Free Book Friday! 2/22/13

I promise I will start posting more than just the Free Books, I have several things to update soon :)

Today, however, is for the love of (FREE) books! Just click the picture of each book to be taken to the download page, and remember you do not need a Kindle to enjoy these. There are free reading apps for your computer, tablet, phone, or other device!  So start downloading!

*Please note that these books are free at the .com address of Amazon at the time of this posting. Book prices may change at any time, and these books may not be free on the .UK, .CA, or other countries Amazon websites.*

**All descriptions are taken from Amazon and not my own words**

The Complete Herbal Guide: A Natural Approach to Healing the Body - Heal Your Body Naturally and Maintain Optimal Health Using Alternative Medicine, Herbals, Vitamins, Fruits and Vegetables," is an essential reference book for anyone interested in maintaining optimal health and overcoming disease. The book contains concise and comprehensive listings of hundreds of herbs, vitamins, and supplements that can cure common medical conditions. This book has quick and easy references to the all information you need to maintain excellent health the natural way.

*Bella's note: This awesome reference book is a whopping 813 pages, which makes my bookworm heart squee in delight!*

John Bartley’s days are filled with working in the mill or the garden, and he can’t wait to see Zella at the next barn dance. But when he stumbles through a hidden portal in the forest, everything he’s ever known falls behind him. 

A hundred and thirty-four years behind, to be exact.

Tess can’t quite believe John’s tale of time travel. Does he really not know what a cell phone is? A car? Indoor plumbing? To convince the girl he’s swiftly falling for that he’s not crazy, John must delve into Tess’s history—his future—and solve the mystery of his hometown’s demise. 

But when they learn its fate, each faces a wrenching choice. Save their love or save the past?

My father abandoned me when I was an infant.

My friends have turned against me. 

My uncle beats me.

The most powerful men in the world want me dead.

They all have one thing in common.

They think I'm turning into a monster.

I'm starting to worry they're right.

*Bella's Note: This one ^ looks really interesting!*

Chicago wife, mother and finance executive Claire Cummings, arrives at work one morning to discover her friend Julia has embezzled millions and vanished. Blindsided and devastated by the betrayal, she’s sent home pending further investigation. Claire’s bizarre death the following day sends everyone reeling, guessing and looking for her in all the wrong places. In no time she's addicted to an enchanting menagerie of tricks and techniques for getting the living's attention, but most people are harder to reach than she'd ever dreamed and even harder to set free. 

She was still a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend... she'd move heaven and earth to keep it that way.

Sheri Meshal’s Swallowtail is a haunting story about life, love, loss and just how far we’ll go to control it all.

This debut from a thought-provoking new voice in fiction begs the question… what would you do if all the rules changed, and you were suddenly bestowed powers beyond your greatest imagination?

After experiencing a precognitive dream that shatters her engagement and changes her life forever, young California psychology professor Laurel MacDonald decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the long-buried files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology experiments, which attempted to prove if ESP really exists.

As she teams up with another charismatic professor, they uncover disturbing reports, including a mysterious case of a house supposedly haunted by a poltergeist, investigated by another research team in 1965. The two professors and two exceptionally gifted Duke students move into the grand, abandoned mansion to replicate the investigation, unaware that the entire original team ended up insane... or dead.

America is falling, ready to join the Roman Empire as a distant memory in the annals of history. The year is 2027. Tired and desperate, the American people are deep in the middle of The Second Great Depression. The Florida coastline is in ruins from the most powerful hurricane on record; a second just like it is bearing down on the state of Texas. For the first time in history, the Middle East has united as one and amassed the most formidable army the world has seen since the Third Reich. A hidden army of terrorists is on American soil. This is the story of three men: Howard Beck, the world’s richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict. Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned out Chief of Police of a small Texas town. At first they must fight for their own survival against impossible odds. Finally, the three men must band together to save their beloved country from collapse.

