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 and into adulthood. 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.

Riding The Greyhound Bus at 16

After my mom got out of prison for drugs and child abuse, Buster (my grandma's husband) asked her if she would move to West Virginia and help him take care of grandma. At that point my mom was clean of drugs and alcohol and hadn’t gotten back together with her ex boyfriend, Jose. I talked to my mom quite often on the phone and kept telling her what was going on where we lived with my dad and step mother. Things were bad as I've said in past stories. 

She and Buster both told me that if we wanted they would send us a Greyhound bus ticket for both me and my brother. I was 16 and my brother was 14 at the time. Anything sounded better than where we were at so I told her to send it. But I asked her if she could send a little money too so I could buy stuff to make sandwiches for us for the seven day bus trip. She did so I made my brother and I three sandwiches a piece for each day of the trip and bought some sodas as well. My dad let me use one of his coolers to put it all in and even bought a bag of ice for me. My dad actually told me how sorry he was for how they were while we lived with them and blamed it all on the meth but I knew that while the drugs played a big part of the problems, his personality was a big part of the problem too. I was surprised that he apologized at all but it was nice that he did. My stepmother never did but I’m not really surprised by that. 

So my brother and I took a Greyhound bus from Van Nuys, California to Guyandotte, West Virginia and it took 7 days and 6 night in all to get there. But because we had the sandwiches and sodas, we never had to get off the bus except for a couple of layovers. The layovers were never too long, one was in Chicago but we were only in the bus terminal for about 2 hours before we were able to get back on the bus and get going again. But I had a 14 year old teenager with me that I had to look after and my brother found another teenage boy in the bus terminal and just went exploring with the boy for 2 hours. It was hard making him stay with me and stay out of trouble for those 7 days and nights. Thankfully we were on the bus for most of the time. 

If you’ve never ridden the Greyhound bus, they stop three times a day at restaurants for meals. Most everyone else got off the bus so we were able to eat in peace and no one ever said anything to us about not going to the restaurants. For the most part it was a really quiet trip. I had no idea how bad things were about to get though. Buster picked us up from the bus terminal and took us home. My mom was really happy to see us and I was happy to see her and my grandma. 

That night I was helping my mom make dinner. She handed me Buster and my grandma’s plate and asked me to bring it to them. They ate in the living room in front of the tv while my mom told us we would be eating at the table in the kitchen. When I got back in the kitchen I heard a loud crash from the living room and then Buster started screaming about me not bringing the salt and pepper shakers in with the plates. The crash was him throwing his glass of water against the wall. I looked at my mom in total shock because she never mentioned that things were going to be bad living with Buster. Had I known, I’m not sure I would have come but that’s probably why she didn’t say anything. After I brought the salt and pepper shakers to Buster he said he was sorry about the outburst but that was just the beginning. Buster was drinking a lot but he tried to take care of my grandma who had brain damage from oxygen depravation from complications due to having a stroke after open heart surgery. I've talked about Buster before, he was a real piece of work.

Links to past stories

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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

February 2025

March 2025

April 2025

May 2025

June 2025

July 2025

August 2025

Happy Raturday!

 

*Todays pictures are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #384

 

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 27 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 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

One day last week the police showed up for the apartment complex right across the street. I didn't get any pictures because they were in the alley. Then that night the fire department showed up and again they went in the alley so I didn't get any pictures. Then the next day the police showed up again for the same apartment complex across the street and they parked in the alley. Then last Friday night the fire department and an ambulance showed up because the homeless people set a fire in the dumpster across the street. 

It was hard to get a clear picture of the fire truck because the lights on it are so bright.

But you can see it's the fire engine.

They put the dumpster fire out in the alley.

And then they decided to do an impromptu training session on my street. They had the hose hooked up to the fire hydrant and took turns holding the hose and spraying water down the street while the firefighter on the right, behind the truck took pictures and video of them doing it. 

----

There's a older couple that lives across the street and they have a truck. When they leave this parking spot, they put this cone in the street to stop others from parking there. 

While it's kinda funny, it's also kinda rude. Most people in the neighborhood know that they think this is their spot and let them have it. But when new people move here, they will sometimes take the spot. 

This is the older couples truck. When they park there, they put the stolen traffic cone in the back of their truck. 

The high this week was 100F/37C

The low this week was 78F/25C

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.

Eggs in Tomatoes

You will need: 

1 Large Tomato- diced

1/2 Yellow onion- diced

1 Green onion- diced

Garlic salt

Onion powder

Pepper

Salt

2 Pieces of toast

1 tsp. Oil

4 eggs

What to do: 

Add oil to a non-stick pan. Add diced onion and let cook over medium heat for ten minutes or until soft. Add diced tomatoes and cook for an additional 5 minutes until tomatoes are softened. Add spices to taste. 

