gun off in the air around here somewhere in the alley. Then that little shit, shorter guy says, "She has a tazer too." I stared daggers at this little idiot. The cop said, "You're fine, just don't reach for it." I said I wouldn't. 

Shorter dude smirked at me as I stared daggers at his head. We were done talking so I walked home while they stood there talking to the police.  15 minutes after all the police left, the idiot with the gun shot off 3 more gunshots. Like a, F*ck you to the police and the person who called them. The police didn't come back, I doubt they were called again.

We had some windy days this week and one of the tree's across the street had some down and broken branches from the wind. They picked up the downed branches but this broken one is still laying like this days later. 

---

The lady with the two dogs she can't control is still walking both of them at the same time. But now she carries a stick about the size of a ruler and smacks the dogs if they bark or tug on the leashes trying to get any any other dogs. They went after another smaller dog and she is holding both leashes in one hand so she can hold the stick in the other. Both dogs took off towards the little dog across the street and she lost one of the leashes and the Australian Shepherd got loose again. Thankfully the woman picked her little dog up and the bigger dog didn't try to get it before this woman made her way across the street to pick up the leash again. It's just ridiculous that this keeps happening. 

---

Thursday night at 9PM the fire dept. and ambulance showed up on my street. My daughter went outside to see what happened and someone standing out there said they found a dead body. Don't know who and it had to have happened within the hour of the fire dept. showing up because I had just walked Falcor right there an hour earlier. The paramedics and fire dept. wrapped the person in a sheet and put them in a body bag before loading them on a gurney and putting them in the back of the ambulance. 

I asked some people in the neighborhood if they knew who it was and no one knows. I'll keep asking because I'm sure someone knows who it was. It could have been another Fentanyl overdose of one of the homeless people. Not sure.

Whoever it was wasn't there for long since I had just been walking there an hour earlier. I would have seen if someone had been lying there at that time.

---

I noticed that the city was replacing some of the utility poles in the alley across the street. I walked by the alley to get a picture while the trucks were there. Some of these poles have been leaning over for years and so they are replacing them. So far they have replaced two of the utility poles. 

I walked one street past the alley so you can see how big that crane is. One truck has a grabber claw that was holding on to the old utility pole (it looks taller than the rest) while the other crane was installing the new pole. 

There were several other trucks sitting around my street while the new utility poles were being installed. These two trucks are from Cox Communications a cable tv and internet company. I'm guessing they had to hook stuff back up afterwards? Not sure. I'm actually surprised that we didn't lose power while the new utility poles were being installed but I don't know how any of that works. 

---

On Friday my daughter's friend had an appointment with the apartment complex manager at 4pm. Manager didn't show up. This was the 2nd time the manager didn't show up to show her a vacant apartment. She called and left messages and the manager finally called her back almost 2 hours later. She finally shows up and shows her an apartment. Let's hope she is approved to rent the apartment. That would be one more normal person in my courtyard. lol 

The high this week was 87F/30C

The low this week was 54F/12C

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

Saturday Vittles

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made.

Taco Salad

You Will Need

1 lb hamburger

1/2 Cup corn

1/2 Cup black beans

1/2 tsp. Cumin

1/2 tsp. Chili Powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Garlic powder

Homemade salsa

1/4 Cup Pepper Jack cheese- shredded

1/4 Cup cilantro

1/4 Cup Green Onions- diced

2 Cups shredded lettuce

1/2 Cup sliced black olives

What To Do: 

Pan fry hamburger with the spices. Add beans and corn and heat through. 

Add 1/2 cup of hamburger mixture on top of 1 cup of lettuce. Top with a pinch of cheese, 2 spoonfuls of black olives, some salsa, cilantro, and green onion. 

Homemade Salsa recipe (Pico De Gallo)

I always refer to this as my homemade salsa but it's actually Pico De Gallo. I make this all the time because my daughter and I love it, it's low in calories and goes with all kinds of foods. 

4 large tomatoes diced small

1 large yellow onion diced small

One bunch of cilantro diced small (about 1 cup)

Juice from 2 lemons

Salt to taste

 Mix all ingredients together and store in a container with a lid in the refrigerator. 

