It is Now 1 a.m. - Sleeping In the Chair Again

 I am so tired. I fell asleep over and over for the last few hours trying to post a blog and this is as far as I have gotten. I woke at 4 a.m. this morning so tired but couldn't get back to sleep. I guess I should have posted earlier. I am so tired. My post will have to wait until Monday. I just can't do more tonight.

I Spent Two Days In Bed

I am not sure what is wrong but I am exhausted again. I realized being in bed all day on day two that this happened last month where I had two really exhausted days where I kept falling asleep in the chair. 

I spent two days in bed. I only got up to use the bathroom. I just kept falling asleep. Once again, I just woke up from taking a few naps in the chair ready to blog. the past two days, I wrote my posts later in the morning posting late. I hate feeling this tired. 

With that, I hope you have a blessed day!

There Must Be A Time Limit on Faucet Parts

I shared in a post over the past few months about ordering parts for my faucets. Here is a link to that post. 

After I got the first part, it was still dripping from the tub faucet as I think the cartridge lost a washer. Before I ordered another one, the faucet in my bathroom started leaking and needed a new handle. After I replaced those two cartridges, the faucet in the main bath started dripping, so I took the first one they sent and replaced a washer on it and then used that one in the main bathroom sink faucet.

My kitchen faucet is a Delta, and I finally got the parts from them. After I got all the parts from Moen and Delta, I fix all the faucets. I go to clean up the basement for company this past weekend. I rinse out the tub, and the faucet down in the tub starts leaking!!! 

Within 2 months, every single faucet in my home from either brand has started leaking! It has been many years since I changed them out, but that is so weird how all of them started dripping within those two months. 

I now have to start the process of ordering a new cartridge for that basement tub faucet. I can't believe how they all went at once. 

I pray they all stay working as I really want to be done with plumbing issues. In the past six months, I have had two mini floods, had to fix the drain in the shower, cut the laundry room ceiling to re-glue the drain pipe for the shower, fix a flood in the upstairs bathroom, and replace all these cartridges! 

I hope you have a plumbing free blessed day!

"Let's Read" - Lengthy Scary Stories Podcast - Sharing My Own Scary Stories - Part 5

This will be my last scary life event posts. It is a compilation of situations that happened at different times. 

When I was ages 8-11 we lived in a big mansion downtown. We had to take the public bus to school and sometimes would walk the mile or two home to keep the bus fair to spend at the candy store. More than once, I would have cat calls, cars driving around the block a few times making me scared, or whistles from workers as we passed. 

When I was waiting at the bus stop at the corner of our street, a man drove around the block and then came back and being in the driver side, he had to look down to see me and get eye contact. I could clearly see he was trying to get my attention and I thought maybe he needed directions. Once he had eye contact, he looked down at his crotch and you can guess what happened next. I was terrified to take the bus myself after that for awhile, so would only go when my sister was with me. 

A few years later, we went to another school downtown as they were busing us to an old Jr. High because they were building a new school. Because of that, we had a school bus that would drop us off about 2 blocks from our home. My older sister was well developed and the bus driver would always be flirty to us, and I thought he was nice. But, it started to get creepy and since we were the last drop off on the bus, we were alone with him. He let my younger siblings and I off, but then quickly closed the doors and kept my older sister on the bus and made crude jokes and she was terrified. After that, I ended up letting her off first and he tried the same with me a few times, but we would cluster in a group to get off so he couldn't do that anymore. 

Around this same time, another situation happened that precipitated our family moving from down town to the suburbs. We had some friends that had all girls living two homes away. One of the daughters was really beautiful and was a few years older than my sisters and I. This night, she walked into our home without ringing the bell. We thought it was odd, but before we could even talk with her, I look up and see two men looking at me through the foyer window. This old mansion had a front door that opened into a little coat area with hooks to hang coats and then two swinging doors that would keep the cold air out of he house. These two men were staring at us through the swinging doors, they were IN OUR HOUSE. I was so scared I didn't know what to say. Thank heavens, my father and older brothers were in the main living room and when the men saw my sisters and I staring at them they stopped opening the swinging doors. They were scary looking and aggressive in their entry. 

My dad asked them men if he could help them, they said they didn't realize it was a home, but thought it was an apartment house. My father asked them to leave. We then found out that our friend had left her house and these two men were parked in front of her home. She was going to walk the block down to the grocery store but they started asking her questions and she got uncomfortable and said she forgot something and went back into her house. She waited for a few minutes and looked out and didn't see the men, so she went out and started walking down to the store when she realized they had just backed up and hid behind the bushes on the far side of her house. They started walking behind her closing the gap so she acted just like she was going to our house and she was so worried they would take her while waiting for us to answer the door, she just came into the house hoping the men would stop. 

Obviously, these men were quite aggressive in the hunt for her as they hid and then walked into our home to get to her. It was only a short time later that there was a woman raped around the corner from our home. My parents realized that living downtown with newly teen girls was probably not the best situation. A month or two later, we moved to an upper class neighborhood in the suburbs.It was a week before my 12th birthday. 

If you read my post yesterday, you can see that living in that suburb area was not as safe as they had hoped, but for sure was safer than us living downtown. 

