A Little Bit Of Everything Blog

A Giant Lot of Books For Sale Online Girls /Teens / Preteen Young Adult Books GoodReads! Here we have a wholesale book lot of some of the best must read chapter books to read for older girls and preteen kids, teenager/young adults...some are even on the "Top Highly Recommended Books/Novels of MustReads List". My cousin recently relocated overseas to Panama and her daughters are now grown. She will sell the whole lot of 30 slightly-used English-language must read children's books (some are Paperback and some are Hardcover) + Free Bonus Set of 20 Postcards From Around the World for $15 total or best offer. You can either pay in person and pick up in the vicinity of Chico / Los Angeles or pay by Venmo, CashApp or Paypal and have them shipped directly to you anywhere in the United States. All of these books/novels are in excellent conditions for one very low price to sell them quickly! Ten Chapter Books by Beverly Cleary (5 Hardcovers and 5 Paperbacks) Six  Chapter  Books by ...

Well, another Christmas is done. It gets different every year that I grow older. This year was no big family get together. Just me and my spouse, my Aunt Michelle, a couple of close friends, and our dog and cats. I did decorate the house some and put up the Christmas tree. We had a pot roast for dinner and peppermint ice cream for dessert.  We all recalled memories of Christmases past, family and friends and pets gone. Remembering traditions,  the sights, sounds, scents and tastes of memories of Christmases gone. It was kind of sad... but also was nice!  Recently, I read a terrific article in our local newspaper online about how, during WWII, when people were living through that nightmare, a number of songs were composed meant to reassure them that one day all would be normal again. Although we are not at war, we are certainly in a time when we dream about life being 'normal' again. As we are currently celebrating the Holidays, let's remember those who may not be home... ...

Here is how to make homemade old fashioned 300 hundred dollar cooked frosting recipe with flour and milk very easily! Please keep in mind that this amount is for a double batch to use on a two-layer cake or large amount of cookies (2 dozen+), etc. If you are making a single layer cake, then simply cut the amount of ingredients in half. This is a recipe that my mother used with her famous banana pecan cake! Gather all of your vanilla icing ingredients: 2 cups whole or 2% milk, or coconut milk for non-dairy 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted real dairy butter, at room temperature 2 cups granulated sugar, not powdered confectioners sugar! 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract Begin by whisking together the milk, flour, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk the mixture constantly while cooking, for 5 minutes, or until no lumps remain and the mixture thickens, resembling a smooth pudding. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let ...

When I was 6 years old, we had lived in an apartment complex where the people who lived on both sides of me also had kids the same age as me and my brother. We were all friends and played together all the time.  One day, while my mom was drinking coffee with a neighbor at her apartment of number 4 ( we had lived in apt. 3) and we were all playing card games on the kitchen floor, our other neighbor from apartment 7 came in asking if we had seen her 3 year old son, Sammy. None of us had seen him, so we started to help her look for him around the neighborhood.  About 20 minutes in, my neighbor from apt. 4 found him and pulled him out of a front yard pond from a house across the street.  Sammy  didn't make it and his family moved out immediately after that day. We stayed in touch for a few months following but gradually lost contact.  Quite some time had passed, when one night, I had a dream about the little boy,  Sammy,  who had passed. In the dream I saw...

I'm currently eating Taco Bell in the Walmart parking lot because it's Taco Tuesday . Also, because that's the American Way . While waiting in Taco Bell's drive-thru, an elderly lady in the car behind me was taking her order and she asked them: "Do you take debit cards? Then much louder, "Do you take debit cards?! Okay, then I'll have a cheeseburger." If I could, I would have made her that burger myself.  I really did miss the version of me that was more spiritually and mentally aware , health conscious, and used to meditate in the sun and journal while sitting outside with my feet in the grass. I used to make art and enjoy the simple things in life. I knew what to do but I was not doing it. I feel like the journal was the key, and the rest fell in place after that .I am unsure where I had went and why I had left, but I am back, hence this blog which isn't just for myself but for all of you. It’s the ebb and flow of life. My favorite saying is as ...

The bacon and chicken stuffing (aka dressing) and diced sweet potatoes are prepped and ready for the oven in a few hours! Finishing up the turkey and the pies first. I made myself a nice little cocoa and banana chocolate chip mug cake as a treat for working hard today. It came out extremely delicious! (Banana as a replacement for the eggs). So excited to see family and friends this evening!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Regardless of where you are in the world today, I hope your day is very joyful, and filled with much love and many blessings!  Don't worry about anything but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart. And God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7  With all of that being stated, now I will share an odd story that happened to me on a Thanksgiving long ago when I was still in college. I'd like to say that all types of ...