Men Cry In The Dark is an entertaining and realistic novel about fatherhood, interracial dating, and the fear of love and commitment from a man’s perspective. Michael Baisden has courageously defied the stereotypes to prove once and for all that men love their children, cherish their women, and yes, even cry.

Old sins leave dark and lasting scars...

Hannah Stuart thinks she's safe within the dark and private rooms of Kenninghall, her friend Milo's rambling and secluded Washington estate. Here she hides from the outside world, nurturing her depression, and lost in a past and painful tragedy she can't let go. She lives her days by rote, each day the same as the one before.

But change, for good or ill, is both relentless and inescapable.

Milo dies, leaving Hannah a fortune and three letters. Letters telling of old sins and ugly lies, now tangled anew in more shocking depravities. Letters the rich and powerful will kill to suppress. Letters Hannah is driven and honor bound to expose—and time is running out.

When Milo's long-lost relatives and former business partners start showing up at Kenninghall, Hannah doesn't know who to trust. In desperation she turns to the mysterious Yates Lang.

Yates has the experience to help her, but he also has secrets of his own—and a compelling reason to destroy the letters.

He may be falling for the reclusive beauty of Kenninghall, but when love gets entangled in existing loyalties, bad blood, and a perfect evil, it can get you killed. 

300 years ago, Raven St. James was hanged for witchcraft. But she revives among the dead to find herself alive. She is an Immortal High Witch, one of the light. A note from her mother warns that there are others, those of the Dark, who preserve their own lives by taking the hearts of those like her.

Duncan Wallace’s forbidden love for the secretive lass costs him his life. 

300 years later, he loves her again, tormented by hazy memories of a past that can’t be real. She tells him of another lifetime, claims to be immortal. Though he knows she’s deluded, he can’t stay away. And the Dark Witch after her heart is far closer than either of them know.

These substitutions for common ingredients will help you cook amazing dinners even if you are missing a few key groceries. Everything from eggs to yogurt.

Lucidine, a drug that could save the world...or destroy it.

Former ER doctor Grace Moran has been through a lot. After witnessing her husband's murder and barely surviving herself, she's left medicine and become a prisoner of her own house and mind. Until she wakes up in her old hospital, told that she has a brain tumor that can only be treated if she agrees to participate in an experimental drug protocol using Lucidine.

Grace sees her brain tumor as a blessing rather than a curse. It's a chance for her to die and be reunited with her lost love, her soul mate, her husband.

Before she can flee the hospital, she stumbles on two critically ill children whose lives are also at stake. Will Lucidine cure them or kill them? The three work to unravel the mysteries behind the experimental drugs and the strange effects it has on patients but unwittingly unleash a madman intent on murder.

Their only allies are the ghost of Grace's murdered husband, a time-traveling Jesuit, and an ancient Irish warrior queen as they are pulled into a world where time is meaningless, fate is fluid, and love never dies....

Calling all funny and disorganized women!!

• Do you have hostility towards your laundry?

• Do you feel like you are drowning in a sea of clutter?

• Are you sick and tired of "trying" to get organized?

Finally, a book written on how to get organized written by an expert--an expert in disorganization.

In this "Laugh and Learn" book, you will discover:

• Who you can blame for the mess.

• Top ten procrastination techniques of all time. 

• The truth: do disorganized people have more fun?

You will discover your unique organization personality, and finally, how to Get Organized NOW! or at Least Sometime Before You Die. . .

In thirteenth-century Moorish Spain, the realm of Granada is in crisis. The union of Fatima, granddaughter of the Sultan of Granada, with the Sultan’s nephew Faraj has fractured the nation. A bitter civil war escalates and endangers both Fatima and Faraj’s lives. 