The last story I want to share is one when I lived as and exchange student in New Zealand. I lived there starting the week of my 16th birthday for a year. Here is a post about another scary encounter while living in N.Z. where I felt God watched over me and kept me safe. While there, one of the Rotarian's owned a hardware store downtown. They offered me a job working in the store dusting the items on the shelves and in the front window so I could have spending money. I worked at the store one day a week after school. 

There was an older boy working there with a football player body type. He had red hair and freckles. He would flirt with me as he swept the floors and moved heavy items. His flirting was fairly flattering at first, and he asked me out. I told him I would talk to my host family and see if we could pick up some food and hang out at their home. They had three children around my age and someone was always home. I shared I would let him know the next week and we could do it after work that night if all was good with my host family.

I went to work that next week and the boys flirtations turned very suggestive and dirty after I told him we could go to my host family's home after work. He did things like putting the broom between his legs and undulating on it and making comments about us "being together."  I had the worst stomach pain come on all the sudden and I went and spoke to the owners wife who usually gave me a ride home. I told her I wasn't feeling well and wondered if I could leave early? She told me I could try to get a ride, or if I waited about 20 minutes, I could go with her. I told the boy we would have to postpone our date until another time as I wasn't feeling well. 

I got a ride home and NO ONE WAS HOME! For a few hours, not one person in the family of five was home. That had never happened before. I didn't usually watch TV as I usually did homework, wrote in my journal, played the guitar, or hung out with the family. Since I wasn't feeling well, I laid on the couch and watched TV. I freaked out when on one of the very few channels they had in New Zealand at the time (early 1980's) was playing a story on rape. They shared that most rape victims know their attacker and many times it is in their own home. I started shaking as I realized at that moment that if that boy came to my house that night, I would have been attacked. It wasn't something I felt, it was something I KNEW. I have ever only "been" with my husband as I feel that intimacy is something special that should be saved for marriage, so I was very naive compared to the teens in NZ as many of the girls my age were sexually active there. From that point on, I realized that I had to trust my gut and be careful about dating as I hadn't dated before going to NZ. From that point on, I took precautions to make good sure I was only in groups for dating which kept me safe through the years after while I dated. I never worked at the store again and had no contact with the boy as he attended the boys school rather than the public school and I was so grateful that I didn't have to face him at school.

I had a friend that was raped in NZ when she went to university in her dorm by a guy that seemed "nice" offering to walk her home to keep her "safe." When he saw that her roommate was not there, he came back and knocked on the door, and when she opened it, he forced her in her room and raped her. She never shared it with anyone there, but felt she could share with me because I was home in the states by then. I had another friend who was at a party and was raped in one of the bedrooms. Sadly, both women's lives were thrown off trajectory from these events. Neither reported the attacks. 

I realized from these situations, and in listening to the "Let's Read" podcasts over the past few weeks, that I have really been watched over by my guardian angels! Any one of the situations I have posted about in the past five days could have changed who I am as a person or even ended my life! I did have two situations while having a sleep over with my friends older brothers that made me a bit strict on sleep overs with my girls and their friends. One of my friends also had a situation with a father of one of her friends at a sleep over, so I feel like I was on track in not allowing my girls to do sleep overs if there were older brothers, and would usually have their friends sleep at our home. 

There are also situations when you invite people to stay in your home, or when the attacker is an extended family member, when you are visiting them, which is a hard thing to prevent, so I just have to know that God is in charge and realize that I have been very blessed in my life to be protected from some potentially horrible life changing events! I wish I could say that everyone else in my family was protected from any harm, but sadly, we live in a world where some people CHOOSE to do evil, even to those who are supposed to love them! Sometimes we are given situations as a trial. I just wish that our society made it easier to report and prosecute these offenders. Until the victim is heard and protected, things won't change. 

Please stay safe and have a blessed day!

"Lets Read" - Lengthy Scary Stories Podcast - Sharing My Own Scary Stories - Part 4

I have two stories relating to dryers. One scary story relating to a dryer was when I was about 9 or 10. We lived in a 100 year old mansion home downtown in a major city. It was a four story home with a stone foundation. The laundry room was in the basement of this home and I never liked being in that basement. It was dark and I always worried about spiders. 

Being one of 8 children, we had LOTS of clothing and I was tasked to help with the laundry since the time I was 6, I was in the rotation for doing dishes and laundry. I remember washing the dished and not being tall enough to do the dishes without the water running down my arms and getting my shirt wet. 

I was down in the basement when I walked into the laundry room when I saw flames coming out of the dryer. I went screaming up in the kitchen and the family ran down to unplug the dryer and use an extinguisher to put out the dryer. 

Since that time, I have been a bit stressed at times on running the dryer when no one is home, and on having extinguishers near the appliances in the home. My biggest issue has always been not having anything on the floor so that if there were a fire, we wouldn't trip on anything trying to get out, and that if firemen needed to come in, their path would be unrestricted. My girls all know this about me not leaving things on the floor or in the hallways ever. 