Add eggs on top of the tomato mixture, one at a time. Add a lid to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes or until the eggs are done to your liking. Sprinkle diced green onion on top of eggs. Serve with a piece of buttered toast. 

Each serving is 400 calories and 25 carbs.

The Sunflower

 

Every year my daughter plants something different in her little patch of garden that she made in front of our apartment. This year she wanted to grow a couple of sunflowers. 

It didn't take long for the stems to get really long.

Some of them grew and some didn't.

But this week, we have a sunflower blooming. The plants in the little pot were wild flowers but most of them died before they bloomed. I think it was too hot. 

Book Review: The Merman King's Bride by Mona Black

 

Book Description

A twist in the tale of the beast with a rugged merman and a princess who isn't sure she wants to save him... at first!

A cursed King of Faerie

A princess betrothed to a man she doesn't love

A kiss that will change everything...

The last thing Princess Selina expects to find in the lake in the woods is a handsome merman. His name is Adar and he saves her, teases her, kisses her, and tells her she could break his curse.

Because, as it turns out, he's a Fae King, cursed to remain in merman form until he finds a princess to kiss him.

But one kiss is not enough and Selina has other problems.

Such getting engaged to a prince she isn't sure she even likes, let alone loves. Marrying him and having his children is not on her list of favorite things.

And now she's falling for the merman.

He's everything she could wish for in a man. Handsome, protective, kind. Except that he is Fae. And has a fishtail.

Still, she can't stop thinking about him. Keeps going back to him. Craves his kisses.

Would gladly have his babies.

Is this a spell, or is it love? Can she break the curse and save Adar? Will there be a happy ending to their story?

All a girl can do is try. After all, true love is worth fighting for and Selina knows she has found it.

*This book is standalone novella-length NA romance fantasy. It is inspired by Little Mermaid and The Frog Prince.*

This book was previously published as "The Opal Tower".

My Review

Princess Selina is to be betrothed to Prince Iason but she doesn't love him. When she loses the gift he sent her as a betrothal gift, she must make her way back into the dangerous woods to find it but she instead finds a fae merman and he has her pendant. In order to get her pendant back, she makes a deal with this merman to kiss him in order to break the curse his brother put on him. But it doesn't work right away so she has to come back and kiss him again. 

Since the fae are not to be trusted, Selina is wary of him at first but in time she grows to really care for him and wants to help him break the curse, they just aren't sure how. In the meantime her parents and Prince Iason's parents are making plans for Selina and Iason to be engaged and married. Iason turns out not to be the nicest of guys and Selina knows for sure she doesn't want to marry him but that angers him and her parents. 

Iason shows his true colors but so does Adar- the fae King merman so Selina knows she has feelings for Adar and must save him from Iason or her people. The ending was great. I'm so happy that Selina and Adar got their happy ending and I really liked the description on how pretty the fae kingdom was. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

My daughter decided that the kitchen needed more cabinet space, I needed a new desk, the walls needed a new color and just needed something new. This was my old 'desk'. It was really just a table with a bench seat on top of it as a shelf. 

We had a white dresser in the corner of the kitchen for stuff that we didn't have other cabinet space for. We have very little cabinet or shelf space in this apartment so things were always cluttered. So she started buying cabinets to put together *The boxes in the back* and bought some paint.

I took some pictures of the before so you could see what it looks like now. I was making dinner when I took this picture so don't mind the dirty pans on the stove.

We had one microwave cart that we stacked too much stuff on. 

This is the kitchen now with the back wall painted a dark green and 3 new shelving units. So much more space to put stuff.

This cabinet replaced the big white dresser.

It even has lights inside it. We're still moving things and figuring out where to put everything.

I like the color of the kitchen now. And the new shelving units are so nice. We still have to declutter that shelf in between the cabinets over the sink. 

And my daughter bought me a new desk. An actual desk. I love it. We still have a few things to do like buy new curtains. The ones hanging there are about 25 years old. My daughter has a small shelf to hang on the wall where she wants to put some plants on it too. So we're not completely done but this is how it looks so far. I like how much more shelf space we have now.

Book Review: Mercy by Elizabeth Knox

 

Book Description

Death came for me, but he had other plans.

Meghan

I was never one to believe much in fate, but all of that changed when I was sharing a hospital room with Tor.

I was hit over the head by a clubwh*re rat who tried to kill me, and he was shot keeping the club kids safe. Who knew the two of us would create a bond within those hospital walls?