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This taco salad has 300 calories and 20 carbs. 

Would you eat this?

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: 

Last week I cashed out my points from e-Rewards surveys for a $50 Macy's gift card and bought this pot that I can use for baking meals in. I only paid $9 for it after applying the gift card. Score!

It's been a while since I had any freebies to share for Friday but I finally have something to post. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Everyone Has A Story, Here's One of Mine

 

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.

An Encounter With My Cousin

My dad's sister passed away right before I was born from lung and stomach cancer. She had a young son named Bill. Bill was adopted by my great aunt Zona. She was my paternal grandmother's sister, my dad's aunt. Bill was a few years older than me so when we would go to Utah to visit my grandmother and aunt Zona in the Summertime, Bill would be there. The last time I remember being there I was 10 years old and Bill was just a few years older than me. We usually got along ok but he didn't like being around my brother, Billy who was 2 years younger than me. 

My aunt Zona and grandmother lived in a huge house with many rooms, a basement, a downstairs play area and a sub-basement where they stored a ton of canned foods and cans of food. There was also a couple of freezers down there that were filled with frozen foods. 

So while we were there Bill was in the playroom with me and he told me that we could go get some snacks out of the room with all the food. So I went with him not thinking anything of it. We got to the door and I went inside, he shut the door behind me and turned the lights out. The light switch was on the outside of the door. I screamed for him to let me out but he just laughed and he left. There were no windows in the room so it was pitch black in there and I couldn't see a thing. I was in that room for I think 2 hours before my aunt Zona found me. I told her what happened but she didn't believe me and said I shouldn't have been snooping around and if I got locked in the room somehow that was my own fault for being down there in the first place. 

I still sleep with a light on in my room and I think it probably stems from that incident. I was surprised that my parents never came looking for me in those 2 hours.

Links to past stories

2023

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December

2024

January 2024

February 2024

March 2024

April 2024

May 2024

June 2024

July 2024

August 2024

September 2024

October 2024

November 2024

December 2024

2025

January 2025

February 2025

March 2025

April 2025

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

First thing in the morning on our first walk of the day, I spotted a bunch of clouds over the mountains. As the day went on the clouds cleared out and we had bright blue skies. 

Tuesday morning we had a few clouds in the area. 

Tuesday evening as the sun was setting. I liked how the mountains in the background were backlit which made them look black against the setting sun and blue sky. I liked the way it looked. 

Book Review: His Twisted Tail by Melanie James

 

Book Description

Calder Lorenson inherits one hell of a mess when he’s thrust into the limelight to fill the role of Alpha at Twisted Tail Pack. With treachery in the ranks, Calder quickly finds himself in over his head. If that wasn’t enough to deal with, Pack Law decrees that he must be mated.

With no time to spare, Calder does the only thing he can think of—asks for a little help from a famous matchmaker, Willow K. Sprout. Will Willow be able to locate his mate before the looming deadline? Or will Calder have to face the consequences set by pack law?

My Review

Daisy is new in town and bumps into Willow, literally. Willow is a supernatural matchmaker and after they have coffee together Willow gives Daisy her number and says to call her if she's interested in dating a shifter and finding her mate. Only problem is, Daisy is a human and hasn't ever been around shifters but having a shifter mate sounds wonderful to her when Willow explains that once a shifter finds their mate, they will do whatever it takes to make them happy. So of course Daisy calls her and Willow sets her off on a date. Only, there's a bit of a miscommunication or a bit of matchmaking going on thanks to Willow. So Calder and Daisy meet under comical circumstances. 

Calder is the new Alpha of Twisted Tail Pack and not everyone in the pack is happy to have him there so there's a little drama there. Those trying to force him out have found an obscure pack law that decrees that he must be mated soon or lose the pack. So after talking with his friend, he calls Willow the matchmaker to help him find a mate. 

After the initial meeting, these two get to know one another and Calder knows that she's his mate. Daisy has no problem giving Calder a chance since he's gorgeous and seems really nice and funny. There's a little drama from some of the pack members but it's sorted out pretty easily. 

This was a fun, quick read. I really liked these two together. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"We hope everyone had a nice Easter"

"Of course I was in the kitchen making cake for Easter."