The second scary story with the dryer happened when I was 15ish. We lived in a upper end suburb neighborhood with larger houses. People would call our house the "white house" as it had columns in the front and was a large home as we had 8 children in our family. 

With 8 children, you would guess there were always mounds of laundry. As I shared before, we all had to do chores and I did laundry from an early age. With that, we would pull a load of dried clothes out and stick it on top of the dryer and sometimes there would be three of four loads stacked on top of the dried. 

With that, of course clothes would fall down behind the dryer and we would get stacks of things behind the dryer. I was (and am) fairly responsible and would often be the one to clean up areas of the house. One night, I had been out biking or doing track team or something and was wearing short running shorts. Some items had fallen down behind the drier as someone may have pulled out a load I was doing of my own items or something, so the way we had devised to get those items, was we had a metal hanger we would stretch in the bottom middle down so we could make a hook out of it by holding on to the middle lower stretch area and hook the clothes behind the dried with the hanger hook part. 

I shared that our house was a large square "white house" and on the back was a large veranda running the length of the upstairs with a staircase OUTSIDE so we could come out the back of the house on the main floor and walk up the stairs to sit on the veranda or go into the house using two sets of sliding glass doors that were upstairs off that veranda. 

One of the doors entered into the family room, and the other set was in the laundry room! I also forgot to mention that our house was situated on a corner, so everyone coming into the neighborhood would wind around the labyrinth of roads in the neighborhood to the country club that was about three houses down from our home. So, it was the main road to the country club and was heavily traveled! 

I happened to be "backside" up, kneeling on the dryer, with my head buried behind the dryer pulling items up from behind the dryer and remember I was wearing loose, short red running shorts with white trim, and I was a thin, cute girl at the time. My sister happened to walk past the laundry room taking a quick glance at me going to her bedroom and did a double take and screamed! 

Of course I am head down backside up on top of the dryer so her scream disarmed me in that awkward pose and she was screaming, "Lock the door, lock the door!" I jump off the dryer and hurriedly lock the laundry room door asking "why?"

The dryer was exactly next to the glass sliding door so it was the door, then me on the dryer! She told me when she walked past, she thought she saw my reflection in the door but then looked again and there was a man with his hand on the door handle looking at my "Backside"! 

I look outside and I see a man running through out backyard, and climbs over our wooden fence and jumps into a car that was parked on the side of the road facing the house and drove off. From the street, my backside in red was like a lighthouse for any pervert that drove past in the dark since the blinds in that room were often broken with 8 kids going in and out! The door was NOT locked as with that many kids going in and out, it just wasn't. There were a few times that we had heard people breaking in, had things stolen, and once at that home, a man walked in and my mother found him in our kitchen.

We were both really shaken up but we locked the door and put a stick in the door track and figured that was the end of it. 

About then minutes later, we are in my sisters room talking about it. The windows were open as were the blinds on the bottom half of the window to let air in as it was hot. A man walks up our circular driveway and as my sisters room is on that same end of that house but in the front, he could hear us talking through the window.

He called out to us and tried to get us to come down and talk to him. My sister told me to go get my dad and older brothers out of bed as we were really scared. How determined and crazy must a person to be to approach a home with many cars in the driveway and talk to us after being seen on the back deck / veranda! 

He overheard my sister and started running off the property to his car which was parked on the opposite corner to our corner home. My father was asleep and by the time I got him awake and he told me to get my brothers, the man was long gone. They took several cars and went around the neighborhood looking for his car but came back empty handed. We didn't call the police thinking that he was gone and we couldn't tell anything other than he was wearing a baseball cap and was tall and darkish. 

We always made sure the doors were locked and blocked after that time as I was terrified that he would come back as he was so bold! Flash forward a few months, I am asleep and my sister was was not sleeping in her room anymore, my room was at the end of the hall, so for me to get to either the staircase or outside, I had to pass the laundry room. 

I wake in the middle of the night to someone lifting that door and trying to unlock it and wiggle it enough against the stick in the track to get in! He wasn't trying to get into the doors at the other end of the veranda by the family room, but was trying to get into the laundry room which meant that if he got it, I was trapped! I said a prayer wondering what to do as if I walked to the stairs, he would see me in the house and know exactly which room was mine! I kept my blinds down all the time since the dryer event, but the laundry blinds were broken, so he would for sure see me and if he got the door open before I got passed, I could be running right into him! I prayed and felt to turn my stereo on really loud so he would know someone was awake. It worked and I remember peeking out of my blinds and seeing someone fleeing the yard. 

If I had a phone in my room back then, I would have called 911, but the phone was beyond the laundry room down the hall at the other side so I didn't dare go out of my locked room! I forgot to share that I always had my door closed and locked when I slept! When I went to New Zealand as an exchange student, my host mothers didn't understand why I always had my bedroom door closed and / or locked!

I think that to this day, it is part of the reason I don't sleep well. I hadn't realized until I gave my dog away how she helped me sleep soundly because I knew she would bark if anyone or anything was a threat. The night she left, I couldn't sleep and realized this would be a problem for me. I don't sleep well and that was when I started gaining weight and being tired all the time because I think until my kids were off at school, I would "listen" all night to make sure they were safe. Once they were gone, I could sleep better / deeper. 