Certainly not me.

Tor was the President's son, and he was a couple of years younger than me. I shouldn't have flirted with him, but I did, and one thing led to another.

But, after nearly dying, I knew I wanted a life away from the club. I didn't want to put my life at risk ever again, and the club understood that.

Things got complicated when I fell for Tor, and leaving him would mean ripping my heart into shreds. I never expected him to follow me and fight for our love, but at the end of the day I couldn't go back, and he wouldn't leave.

***Mercy is the prequel to USA Today Bestselling author, Elizabeth Knox's Raiders of Valhalla MC: New Blood. It is set at the end of the original series, right as Savage ends. This is part one of a two part story between Meghan and Tor. The second story is titled Manic, and is where they will officially get their HEA.

Please note, this is intended for mature audiences only and might have some triggering subjects. 

My Review

Meghan and Tor both belong to a motorcycle club and while I like MC stories at times, this one had too many things about it that I didn't like. The biggest thing I didn't like was the fact that this motorcycle club had club wh*res. They seemed like they were treated like the clubs property and when one of the women attacks Meghan and almost kills her, she doesn't want to come back to the clubhouse. But the members and other women kind of push her to come back. 

Meghan has secrets, secrets that she tries to run away from but it doesn't work and she should have been truthful with Tor and his father is she really wanted to be with him. But instead she says nothing, which was a bad move that comes back to bite her in the butt. 

This book ends in a cliffhanger but I knew that it would from the description. This is a prequel for Manic where Tor and Meghan get their HEA. I have not read that book and after reading this one, I doubt I will. 

I didn't like Meghan. She lies by omission because she's scared of her past but that's not a good enough excuse for me. Maybe I'm not up enough on the whole MC culture but the others that I've read didn't have MC wh*res. They had girlfriends and old ladies/wives. I like that better. I don't want to read a MC story where there are club wh*res, I found that distasteful. The fact the men are ok with passing around the women don't put these guys in a good light for me either. But that's just me. 

I had good hopes for this one but it fell flat for me. 

I give this book 1 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #383

 

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 27 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 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

So I wanted to show you a fence. This is what the fence across the street that you can use as a reference for what it's supposed to look like in comparison to the next pictures. 

I had my camera up and noticed that this guy who lives across the street was demolishing this fence across the street. At first he was waving around a knife and then he dug a hole to bury the knife but then dug another hole and then another hole and finally buried the knife. So I started watching him because that's not suspicious at all.!

He knocked over a bunch of the bricks and the blue fence and then dug another hole behind it in front of the bush that's sitting there.

And then this dude took a break from demolishing the fence, went in his apartment, came out with 2 cups, dug yet another hole and buried what he had in the cups. 

Then he went over to this fence and tried to break this one too. 

And then he went back in his apartment, came back with something else in his hand,  he dug another hole and buried what he had in his hand. I told my daughter that I took pictures in case the police showed up looking for a murder weapon or someone's body parts? Am I paranoid? Yes. But look where I live and this guy was acting all kinds of weird. It happened last Saturday but maybe he was just high or something because nothing ever came of it. 

This is what the fence looked like after he was done with it. 

He did a number on it for whatever reason.

He had a big rock and was just smashing it all to pieces.

I think the owner is going to be mad.

The next day I went to take pictures of the destruction and found a dime bag of weed right in the spot where he had been digging one of the holes. Yes, the bag has a dime in it for some weird reason. I wonder if all the holes have weed in them. lol Or if this is just a weird coincidence.

Was he just high?

Was he burying something illegal?

Was that knife a murder weapon?

Are there more drugs buried in the holes?

Did the fence insult him and had the demolishing coming to it?

Come back next week for answers to these questions and more, on another episode of...As The Apartment Burns!

The high this week was 108F/42C

The low this week was 80F/26C

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.

Seafood Dinner

You will need: 

6 large Scallops

1 cup cooked Linguine

romaine lettuce

1 shredded carrot

1 box of frozen Popcorn Shrimp- you can make your own if you like. 

2 TBSP Butter

1 Garlic clove- diced

Juice from 1/2 lemon

1 tsp. McCormick Cajun Seasoning

1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

Butter flavor no calorie cooking spray

What to do:

Shred 1 carrot and mix in a bowl with shredded romaine lettuce. Set Aside. 

Cook the popcorn shrimp according to the package directions. I cooked mine in the air fryer. 

Spray pan with butter flavor no calorie cooking spray, season scallops with Old Bay, the cajun seasoning and salt and pepper. Cook the scallops for 5 minutes on each side. Cook the pasta in water to desired tenderness, keep a little of the pasta water for later. 