*All pictures this week are courtesy of 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 have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I'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 26 years here in a weekly blog post. 

--- 

My daughter works in a large store that sells farming equipment and supplies as well as firearms. Jonathan (The guy who was firing his BB gun in my courtyard a few weeks ago.) bought his BB gun at the store my daughter works at. A while back she found out from the guy who works at the gun counter that Jonathan has been coming in to the store at least once a week trying to buy a gun. A real gun not a BB gun. But his background check was denied and his application was flagged by the store because he kept asking for help filling out the background check application to buy a gun a while back and I don't know if it's a store policy or federal regulation you cannot ask for any help, look on your phone or have anyone there with you helping you fill out the paperwork. It will get your paperwork flagged and/or denied. 

Well I guess not only did the guy working the gun counter tell my daughter that he flagged his application because Jonathan kept asking for help filling out the paperwork but when his application came back it was flat out denied. They don't tell the store the reason only that he is not eligible to buy a gun. But Jonathan keeps coming back into the store every week trying to buy a gun. And they keep telling him the background check came back and he cannot buy a gun. 

So at least there's that. I am happy to know that at least we don't have to worry about him having an actual gun unless he buys one illegally off of someone idiot around here. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. 

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My daughter's friend and her girlfriend got the apartment in my courtyard and they moved in this week. Yay. At least there's one more normal neighbor in my courtyard now. 

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The high this week was 87F/30C

The low this week was 52F/11C

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

Saturday Vittles

 

My Daughter and I are trying to eat more healthy so I thought I would share some pictures on Saturday's of what we've made. 

1 Ingredient Tangerine Sorbet

You might have already seen this recipe floating around the internet but if you haven't I thought I would show you that it actually works! All you need is tangerines and a food processor. 

You will need: 

8 Tangerines

1 Cookie Sheet

Food Processor

What to do:

Freeze Tangerine segments on a cookie sheet for 3 hours. Or until completely frozen.

Blend the tangerine segments in a food processor using the pulse feature, adding a handful of the segments at a time until the mixture looks very crumbly and you can scoop it together using an ice cream scoop. This only took about 5 minutes. 

8 Tangerines made a nice size bowl full that ended up being 4 servings. This is a great Summertime dessert. You can add anything you like or serve with toppings. We ate is as is. 

Each serving is 100 calories and 24 carbs. 

A Few Pictures I Forgot To Post This Month

 

One of the sunsets this month. There were a lot of clouds. 

A sunrise with some strange clouds in the sky. 

A woodpecker showed up in my courtyard. He was pretty high up in the tree so we didn't get a great picture of him but that was neat. I've never seen a woodpecker around here before. 

The sky was so bright this morning. 

Book Review: Growling For My Mate by Luna Wilder

 

Book Description

Grier Taylor is just a lost girl. Abandoned by her parents when she was young, she was raised by the group of shifters who took her in. Now that she’s grown, she can’t help but notice all of the ways that she doesn’t truly belong. On her eighteenth birthday, Grier decides to leave Ash Mountain and the pack. That is until the Alpha comes for her.

Slate has been Alpha of his pack ever since his parents were killed by hunters. Lonely and overworked, he wonders if he’ll ever find his fated mate. That’s when he catches her scent.

Will this Alpha shifter be able to convince his mate that they’re meant to be and that there’s nowhere that she belongs more than with him and his pack?

*Warning: Growling for His Mate is an instalove romance with plenty of heat and over the top alpha love. This shifter book is safe, with no cheating and a HEA that will have you growling for more!

My Review

Grier was abandoned by her parents at a young age, the pack found her and adopted her so she's known about shifters since she was a kid. But she's never felt like she belonged with them because they didn't include her in the things they were doing and she couldn't keep up with them even if she did go. 

On her 18th birthday she's ready to leave the pack and venture out into the human world alone but the alpha of the pack who's always been nice to her catches her scent change when she turns 18 and becomes an adult and he knows that she's his fated mate. While she likes him and is attracted to him, she knows the only real reason he's asking her to stay now is because of the mate bond he feels for her now. If it wasn't for that, he wouldn't have looked at her twice. 

