School holidays- what happened to having fun??

I have taken a week off work to hang out with my kids over the school holidays and have some fun, but it seems that technology has captured my children and is holding them hostage, because aside from skyping with their friends and playing games on line they do not want to really do anything!!

We have arranged for some of their friends to come over for a sleepover Monday night and to spend the day with us on Tuesday, and we are catching up with some family friends on Friday but aside from that they really don’t want to do anything else.

I should be happy I guess that they enjoy being home but I can’t help feeling like they are missing out by locking themselves away like this. In a few weeks time school will resume again and the carefree days of the summer holidays will be but a distant memory, surely they must want to do more than this?

So tomorrow I have planned a fun filled day for us, and despite the looks of horror I received and the blatant lack of enthusiasm I am determined that we will have fun!!

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Is it normal to be attached to your phone?

I am very attached to my phone! My whole little world is pretty much stored on it. All my photos, my calendar, my music, notes, my WordPress, my Facebook, pretty much everything is in this hand held device that is never far from my reach.

Today we had the soccer BBQ at Lilydale lake, the weather was beautiful, the company was great, there was food, and sunshine and fun. Normally I would have checked us in on Facebook and taken photos galore, except that one of my friends decided to confiscate my phone for the day!!

His intentions were good, in his mind I am way too connected! He is probably right it has been said before that’s for sure. So I went along with it and you know what? I felt lost! I kept feeling like something was missing.

When I finally got my phone back there were 54 WordPress notifications that I’d missed, along with a text message from my teenager asking me to grab maccas on the way home, and many emails. It felt good to have my phone back I must admit, I do understand that it probably isn’t healthy to be so attached to a phone, but in this day and age that we are living in this is more the norm than the exception, wouldn’t you say?

Vines

My teenage son asked me today if I knew what a vine was? Of course I do, it’s what grapes grow on, I replied, to which he just rolled his eyes in disgust and muttered “gee your sooo old mum”

Thanks son.

Turns out a Vine is a six second video!!

According to my good friend Google, a Vine is a six-second video app that’s owned by Twitter and the idea is to create quick, easy and interesting short films to share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and the world at large.

Ah teenagers they are such a constant source of wisdom aren’t they?

It’s back

The internet is back at our house yay!! All order has now been restored. 😃😃😃

Snap Chat

I joined up for snap chat at my sons recommendation and boy am I struggling to get my head around it.

For those of you like me who have never really heard of snap chat it is an app whereby you can send your friends photos or videos and they can view them for up to 10 seconds and then the image or video is gone.

I would like to say gone forever but somehow I doubt that is true, I think we all know by now that once anything is out on the net it’s there forever somewhere in cyber space.

Snap chat is an easy way to connect with your friends anywhere around the world and send each other quick up to 10 second messages. At least this is what I am told.

I can’t get my head around that holding down the snap button, I just keep tapping instead. At the moment I have two friends my cheeky teenage son and my gorgeous nephew.

Has anyone else heard of Snap chat? Or has signed up for it?

So much to be thankful for

Today I am thankful for many things. I am happy that I have my beautiful
little car back and it looks better than ever, in fact it looks brand new again. (Unfortunately this shiny clean look won’t last long knowing my kids, but for today I am happy to have it back).

I am thankful that it is Friday which means the working week is over and it’s time to enjoy quality time with family and friends.

I’m thankful that the freak hail and storms seem to be behind us and the sunshine is back for the weekend.

I guess the only thing I am not thankful for is Telstra – our telephone and internet provider. We have been without a phone line and most importantly without internet access since Monday and it really is driving us a little batty, the kids are fighting more because they are bored and my iphone has already used over half it’s allocated monthly usage something that never ever happens.

Still I’m thankful that I have my iphone so I can still read all the blogs I enjoy so much.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

The Ice bucket challenge

The Ice bucket challenge is the newest rage on Facebook these days. It is a challenge to raise awareness for ALS/Motor Neuron Disease.

The person challenged must film themselves having a bucket (8litre) of Ice water poured over their head and then nominate three people to do the same.

You have 24 hours to complete the challenge failure to do so means that you will then need to donate $100 to ALS/Motor Neuron research.

My teenage son was nominated today to undertake the Ice bucket challenge and he was all to happy to oblige. Thankfully the weather was nice and relatively warm for winter.

Image courtesy of google images

Barkbox

I stumbled across Barkbox yesterday while scrolling through Pintrest and was instantly intrigued and of course had to share. What a wonderful idea indeed. For a not too extravagant fee one can now arrange for a box full of treats to be delivered on a monthly basis for the family dog.

Imagine the surprise, the joy, when this box of goodies arrives. From what I was able to see you can choose what you would like to have included in your monthly Barkbox, that way your beloved pet will never get bored.

The company offer free shipping and 10% of sale goes towards an animal rescue group. It’s definitely worth finding out more that’s for sure.

Barkbox

Internet speed at snails pace

So our internet speed is painfully slow, so slow, in fact that it barely registers on the speed test app thingy my son downloaded for me to prove his point.

I have questioned the speed of our service before, as well as our network coverage and have been assured repeatedly by Telstra that we are in a high speed location and from what they can see we should have fast fabulous coverage throughout the home which alas we do not.

There are five of us using the internet at any given time, sometimes I wonder if this could be the reason for the lag. Apparently I can purchase this special device that should give us five bars for five devices, but I can’t help but be skeptical. We already have a repeater in the boys room which quite frankly does not seem to be doing much. Why would this new device be any different?

The Condom Challenge

There is a new craze sweeping across Facebook at the moment which you may or may not have heard of. If you have a teenager as I do, you have probably come across this lunacy. I don’t know about you but I am horrified to say the least.

The Condom Challenge is a dare game that involves inserting a clean condom into one’s nostril and snorting it back through the throat to be coughed out of the mouth.

Apparently this challenge has been gaining momentum since 2013 when it first appeared on YouTube.

Aside from being totally gross the risks for potentially choking to death are so great, that I just can’t get my head around why anyone would ever attempt something like this.

It really it a scary world we are living in, our children have enough to deal with without this kind of rubbish. Honestly who comes up this kind of stuff?

The Condom Chalkenge