All her life, Fatima has sheltered in lavish palaces where danger has never intruded, until now. A precocious child and the unwitting pawn of her family, she soon learns how her marriage may determine her future and the fate of Granada. Her husband Faraj has his own qualms about their union. At a young age, he witnessed the deaths of his parents and discovered how affluence and power offers little protection against indomitable enemies. Guilt and fears plague him. Determined to carve his own destiny, Faraj struggles to regain his lost inheritance and avenge his murdered family. 

Throughout the rugged frontiers of southern Spain, the burgeoning Christian kingdoms in the north and the desert states of North Africa, Fatima and Faraj survive ruthless murderers and intrigues. They unite against common enemies bent on destroying the last Moorish dynasty. While Fatima and Faraj establish a powerful bond, the atmosphere of deceit creates opportunities for mistrust and tests their love.

Lucy Albert is not your ordinary maladjusted suburban adolescent. Born into the era of the Black Plague in medieval Italy, Lucy is chosen as a mate by the sinister vampire Sebastianus against her will. Struggling to survive in a modern world she cannot identify with, Lucy isn't looking for attention.

Welcome to Forever Fifteen, where a lonely girl seeks refuge in a world awash in everyday brutality, a world where only blood and death can sate her hunger. Journey into Lucy's past as you experience the terror of the Black Death and the harsh reality of womanhood in the Middle Ages. Enter Forever Fifteen, the fast-paced thrill ride that is redefining vampire horror.

Though the plot of this female-protagonist driven novel has similarities to Twilight, Forever Fifteen is NOT recommended for children because of gore, violence, and erotic content.

A great love story that pulls you in and are sad to see it end. Set in the western days, about a girl who's dreams become the truth. She is engaged to a man that wishes to own her and if she does not marry him, he will destroy her family. The only one who can save her is a dark skin Indian who is more than he seems.

So there you have it! I hope you are able to pick all of these up, and come back and let me know how you liked them! Have a great weekend!

I have exorcised the demons!

Out of my computer that is. Maybe my mind too, but the jury is still out on that one.


I have been feeling a bit...snarly...the last few days. Went in to hiding, to spare the masses, and then decided to reload the operating system of my computer, because it was acting 3 kinds of possessed and not even my PC guru skills could get rid of the gremlins my beloved PC had.


Not to self: NEVER ever ever ever for fucks sake EVER reload the PC when your hair is on fire and spinning around in circles, waiting for the pea soup to spew forth. ( Think Hades from the Disney movie Hercules )


You know how it goes. When you are feeling like that, everything that can go wrong, will, in fact blow past wrong like it was standing still and head on to the 'OMFG the world is about to end' section.


If I had a sledge hammer last night...I would not be typing this today, I kid you not. The files I backed up? Corrupt. Trying to download files while not killing my meter? Pointless. Downloads not complete, had to redownload, meter got sucked dry. ( My bandwidth meter, I am on a limited plan. ) Luckily my music ( A full GIG of music, yes ) and my photos transferred over or I would have set this fucker on fire and danced around it in the yard. Well, in a barrel, we are in such a hot drought I would have been arrested...no burning allowed anywhere.


I still do not have all the programs back on here that I use regularly, I ran out of energy. Finally got to bed at 7 this morning and slept till 3:30 this afternoon, and miracle upon miracles, I felt AMAZING when I woke up. Further proof that I am a night owl at heart. I can sleep 8 hours at night, wake up in the morning and feel like shit all day. Sleep during the day and wake up in the afternoon and feel like a million bucks. Go figure.


I got up, scarfed down some food as it had been a full 24 hours since I had eaten last, and decided to tear shit apart and dust and rearrange some knick knacks. Jack then woke up from his nap so I decided to stop for today and warily use my PC, and other than FB, which always has something wrong with it, it seems to be demon free. Thanks to my day sleep, the demons from my head are also mostly gone. 



I am still kind of dreading tomorrow. We are going to eat at my parents, and because I am a broke bitch I can not get my Dad anything for Father's Day. Hopefully he will be happy with something Alex and I will make for him tonight. I know he will be, but I still feel like shit about it. Hopefully it will all be okay.