I always felt that GOD was protecting me as if my sister hadn't walked past at that exact moment, I could have been knocked out, or abducted and no one would have known. The door may or may not have been locked and he could have come in later and taken me while sleeping etc. It was just really PROVIDENCE that she saw that man! 

My girls know how protective I am of them, and because of this and other situations in my past, I have been protective of them. But, there are always situations you can't train people to look out for as there are just some really evil people in the world. 

Have a Blessed Day!

"Lets Read" - Lengthy Scary Stories Podcast - Sharing My Own Scary Stories - Part 3

This post is going to be another that several "hoax" or debunking sites have said is a fake story, however I am going to share my situation and thoughts on this as this happened to me before I ever saw the email telling women to beware of this situation. 

Years ago, I was doing some grocery shopping. The store where I was shopping is in a small town in the west and was located less than a mile off a major interstate that travels from near coast to coast. 

I was by myself. It was daytime. The parking lot was not very full as this store was the smaller of the two stores in town and was a home town operated grocery store, where as the other store more downtown was a chain store, so mostly locals living at the edge of town and people exiting the highway would visit this store. It has since closed down due to not enough customers and later after many unused years, became a chain to a large Farming supply store. 

While I was coming out to my car, there was a woman and a man watching me go to my car, when I had just about reached my car, they approached me quickly and asked something about perfume and the woman was really nervous, but almost seemed to me like the man behind her was pushing her to approach me. 

What was distressing to me, was how persistent they were trying to get me to SMELL the perfume sample. Like they were trying to get really close to me. I wouldn't stop or give them eye contact and repeated several times I didn't wear perfume. I actually do wear perfume and have several scents that I LOVE. My sweet daughters get it for me almost every year for my birthday or Christmas, and I still have a few bottles of some other favorites over the years I wear when I am going out but maybe to the store just to use them up. 

I was really uncomfortable with them and noticed another man sitting in a car nearby. The feeling I had was almost like the girl was being forced into this and the man was there to keep her in line or maybe to keep her from asking someone for help or something as he was like glue on her. It was SUPER weird and awkward, but I hate being approached by sales people at home or in public places where there shouldn't be sales people. I expect it at the mall and don't mind it there because I am there shopping and may be looking for an item, but when I am at home, I find it invasive and really disruptive. 

I think if they had acted normal, or it was just a girl, it may have been fine and who knows if I would have tried smelling the perfume, but to me, it was just OFF! It didn't feel like they were just going to sell me the perfume. The man was close enough that if I had passed out, he would have caught me, or if I fought, he could have held me. There is that personal space distance that a sales person usually won't come into, but it was too close for comfort for me. 

It wasn't until later that I read the email warning women to be careful and not smell anything in parking lots. 

Once again, similar to yesterdays post, I think there has to be some foundation for the story or a person wouldn't spend that much time making something like that up. I would take an hour of my time to warn someone about a possible threat as it happened to me. However, I would not spend an hour of my time trying to come up with a story I could share on social media to scare women, especially saying something like don't smell perfume in a parking lot! Because, it doesn't even make sense that I would think that someone may approach someone in a parking lot to sell perfume! 

It would be like warning someone to wear a life jacket while driving their car! It isn't a logical thing to warn someone about as it isn't a normal progression of a situation! Maybe if you warned them not to smell perfume at the sales counter in a department store, that would be logical. 

I went online again tonight to see what I could find on a few of the regular debunking sites and most of them said it was a hoax or untrue. I linked one below. However, there was one that said there were cases and they sited cities and police departments where there had been cases of people being sprayed with perfume by a woman selling it in a parking lot. 

You can believe what you will. but being a fairly intuitive person, I believe I was in harms way that day and did NOT feel safe in that parking lot and got out of there as quickly as I could. 

Here is a link to Hoax-Slayer.net where they say that this story is untrue and has never been verified.

The site "Truth or Fiction" linked below related that they found several cases where people were sprayed with perfume in a parking lot where someone approached them to sell them perfume and they did have reactions and one even did pass out after walking into the building after smelling the perfume.

Also, the original post from a woman in Mobile, AL that started the email rally situation regarding this, said she was approached by a woman selling perfume and woke later to have her car and herself in a different place with a much lighter purse having been robbed and had a headache.  

You can read about those cases sited with the police departments named in this link here. 

I will never know what may have happened, or if they were really just selling perfume, but either way, it could not be the best approach to find people to buy them. Even if they had a little table with samples on it, or even having a small sign, they could sell them with people approaching them, but to me, it seemed like they weren't legit and this way they could have a quick get-a-way.  

I don't know if anyone finds these situations scary or not but I do have others that have haunted me for years I will share next week. 

Have a Blessed Day!

"Lets Read" - Lengthy Scary Stories Podcast - Sharing My Own Scary Stories - Part 2

On the heels of yesterday's post sharing how I had an experience that was passed around the internet as a "Beware" of this event, I am going to share two other events that were also passed around the internet that both happened to me BEFORE I read about them on the internet. In listening to the "Lets Read" posts, I realized I have had many scary moments. It is funny that it took me listening to other peoples scary stories to make me realize how many of these "moments" that I have had in my life! 