 Melt 2 TBSP of butter on medium heat until fully melted. Add 2 TBSP of the pasta water and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add the lemon juice and garlic to the pan, add the linguine and stir until well combined. 

I served this dish with my seafood salad which you can find the recipe for here. 

This dinner was about 550 calories and 50 Carbs. 

Oh and I don't think I shared this picture from last month. 

There's an ice cream shop right next door and I've never been in it. So we walked over there one day last month and my daughter treated me to a bowl of ice cream. I had coffee and chocolate ice cream. You have to splurge and treat yourself to a sweet treat every once in a while. 

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 wooden spoon and a mesh bag from  Simple Solutions by Arm & Hammer Baking Soda where I cashed out my points and was able to pick a reward from their rewards page. You can sign up with them as well by clicking the link and answering surveys and posting about them on social media. They sometimes send you free samples as well. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Bear Temptation by Novalee Swan

 

Book Description

Enter the world of Shifter Town with the first book in this captivating new series by Amazon bestselling author Novalee Swan.

A bar. A game of pool. A bet…

When grizzly shifter Bear Reid arrives in Rosewood, Tennessee, he doesn't expect to find a luscious redhead waiting tables and fending off barflies with sugar-coated threats. She's a ray of sunshine in purgatory and he wants her. Bad.

So he buys the bar.

Kelly McKenna has a head for numbers, but she takes one look at her enigmatic new boss—all malt hair and whiskey eyes—and finally understands what it means to crave. Eventually, sweet flirtation leads to a not-so-sweet game of pool. And a bet.

Winner takes all.

But there's something Kelly doesn't know about Bear. A secret that could destroy her trust and her heart forever.

Bear Temptation is the first book in Novalee Swan's Shifter Town series. It features her trademark heat and emotional intensity and is perfect for readers who love sexy shifter romance and small-town charm.

My Review

Kelly works at a bar and the owner sells the bar to Bear who wants to make it better. It's a rowdy place to work not only because of the drunks and bikers but because of the shifters as well. Bear is a bear shifter and when he spots Kelly, all of his possessive, mating instincts kick in big time. They both really like each other and they seemed to be getting close and then Kelly finds out that he doesn't plan on staying more than 6 months and she shuts the relationship down before anything can happen. She's not about to be a one night stand. 

Kelly and Bear keep working together at the bar but their working relationship is tense at best. Then something bad happens at the bar and it's Bear that Kelly turns to for comfort. Bear still wants her really bad and he tells her that he doesn't feel good about taking advantage of her after what happened but she isn't having it and let's him know that she wants him. 

Bear was great but he really needed to be more forthright about what his plans were instead of thinking that everyone would just know what he was thinking. People are not mind readers and this led to a bit of a misunderstanding between Bear and Kelly. 

I had a great time reading this book and am looking forward to reading the next one now. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Old Photos

 

You guys seemed to like the last post I did where I shared some old pictures with you so I thought I would do another one. 

The little girl standing up in the back is my grandma, Mary Evans. She was my dad's mother. She's with some of her siblings and her parents, (my dad's grandparents). This picture was taken in 1905. They had several more kids after this picture was taken. The baby sitting on her mother's lap is my great Aunt Zona who is in the middle picture below. 

This was taken in 1985 and is my Great Aunt Zona and her sisters Lillian and Geneve. These are my grandma's sisters. 

These three ladies were my great aunts. (My grandpas sisters) They all died in a train accident before I was born. Look at that car behind them though. I love catching these old cars in pictures.

This picture was in one of my grandmas photo albums and there's no name on it but she added it to the album for a reason so I kept it. It makes me laugh because the guy reminds me of old mobsters pictures. 

Another of my grandmas pictures that I kept. Take a look at that car behind them though. No idea who they are. lol 

I met these two people once and went out on their boat. They were my grandmas best friends. The picture is from July 1964. Again look at that old car in the background.

The little girl sitting up front is my late husband's mother, her parents and siblings. I guess they had nothing better to do than to make babies. lol 

Another of my grandmas pictures. No idea who they are but written on the picture it says, "Me and my buddy". I'm guessing they're in the Army. Take a look at the stuff in the background. Looks like something out of an old movie. 

More of grandmas pictures. Maybe someone with some history knowledge will know where this truck is from. Army?

More of grandmas pictures. I'm guessing someone on a ship in the Navy took this picture of another ship near them. 

Looks like the person was on a ship and took this picture too. No idea but it's a neat picture. 

I found this one in my grandmas album as well. I like it because of the cars. Again it reminds me of an old movie. 

I hope you liked looking at some of the old photos I have.