Shifters only have one mate so if she leaves or rejects him, he'll be devastated. Now all he has to do is show her that he'll be good to her and they can make this work if only she'll give him a chance. 

She has some very relatable questions and insecurities about how the pack is going to accept her as the alpha's mate. This was a quick, cute read. 

I give this 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

*Click pictures to enlarge them*

I took this picture in February of this year, in the middle of our Winter. I thought it would be interesting to see the subtle differences between the Winter and Summer on the street. It was about 39F/4C on this day. Notice how some of the tree's on the right hand side of the street have no leaves on them. 

This picture was taken in the middle of Summer of last year (2024) around July when it was 120F/48C but it doesn't look that hot does it? lol But as you can see those tree's on the right side of the street now have leaves all over them. 

This picture was taken in March of this year. This was after the palm trees and the trees on the other side of the street had been trimmed. 

So I guess we do have some changes from one season to the next but nothing like some places where all the leaves turn pretty colors. 

Book Review: Arkon by Ava Benton

 

Book Description

Demons aren’t real. Are they?

One sexy demon. One human female. One lethal magic dagger.

She’s broken. He’s on a mission. How did her brokenness derail his mission? Join this sexy demon and the woman who can’t deny the attraction to him on a journey for healing, revenge, and sexy times.

Jasmine’s life flipped upside down a little more than a decade ago since the fateful day she intervened in a scuffle between two men with horns. Horns! Since that day her family’s thought she’s bonkers. In more institutions than she cares to remember, on more prescriptions than a junkie, she’s finally settled into a semblance of normal in the middle of nowhere, running an antique store. Normal. Totally. Until…

Arkon’s been haunted by the memory of the girl who saved his life ages ago, but he’s had more important things on his mind. Staying alive. He and his brothers are being persecuted by bounty hunters sent by the princes of hell. He’s doing everything he can not to be killed. While at the same time, trying to find a way through the veil so he can avenge his parents’ murders. Until…

My Review

Years ago Jasmine was attacked by a demon but another demon, Arkon saved her and left her memories intact. Ever since then she's been in and out of mental hospitals and had debilitating panic attacks. No one believed her when she said Demons were real and she started to think she might really be crazy until one day Arkon shows up again because he feels the magic pouring off a magical dagger that Jasmine just happens to get for her antique store. 

Arkon wants to find a way through the veil so he can get back to Hell and avenge his parents murder. The magical dagger that he feels a pull to would be just what he needed if the human female hadn't touched it, now all matter of demons are after her to get the dagger and he can't leave her in danger. 

With the help of a witch and Arkon's brothers, they will try to keep Jasmine safe but the danger seems to be coming from all over so she's not as safe as they think she is. 

I really liked Arkon, he's a demon but he falls hard for Jasmine and she in turn falls for him. Their relationship changes him for the better and he helps her realize that she's not crazy. These two were so good for each other and it was fun to watch them fall for each other. I'm looking forward to reading the next book and seeing his brothers find their mates and hopefully seeing more of the witch because she was interesting. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

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 have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 26 years that I'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 26 years here in a weekly blog post.  

For a couple of days in a row the Goodyear Blimp was flying over Las Vegas. I haven't seen the blimp in a long time. I used to see it all the time when I was a kid. 

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On Wednesday night when I took Falcor out for his last walk I spotted one of the homeless ladies dog out by himself. So when he came over to see Falcor I grabbed him, took Falcor home and walked Nibbles around the neighborhood looking for his owner. 

Then Jonathan came outside and since I know he knows the owner I asked him if he knows where she hangs out. He said she was probably at the laundry mat, so he took the dog over to her. He told me when he got back that she was there and got her dog back. Oh and it looks like Jonathan isn't moving after all, he's decided to stay here so I figure it's better to make nice with him while he's here. 

--

On Wednesday I heard a bunch of sirens in the area and found out that police and Swat were just around the corner from my  neighborhood. So this technically didn't happen in my immediate neighborhood but it as close enough for me to hear all the sirens. 

But when I looked on my news pages on FB this was all I could find out about it. There wasn't any updates so who knows what happened. 

The high this week was 87F/30C

The low this week was 52F/11C

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