About 15 years ago, I was driving to the city almost every weekend helping my mom, visiting my sister, and dating heavily. On the weekends, I would go dancing about 10:30 p.m. and hang out with my friends after the dance until 2 a.m. or so. 

My sisters home was in a suburb and was a fairly safe neighborhood. On my way to go dancing one night, I had to get gas to head to the downtown area from the suburb when I went to the nearest gas station near her home. I usually didn't go to that gas station as it was more expensive but it was 10:30ish and I was in a hurry to get to the dance as it closed at midnight and I had a 20 minute drive to get there, so would only have an hour of dancing. I LOVE dancing and it is an outlet so it was worth the drive and cover charge for that hour of dancing and visiting with my friends at breakfast after the dance. 

I pulled into the gas station, used my credit card to pay, filled the tank, climbed back into my car and was startled as I had barely gotten into the car and locked my door (I ALWAYS locked my door at night as soon as I got in the car by habit) when I look to see a large Polynesian man holding a $10 bill against my drivers side window knocking on my window. I crack the window as I start the car and he tells me that I dropped the money and he wanted to return it to me. I told him I used a credit card and the money wasn't mine. He tells me he is sure it fell while I was getting gas and it was just under the tank area. I tell him it isn't mine as I pull out and leave.  

He stands there looking confused that I wouldn't roll my window down and take the money. I have to share that it was a quite street, it was dark, there were no other cars near my car and I have NO idea where he came from. There was no store at that station, only a little hut and it was after hours, so you have to pay with a card anyway to pump gas. When I go dancing, I always take my license and a credit card in my front pant pocket with lipstick and gum. I only take enough cash to pay the cover charge for the dancing. That money wasn't mine and I knew it for those reasons. I am an honest person and I wouldn't take something that isn't mine and I believe that saved me that night. 

I thought I would take a minute and search for this type of thing and found a Snopes" post saying it wasn't true. The woman's story reported on was exactly what happened in my situation so I do think there was some truth to her story. Here is a link to that post.

Interestingly enough, on that same Snopes post, there is a story that happened to one of my girls in the past two years at a Walmart and Snopes say that event is false as well! Let me tell you, BOTH of these things happened to us and I think they shouldn't report them as "False" if the original post at some point could have been true. I don't think a woman is going to spend the time writing up a lengthy story like that if there isn't some truth to it. 

This is similar to the "if there is money under your windshield wiper when you get into your car, drive off before taking it off as car-jackers are using it to get you to see it when you have your car started, you get out to pull it off and they jump in and steal the car." story. Snopes says it is fake, yet there are stories from many countries saying it has happened. Whose to say it didn't?! 

I was going to share about a different incident but since the Walmart one is linked in this same article, I will share that instead. 

I was sleeping at 2 a.m. when I get a phone call from one of my girls who was living in a college town. She made a bad judgement call and went to Walmart at 1 a.m. to get groceries on a Saturday night as she promised to make dinner for her friend on Sunday and had early meetings. She was super busy during that time and had put off shopping until all her events and homework were finished and it just happened to be that late when she finished. 

I say "hello?" and then hear, "Hi, yes, I am so excited to see you soon. I'll be home in just a minute." 

I am half asleep and recognize her voice, but she lived five hours one way from my home and I wasn't expecting her. I asked her if she was coming home very confused. She said, "Yes, I'll be home in like 4 minutes! I am so excited to get to see you so soon!" By this time I am sitting up asking her if she was on the road and if so Why? 

She then whispers into the phone that a guy is following her out to her car from Walmart and she wanted him to think someone was waiting for her so he wouldn't do anything to her! I flip out and asked why she didn't call the police! I am feeling VERY helpless and don't know if I can call 911 at my home and get the information to the police in her city so far away. I can hear her loading her stuff into her car acting like she is going to see me in a few minutes. 

She said he walked past her and was headed to a Semi Truck parked towards the middle of the empty parking lot. She then says, "Wait, he is coming back  towards me!" I tell her to hurry and get into her car and lock the door and get the crap out of there! I then think, what if he follows her? I thought maybe I should tell her to get the license plate, but didn't want her driving near him or to have him think she is interested or something so I tell her to drive out and see if she can get lost in the streets taking lots of turns where a semi can't drive. She does this and I tell her to make sure he isn't lurking on a main street while she goes home. I make sure she gets into the house and is locked in before I hang up. 

I lay there thinking how he could be getting another girl in this college town and why didn't she tell the police and finally call her back and tell her to call the police and tell them what happened. 

Here is what happened: She was in the store shopping and she is a bit of an air head sometimes and it took her some time to realized this man was following her isle to isle but by the time she gets to the candy isle, she realizes this and starts to get nervous as he wasn't buying anything. When she gets to the meat department at the back corner of the store he approaches her and asks her if she knows of a good place to eat in town that is open late or has a drive through. She gives him the name of a few places and he thanks her but tries to make small talk and she is trying to not answer much and hurry to finish shopping. 

She had a cart full of food and was in the store nearly an hour. He followed her then to the beauty section and he ends up picking up some Tylenol and she gets her items from that section. 