So enjoy your weekend folks, and Happy Pops day to the Dad's out there tomorrow. Expect a post about Jack tomorrow lol.


Stay cool folks!

I am NOT a morning person.....

The countdown has begun. Alex will start kindergarten in 10 days! I am so excited, and so terrified lol. I have been making a half-assed attempt at switching our sleeping schedules around for the last couple of weeks, with limited success, but I have to bring out the big guns this week. 

I went to bed at the unheard of time of 11 PM last night ( normally this is when I am just getting started good! ) with the aid of some Melatonin, but it takes me a while to fall asleep, especially when I have a to do list a mile long for the next day, and Alex came and woke me at 12:30 and 1:30 this morning so I had a hard time falling back asleep. For some reason the Melatonin made me twitchy, which has never happened before, so I sort of tossed and turned until 5AM when the alarm went off for Jack to wake up. He was going to wake me at 6AM when he left, but at 5:30 I could not stand it anymore and got up. Then I remembered WHY I asked him to wake me as he left and not before.

Jack is a total morning person. He has been getting up at 4:30 AM for 6 years. He is used to it, he likes it, blah blah. Me on the other hand, I am a total night person. It was weird getting OUT of bed when I am normally just getting IN bed for the day. I come out here and as usual he is all chipper and jabbering away like a chipmunk on acid, and I am sitting here trying to get some caffeine in the form of a soda in my veins, rubbing my eyes, and then my head, trying to figure out how to nicely tell him to SHUT UP I was not awake yet lol. Then he keeps offering to make me a cup of coffee, which he KNOWS I can not drink right when I wake, because I will hurl...but apparently he was trying to be nice. I was nice as I could be while my brain was only functioning at 25% capacity....you know, just enough to breathe and move and stuff. 45 minutes later I pointedly looked at the clock and said " Shouldn't you be gone by now?" Which was my nice way of saying " Will you go the fuck away and shut up now please?" He looked at the clock and gave me a wounded look. " You don't like having a conversation with me?"

I thought to myself: "Conversation? Is that what he mistook my grunts as?"

Aloud: " Sure hon, but I would hate for you to be late on a Monday, you know how Ron ( his boss ) is on Monday mornings!"

Jack: *Sighs* " Yeah, your right. Okay then, I will call you later and check on you."

Me, thinking to myself: "Call me? Like on the phone? *Eyes the phone warily, as one might look at a strange dog they are not sure will bite or not* " I hate talking on the phone."

Aloud: " Yeah well, if your busy don't worry about it, I will have the computer on and will be busy myself. I know how Monday's are for you."

Jack: " Oh that is ok, I will make time."

Me: *Mentally facepalms myself*

Aloud: " Okay hon."

Jack: *Comes over to kiss me goodbye and sails out the door*

Me thinking to myself: "FINALLY some quiet time alone to wake up and get my brain going" *Turns on computer* ( Did I mention I am not a morning person?)

*Sits back up from turning PC on and grabs my drink to take a sip*

"HI MAMA!!!"

Crap.....

Holiday Survey!!

It has been a minute since I did one of these survey type things...since the big Unappreciated Blog Award month actually...and Marvelous Magaly over at Pagan Culture tagged me and I thought it might be fun. I am only going to tag maybe 5 folks however!

So here we go!

1. Have you started Yule shopping yet? Not in the least. I am one of those last minute shoppers, which sucks, and you would think I would stop that, but it happens lol.

2. Tell me about one of your special holiday traditions? The fun part is the fact we are making new ones. There never were any set traditions growing up, other than we opened presents on Xmas Eve and had presents from "Santa Claus" on Xmas Day, followed by a huge dinner. Now  we seem to just make it up as we go along, but we still open gifts and eat on the same days as it was when I was a child.

3. When do you put up your tree? As a child we used to do it on Thanksgiving night, but the last two years I have put it up the first or second weekend of December...