Something my Grandma taught me from a very young age was the value of things. And in that , was the value of money. Grandma had this amazing way of teaching valuable life lessons. She knew I probably wouldn't listen if she just explained it. I was a fairly hyper active child. So instead, she would just go about her business in a way that would make you ask questions. One of those life lessons she taught me about was an old scraggly wild apple tree growing next to the drive way. By all rights it should have been cut down. It was in the way when the driveway was plowed, a pain to mow around, and it didn't add much in looks concerning her lawn, which she was particular about. But she wouldn't hear of it. Nope, not her. She loved that apple tree. She would marvel at the fruit blossoms. Strong storms would usually shred a few branches off. One time, it's trunk was split by lightening. But it didn't come down. Somehow she got grandpa to chain the trunk back together.  Hom...

When I hear the song, "Famous Last Words" by My Chemical Romance, I immediately tear up. The reason I am even mentioning it is because last night at a Christmas light festival, I heard someone playing it. It isn't even in my usual music genre, but this song was played in the car the morning I took my cousin Shelby Thomas to her last surgery before she passed away of ovarian cancer.  Shelby was my best childhood friend.   I had never heard any songs by that band before , but this song's lyrics and chords resonated in the moment so I looked it up and listened to it on repeat as I waited in the waiting room of the hospital. I was so anxious sitting on pins and needles, this song kept me calm and centered. I was NOT created to worry and I was NOT created to fear. After finding out she had died, I never took this song off of the playlist. I didn’t listen to anything else for a long while after. Not even an over exaggeration. The meaningful Famous Last Words lyrics really ...

Just wanted to share some experiences from my haunted childhood home experiences that I’ve never really been able to make sense of. Part of me is convinced that maybe it’s just overactive childhood imagination since I haven’t really experienced anything since I’ve grown up. I guess I just wanted to post here on my blog to see what you all think and to get some things off my chest that I’ve never really been able to speak about.  A vivid experience I had was when I was probably around 10 years old. I remember I was laying on my bed reading when I suddenly got a really dreadful feeling. I looked up from the page and it looked like my room was either foggy or smoky, it was hard to tell. I stood up and backed up to my bedroom door, my hand was just under the handle when I felt a big splash of water fall onto my hand. I jerked my hand around to look at it and it was dry. I was astonished as I continued to watch what looked like either smoke or fog rising from the floor of my bedroom up ...

My Grandma's Homemade Crispy Southern Pan Fried Okra Recipe  Ingredients: 2 pounds fresh okra, sliced into 1/2"-inch bite-sized rounds 2 large eggs, beaten (room temperature) 2 cups whole milk or buttermilk (room temperature) 2 cups yellow cornmeal 2 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 2 tsp garlic powder (optional) Cooking oil for frying (vegetable or pork oil) How To Make Best Pan Fried Okra : Best Homemade Fried Okra Recipe This was my Grandma 's old fashioned southern way of frying okra, she was raised in Louisiana:  First, wash, trim, and slice the okra. Then thoroughly combine the already-beaten egg and the milk in a large bowl. Soak the okra in the room-temperature egg and milk mixture, never cold but only room temperature. Soak the okra for about 15 minutes (hopefully okra is already tender when bought). In another bowl, mix the yellow cornmeal, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Heat your preferred cooking oil in a skillet (cast iron is always BEST) over medium-high heat (a...

A Rose For Emily and The Cask Of Amontillado Short Story Similarities : Any Great Wine Can Go Bad and Every Rose Does Have Its Thorn! The most obvious similarities in the protagonists, Miss Emily Grierson, of the short story, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and Montressor, of the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe are that they deal with their revengeful murders in gruesome fashions to satisfy their own selfish justifications. Both of the stories end with a definite expression that a character has died. However, in "A Rose For Emily", the main character, Emily has just died and another dead body has been discovered as well. This dead body is assumed to be Emily's murder victim, Homer Barron. There are further similarities and differences too, between the main characters of Emily Grierson and of Montressor. These are that Montresor’s motive is related to insult and Miss Emily’s motive is related to love, Montressor has no intention of ever bei...