She doesn't see him and books it to the register. She is checking out and she is about half way through when he shows up behind her with the Tylenol. She is then panicked as he has been in the store following her for the entire shop and now will be following her out of the store! 

At this point in her story, I ask why she didn't wait for him to finish and leave while she stays in the store and asks for someone to walk her out to her car? She said she panicked and called me thinking if she was on the phone and acted like she was meeting up with someone he would leave. I told her that it would have killed me if I had to hear her being kidnapped over the phone! I don't think I would have ever recovered hearing that and she should have called the police. The police don't care if it is a false call, better safe than sorry! 

She calls the police and the police came and took her statement. They told her next time to call the police to walk her out and that she should do her shopping at a more crowded time! 

I do think she learned her lesson, but there are two similar stories to this on that same Snopes link, so there may be a long-haul truck driving serial killer finding his prey at Walmart. 

I think SNOPES got this one all wrong.  

I am grateful that my Heavenly guardian angels are keeping watch over my girls and I and do believe that my life has been spared more than once! 

Have a blessed day! 

"Lets Read" - Lengthy Scary Stories Podcast - Sharing My Own Scary Stories - Part 1

Recently, I have gotten really frustrated with YouTube putting advertising every 3 minutes of play during videos and then the advertising is long videos if you aren't close enough to click "Skip" you have to listen to a five minute video every three minutes of actual content play. 

I have shared many times how I like listening to books on audio while I work. Here is a post about that. With the advent of Netflix, and YouTube, I would listen to those as I would work. However, Netflix keeps promoting their own shows and in the middle of some non-threatening show, they will throw a very graphic lesbian scene, or full nudity which makes me have to run and hit stop and then find something else to watch. 

I don't think they are doing this is for entertainment, I believe they are trying to get people addicted to the porn content, getting more and more graphic in their story-line and even the most innocent of shows now have nudity, graphic language, and controversial story-lines. 

Between the YouTube advertising, and the Netflix garbage, I have gotten really frustrated and have recently found a podcast on YouTube where a guy reads listeners scary stories. He has about 100 over 3 hour videos where he is just reading personal listeners stories. 

 I like it because I don't have to watch it, and don't get side tracked watching a show. I haven't watched Netflix in the past week as I have been working while listening to this show. While listening, I began to realize that I have had quite a few somewhat scary situations in my life. I thought I would do my own posts of "Lets Read" typing up some of those scary stories in the hopes that maybe sharing them can help someone else avoid the same type of scary situation. 

While thinking about it, I know that my Father in Heaven has had my guardian angels on overtime keeping me safe as I don't think that most people have this many scary situations. There are a few situations I won't share as they are a bit more private, but will share the stories that I think may help keep others safe. I will also share links to a few posts where I may have shared stories before on my blog. 

When I was a young mother, we lived in an East Coast city on the boarder between two states. It had a HIGH level of people in the city on assistance and there were many housing projects in the city and in the cities near us. The street we lived on was very quiet for the most part but was a dead end street that overlooked a large river near where it entered the ocean. We had a staircase at the end of our dead end street. It went down to a street that went along the river bank. In the near ten years I lived on that street, I NEVER went down that staircase. Only ONE time, my spouse and I drove down that street lining the river, and it was full of shady people and it scared me that they lived a block away from me, probably less than 150 steps. What saved us was that there were no stores or anything in our area so there was no reason for them to use those steps and come up our street. Only one or two times do I remember seeing anyone use the steps and once it was two poor dirty neglected children about 6 and 4 walking up barefoot and filthy with a large dog covered with ticks asking for food which I gave them. I thought of calling the police, but the children were confident in themselves and said they lived just down the stairs. I never saw them again but that one time. 

Late at night about once every two weeks, we would hear very loud speed boat with large motors come out of the ocean directions up the river to just down those stairs, stop for a few minutes and then speed off back down to the ocean. I knew it was drug runners as I think that was why that street was the way it was.  

 One night, I left my girls and husband at home and ran to the store to get some groceries. In order to get to the stores, I had to drive through a housing project and my daughter went to school with the children living in that project. It was part of our life living in that city and we couldn't afford to move to the smaller towns as the cost of living in them on the East Coast was much higher than we could afford and still have me stay home with our girls. 

On the way home from the store, I was driving down on end of the project and I see a boy laying on the street edge with one knee bent back and his arms out like he had been hit by a car. I drove past and realized what I had seen on the dark street, (knocked out street lamps was a thing near the project.) Being a nurse, I have always had a desire to help people so I flipped a U-turn and rolled my window down just enough to see if he was "OK?" 

I asked if he was OK and he told me he was fine. At this point, I look in my passenger side mirror as I see something, and there are at least three men sneaking up on that side of the car crouching but moving very fast as on the opposite side of the street from the project was a tree filled area / filled with trash and grass. They had been hiding in the trees. 

I let out a little scream and realized my door was unlocked and the kid laying down was getting up. I hurried to try and lock the car door, roll up the window, and pull forward as fast as I could. I was totally in panic mode. 