4. Are you a Black Friday Shopper? Not even if everything I got was free. I would go postal.

5. Do you travel at Yule or stay at home? If you want to call driving 10 minutes to my parents house "travel"..then we travel *winks*

6. What is your funniest Yule memory? I can not really remember anything overly funny happening, other than the lucky times when my parents are in a good mood and laugh and joke with the rest of the family.

7. What is your favorite Yule movie of all times? How the Grinch Stole Christmas, hands down.

8. Do you do any Yule baking and what's your favorite treat? In the past no...but I am learning how to make some pretty awesome things now, so that is changing. My favorite treat is my mom's Peanut Butter Pie for sure!

9. Fake or real tree? Fake...cutting down a live tree just to sit in the corner of my house is not cool to me...

10. What day does the actual panic set in to get it all done? I would not say 'panic' but I get stressed right after Thanksgiving, wondering how we are going to pull off buying gifts for the kids..

11. Are you still wrapping presents on Yule Eve? It has been known to happen lol..

12. What is your favorite family fun time at Yule? Cooking :)

13. What Yule craft do you like best? I am not a big crafter to be honest...it is not where my artistic talents are at lol..

14. Yule music? Yes or No, and if yes, what is your favorite song? Most people I know will groan at this, but I LOVE Elvis Xmas music lol...

15. Do you plan to finish all your shopping? I certainly hope so!

Now the hard part...trying to tag folks who have not been tagged yet lol...

Here are my picks, and if you do not want to do it, then of course you do not have to!

1. Carnelian Chronicles 

2. Rayden's Rants 

3. Heartsease Hollow

4. Ordinary Enchantment 

5. Sadie's Journey 

Hope ya'll have fun!

The Mouse Part 2....and Part 3....

I officially hate mice. And Rats. And all other forms of rodents right now.

If you read my blog, you know about the mouse that has been scampering through the house at night for the last week or so. You also know that I re-named my cat UFC ( Useless Friggin Cat ) because he refused to do anything more than look at it.

Well here are the next 2 parts in my rat nightmare:

Imagine, if you will, a fairly quiet house, just around midnight. Husband is asleep, Alex is almost asleep, and I was sitting here enjoying the near silence as I watched a throng of scary bald clowns invade my Roller Coaster Kingdom park.

Suddenly the silence is shattered by a rattle behind the fridge. See yesterday Jack brought home live traps for the mouse. The kind that are supposed to adhere to the mouse, thus rendering it immobile so you can just run over there, scoop him up, and set him free back in the woods to live out the remainder of his little ratty days.

Pffffffffft.

His back legs got stuck, leaving his front legs to flip him all over the place and make much noise while trying to free his self from the gluey crap. I go wake Jack up, who was less than appreciative I might add, to deal with the mouse.

Pffffffffffft.

After he wanders around trying to clear his sleep impaired brain, he sorta pokes at it with the broom handle trying to pin the trap part down. What this did was hold the trap in one place so the mouse could apply his obviously Herculean strength to get out of the glue and scurry under the fridge. I was not happy. Jack goes back to bed since he had to be up in 4 hours at that time to go to work, and I settle in back here for a while.

A little before 4 this morning I toddle off to bed. Not quite 4 hours later I hear this...sound. To my sleepy brain it sounded like a bag of chips being opened. I laid there and listened for a couple of minutes, but I did not hear it again so I went back to sleep. Ten minutes later I am woken up again by this noise. At this point I am thinking Alex is up and into something, so I get up and check it out. She was sound asleep in her bed. So I thought maybe I was dreaming about it, and flopped back in bed. Well I heard it again as soon as I got settled. I got up, grabbed the flashlight and started looking for the 3 remaining live traps. One of them has not moved. Another one was about 5 feet from where it was placed to begin with, with little mouse hairs stuck to it. Suddenly I heard the noise again and ran to the third one. Sure enough, there he was. His hind feet and ass fur caught in the trap. Again, his front feet make an awful lot of racket when he is trying to free his ass from the trap.