Regardless if you believe in paranormal activity like tales of the dark side or not,  I want to share a scary ghost story that truly happened when I was younger. I was 9 and my brother Kyle was 6 / 7 years old. We moved around quite frequently during my whole childhood in Los Angeles and we had just moved into a new town and the house we lived in was large. If I remember correctly there were 5 bedrooms and 2 and 1/2 bathrooms. From the moment we moved in, there were strange noises and it always seemed to feel very dark and depressive. My dog would often sit and bark or growl towards the top of the stairs leading above the garage and also would stare and growl at ceiling above kitchen going into dining room (seemingly without any reason, no noises or anything like that). The home had been renovated and had additions not only on both sides and in the back, but also upwards, second story and rooms above the garage.  My little brother and I was sharing a medium-sized bedroom, our ...

Today, November 11 is not only a US Veterans Day holiday honoring in remembrance all military personnel who have served the United States Of America at any point in history, but we also get to celebrate my mom on her birthday!   Happy birthday Mom. You are so very loved and missed here. I choose to use this day to celebrate you. It's been many years since your passing, but I still think about you every single day. November is my second favorite month of the year (May is my first), although it also brings some sadness because of today being my Mom's day of birth. I always celebrate it every year by doing things she loved to do like checking out antique shops and eating Chinese food! It's two things that are so simple, but that she always thoroughly enjoyed. It brings me joy too. Oh, by the way, if you haven't already, check out the new Frankenstein movie by Guillermo Del Toro on Netflix. It is now one of my favorites! I feel like a true role model is somebody who lives u...

Well, as of lately it's all about immersive experiences today , the perception of being a part of a different environment than our normal daily one, or is it? Lets face reality, i t's a great time to STOP and sit and evaluate our way of life when it comes to our acquisition of our food and what we eat. Sometimes we just get into a habit and don't consider or are even aware of other resources near us. First thing I recommend is checking out the Feeding America Organization website. You can enter your zip code to find all food resources in your area. For seniors, visit your local senior center. You may qualify for Meals on Wheels (free meal delivery Monday thru Friday) and the monthly commodity box. Let's be honest... Great Depression Era food is not what we can get today...food and livestock are grown/raised differently, even packaged food is processed differently. And... a lot of food during those hard times were not exactly healthy, it was good to survive on, not neces...

I got the sad news yesterday that my wonderful childhood friend, Jo Wilson , passed away. It really hit me hard to hear this. Jo was dealt a difficult card in life when her little sports car was hit by a semi truck head on in the early 90’s. What a terrible day that was. It confined her to a wheelchair the rest of her life. I remember it like it was yesterday and all of the recovery that she had to go through. Even with the accident, she let nothing hold her back from living a fulfilling life. She was an exceptional human, always smiling, always asking ME how I was doing. She had a way of always making me laugh no matter the circumstances. She was unlike any other friend I have ever had. And now she is fully restored, walking the streets of Heaven. Today I will share some words of wisdom about life concerning faithfulness and decision-making, and wrongdoing...all in honor of good ol' Jo's untimely death: Jo Wilson Death Was November 1, 2025 FAITHFULNESS: Being faithful in rela...

Well, there are diffusers going in all of my home right this minute. I quickly and easily fell in love with essential oils. I was curious about them for quite a long time, but I just didn't "get it". I have now added essential oils as part of a healthy lifestyle. If the label on an essential oil says not to use on my skin, do I really want to diffuse it for my whole family (and the pets) to breathe into their lungs without know all about what I am using first? Call me a snob, but some things just need to be top notch. T hings I don't like to buy generically: ⭐  1. Food And Drink ⭐ 2. Health Supplements  ⭐ 3. Essential Oils ⭐ 4. Toilet Paper ⭐ 5. Garbage Bags (paid links) As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Authentic organic essential oils that are pure, uncut, and never diluted, are incomparable in quality to the big manufacturing companies. Essential oils are not all created equal and although many of the larger company brands SAY their oils are ...

The Best Quality Essential Oils And What To Use Them For: Pure organic plant therapy essential oils are incomparable in quality to the big manufacturing companies like Revive, Young Living, Doterra, Rocky Mountain, and Vitality essential oil companies. This is because essential oils are not all created equal and although many larger companies claim they sell pure organic oils, most do not. The highest quality essential oils come directly from the organically grown plant essences straight into the bottles produced in countries right around the world from the finest natural raw materials extracted using various methods including steam distillation, expression, and absolute solvent extraction! The Best Highest Grade Essential Oils On Amazon! (paid link) as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The real essential oils are very expensive to produce, and many companies in the industry take shortcuts to save on the costs such as diluting their essential oils with cheap fille...