Thank heavens I saw that movement or I don't know what would have happened. When I arrived home, we called the police and they laughed asking what I would like them to do as no crime had been committed. Thus, I NEVER drove that way to the store and would take the long way around avoiding that street at night, but my daughters elementary school was literally on that same street a few blocks up and across the street from that same housing project! The PTA purchased a swing set for that school as it had NO playground, but each night the swings would be stolen, so they had to take the swings in at the end of the day each day giving the entire elementary school one swing to play on. 

I have not missed living in that area at all since we left, and know my children have gotten a much happier upbringing and education than when we lived in that area. 

Years later, I got an email saying to be aware that some gangs use a hurt person laying in the street to lure you into stopping and then the gang will attack the car raping or killing the driver as a gang initiation. It was sharing that you shouldn't stop to help, but instead, call the police to help to keep yourself safe. Because of my situation having that happen 10 years prior, I forwarded that email to all of my email friends and had one woman attack me for forwarding "not real" stories to scare people. I was taken back by her strong feelings about it and shared that the exact thing in the email had happened to me and then she proceeded to tell me than I shouldn't "forward" other peoples stories, but if I felt that strongly, I should write up my own story and send that out to everyone rather than forwarding things I for sure didn't know were true. 

Let me share that I didn't forward a ton of things and wasn't "that person" but did forward things I felt had good and logical information. From that time on, I would just not include that woman in my forwarding list. I wondered why she got so upset about that email in particular but realized that she grew up in a similar neighborhood in the East near ours and perhaps had some event that brought out that emotion. Either way, I was grateful that my guardian angels were with me that day!

2021 Valentine's Day Part 2 - Still Feeling Blessed

For Valentine's Day, my daughters sent me some money to purchase some sushi. They also had a dozen chocolate dipped strawberries, along with a cute card delivered to my home. I have a girlfriend that was super sweet who purchased and dropped off six large chocolate covered strawberries. 

The funny part of this is, that I was purchasing some sushi a few days prior when I walked past the Valentines Display at the grocery store as our sushi is only available at that store in our small town. When I passed the chocolate covered strawberries, I thought, "It would be nice to have someone to purchase those for me." 

It isn't like I am extremely lonely or longing for someone in my life, but sometimes at holidays, I think it would be nice to have someone, but it isn't something I dwell on as I have a fairly full life. It was just a passing thought and I didn't give it another thought until for the first or second time in my life (as I don't remember ever having someone purchase them for me, but I do remember eating them, so I think it was at a party or a reception at some point) I have TWO different people drop off chocolate dipped strawberries! I figure GOD knows my thoughts, and having had that passing thought wishing I had someone to purchase them for me, maybe HE sent that thought to the people in my life who would, or could, give them to me! 

God is so good to me! The berries were yummy and I felt loved. The other thing we decided to do for Valentines was to play an online group game together.

I have played "Among Us" with my girls a few times over the past six months or so. I am not good at it, and for some reason struggle figuring out how to move, finish tasks, and have only been the "imposter" a few times. I have obviously never "won" when I have been the imposter and usually there are two "imposters" in the game, so if I had ever won, it wouldn't have been because of anything I did. 

For Valentines Day, my girls wanted to play the game and I think any time I get to spend doing anything with my children, even online, is a blessing. I can say I was not "happy" to find that I was the "imposter" as I had only ever been it maybe three times, and I always got caught trying to go in a vent or something. In starting the only game we played that night (since my girls had Valentine plans), I thought I had to at least try to play the game. I couldn't see anyone and was struggling running around trying to find someone to "kill" and then noticed I could only see them when they would run past me. I was able to kill someone in the first few minutes and then went into another room and tried to "vent" which means you can go hidden from room to room. However, once in the vent, I couldn't figure out how to move to the other rooms, I just kept going in and out of the vent which happened the other time I was the "imposter." 

I then decided it wasn't worth trying to use the vents as I know if the group finishes their tasks before the imposter "kills" enough of them, they win the game. I then remembered that the imposter can "sabotage" the rooms making people have to fix the problem before they can go do their tasks. I only ever sabotaged one room because I couldn't move fast through the rooms. The entire game, I was only in three or four rooms. The funny part was, I kept sabotaging that one and only room three times or so and each time, it locks the rooms doors and I would get myself stuck into the room as I couldn't get out of the doors. 

I get laughing at times when I get frustrated doing something and even when I am home alone, I get laughing when I struggle to do something that should be simple. When playing, I just got laughing harder and harder as I know this game should be simple but for some reason, I just struggle with it. I was laughing so hard by the end of the game and only laughed harder when I found out that I won the game after only being in a few rooms. 

I think hitting the same sabotage button in only one room made them have to keep coming back to that room so maybe that was why I won. When the game ended, several of the girls had to leave, but I was laughing so hard I just couldn't stop. I figured I would send the girls a video so I took one. I was still laughing so hard after about five minutes that I took another video and sent them both to the girls. 

I don't know that I will play the game again as I just struggle. It was a good laugh however. Even though I don't look great in the video, it still makes me laugh to watch it. If it can bring a smile to your face, it is worth posting. Enjoy!

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day and have a blessed day!