I am trying to figure out what to do because every time I moved or tried to pick the trap up he freaked out, which made ME freak out. I really wanted to catch him alive and let him out you know? But this thing has been gnawing on all kinds of things, and it ran out from under my computer table a couple of nights ago. If that damn mouse chews through a cord on my pc, there will be hell to pay.

I decide to see if Charlie, my cats Daddy Kitty, who is half feral, but has adopted us since our neighbor's moved away and left him, would have a go at him. Circle of Life and shit right?

Pffffffffffffffffffffttttt.

He is as useless as his son.

And I have pics to prove it!

I brought Charlie in, and he ran right over to the food tray...which had the mouse sitting on it, and he starts nomming the leftover BBQ from last night. I stand there with my mouth hanging open. Charlie moved the bowl with his big fat face, and the mouse moved with the trap and Charlie jumped about 3 feet in the air and took off running to the front door.  Had it been open, dude would have been gone lol. So after I stopped laughing and could breathe again, I called him back over to the dish, and the mouse, which Charlie fully acknowledges by SNIFFING IT, and then stuffs his head back into the bowl of BBQ. I was not amused. So Charlie gets done eating and saunters off and I am trying to figure out how to get this mouse out of my farken house.

I decide that I will pick the whole pan up and fling it out the back door, and go retrieve the bowls for food later. I have Alex open the back door and I go to pick the pan up and the mouse finds his strength to haul ass off the pan behind the fridge, trap and all. I can see the trap, so I move the fridge and grab some tongs, really long tongs, because I was going to grab the trap and the mouse and fling it out the back door. I grab the trap, yank it out and go to toss it...and notice the trap is empty. The farken mouse got LOOSE again! So he is under the fridge recovering from several strokes I am sure, and I called Jack and told him I am sorry, I tried the good karma route, tried to save the little shit, but I am done. I am tired and cranky and I did not care if he brought a spring trap, a boa constrictor, or friggin napalm, just GET RID OF IT. Then I told him about Charlie, and his preference of his BBQ than the live mouse, and how mad I was. Then I stood there holding the phone a foot away from my ear because he was laughing to hard and loud I was afraid I would go deaf. Not long after that we hung up and here I am, writing about the mouse from Hell, and the two useless cats.
Here are the pics....

Please ignore the old cookie sheet the cat food bowls are on, my cats are MESSY eaters who love to scatter food all over creation, so the old pan I never used other than to hold some potted plants that had no drain trays, is now holding kitty food messes. Also..Charlie is eating the last spoonful of Jacks awesome BBQ that was leftover from dinner last night.

So here ya go, pics that prove that A: My cats are useless, and B: that Jack's BBQ is SO good that even half wild cats prefer it over a live friggin mouse right next to their face...

Thar last shot is one I got when the mouse tried to get away from Charlie. Why, I don't know, since that was the safest rat in history at that moment, What cat wants a mouse when there is Jack's Famous BBQ???

So there is my story, and I am sure there will be another update before to long. Hope you enjoyed!

*Music of the Moment: Jump by Van Halen*

You Be The Judge

Alex: Child of Bella and Jack, or secret love child of Bella and Mike Score, lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls??

You be the judge!

Ta!

*Music of the Moment: Scream by Tokio Hotel*

Mommy Moments

So I am bathing my four year old, and she is all nice and clean, and I tell her I will be right back, I need to get a towel from the dryer...

Right as I am bent over, moving clothes around to get the towel, I hear:

"MOOOOOOM, I PEED IN THE WAAAATERRRRRR!!!!"

So now she has has TWO baths in 10 minutes.

I need to teach this kid how to take a shower.....

*Sighs*

Ta!

*Music of the Moment: Rock The Cradle Of Love by Billy Idol*