2021 Valentine's Day Part 1 - Feeling Blessed

Having all my girls living many hours away from me, I knew I wouldn't be seeing any of them for Valentine's day. 

I usually did a valentine's treasure hunt on Valentine's Day while the girls were growing up. Here is a link to one of our last treasure hunts. You can see all the treasure hunt videos by typing "Valentine hunt" into the search box at the bottom of the home page. 

I always helped with class parties each year for the girls grade school classes. When the girls got to middle school, I would decorate their lockers for the holiday linked here. By high school, I would take them to lunch sometimes but by that age, they were fairly busy and didn't care as much. They didn't use lockers anymore as that wasn't something useful for the many different buildings they had classes in at that point. 

One thing they didn't ever want to give up on was the treasure hunt. The tradition started when we first moved from the East coast to the West. All of our belongings were in storage and we were renting a semi furnished home of someone that had just passed away. The girls didn't have many of their belongings and I wanted to do something fun for them, so I purchased a bunch of toys and candy and decided to make a treasure hunt for each person to do. 

This was when Princess three was a newborn. When the girls got older and more children were involved, it was just easier to make one hunt and put all the girls treats or prizes together in one group for each stop on the hunt. 

Since I couldn't do that this year, and none of the girls are around, I wanted to send them each a little bag of treats and a little lotion I bought for each of them. Knowing I was having to mail them, I wanted to get the there before the holiday. 

I also had purchased a little lotion for several church friends I haven't been able to see much since Covid hit. I filled them all with treats and then wrote a bunch of cards for each little package. I sent the grandchildren cards with a dollar in it so their mom could take them to the dollar store to get a treat when she has time. I sent them dye free snacks as well. 

Mailing the packages all over cost way more than anything I sent which made me laugh. I decided next year I will just send them each a card with a gift card in it and save myself some money. 

I mailed them on Tuesday worried it may take a few days to arrive and each of them got them in one day which really shocked me as it is usually at least 2 days to get to them. They all enjoyed the gifts but I was sad they opened them and then didn't have anything to open on the holiday. Next time I will have to make sure I tell them not to open it early. 

I delivered my neighbor gifts and the treats I got ready for the neighbors children over the past few days. 

I am glad that our country has a holiday celebrating love! I hope you had a lovely and blessed day!  

Beware Of Fake Emails - Never Click on Links in ANY Email

Several years ago, my sister sold often on eBay. She received a link in an email stating that her eBay account had been hacked. 

She clicked on the link that took her to a page that looked like an actual eBay log in page. She entered her password into the password box, and then her nightmare began. The page was actually NOT eBay, and she ended up spending a few weeks changing all the passwords on her accounts as her eBay was linked to her bank accounts and her PayPal account. She lost control of her eBay account and ended up having to get it back but she was quick enough to call the bank right away which saved her from losing any funds, just lots of time!

From that, I learned never to click on links in emails. I get emails all the time from eBay, PayPal, my cell phone company etc. If they ever say "click on the link" I never click on the link. Usually, PayPal will say, "You can see this on your account page" or things like that. 

I got this email this week and quickly thought it may have been a real email but still would never click on the link, but as I was going to delete it, I laughed when I looked closely at the name. They spelled "PaypaI" instead of PAYPAL! Also, it said my account was Iimited. So funny. 

So many times, when I look closely at those type of emails, I find spelling errors or weirdly worded sentences. I suggest that next time you get an email, give it a check and don't click the links! If you need to check it out, log in on the webpage rather than clicking the link just to be safe. 

Have a blessed day!

Cleaning Out More Cupboards

I feel like my life is going a million miles an hour sometimes, and other times, I find myself stuck with some slow moments, but I have so much on my "to do" list, that I don't even know where to start on the list. 

Sometimes when I have a day like that, I just avoid the "to do" list altogether. I find myself cleaning out something that really doesn't matter just so I don't have to face the larger items on the list. Today was one such day. 

I started cleaning out my medicine cupboard. I had a bottle of prescription medication in there from about 25 years ago! I had premature labor with Princess Four and had some medication in there from that! 

I also had several jars of grain barley / chicory drinks that are coffee substitutes. I have been gluten free for 7 years or so and my girls don't like that drink so those jars are extremely old. I decided it was good to organize and clean out those things. 

A few years ago, I started keeping some tulle in the kitchen to put on gifts and tie up gift bags as I am one to take dried fruit to many people all year long. I kept them in a bag on a top shelf where I could pull them down but it wasn't in the easiest spot. 

I decided today to pull out the unused items and to put the tulle in the cupboard where I can pull it out easily as I got a wedding invitation dropped off at my home today. I had to pull out the tulle to tie up the gift bag where I put the wedding gift! I figured I use the Tulle more than I have used any of those medication other than the four I regularly use, so I decided to put the tulle into the lower and easier to get to cupboard. 

Seriously, today was an escape day from reality. However, I had three long phone calls with three of my beautiful daughters. I don't get to visit with them all that often for that length of time, so I was kind of happy I wasn't working on a big project as I sometimes tell them I can't talk. 

It was a good day. I hope you have a blessed day!