Tag Archives: twitter

Easily Set Parental Controls with the OurPact App

Having teenagers who are on social media is exhausting. Although my kids are great when it comes to behaving themselves on these platforms, as well as the internet in general, I’ll admit, my kids spend a lot of time of the internet and at times, it is very distracting for them.

Now that they are required to have a device at school with them at all times to connect to the internet, I tend to monitor them A LOT more to ensure they are staying on task while at school. Setting up parental controls on their computers is a breeze but their phones, that’s another story.

When it comes to iPhones, I can restrict use on things but I don’t like to do that unless they are being punished and honestly, setting restrictions is a pain and can get time consuming. Most of the time, the problem I have is one of them is on their phone at school, checking Facebook or posting to Instagram and once they leave the house, I can’t take apps away without their phone in hand.

And then, I met the OurPact App, the best parental control app out there!

 

OurPact is an app that gives parents the ability to block apps, the internet, and even schedule device use time for your child.

The app is super easy to install and setup when you have downloaded it from the app store. All you have to do is download the app on your phone and register an account. From there, you log into the server on your teens iOS device and agree to the terms of the service and then follow the on-screen steps to complete the process.

Once you are all registered and setup, go to the app on your phone and you now have full control of your child’s device,

With the simple on-screen controls, I can decide how much time the kids have access to their apps and the internet and I can restrict things during certain times like during school hours and sleep hours.

I love the fact that while they are at school, if I see that they are being active on social media, I can easily restrict them from using it with a quick swipe.

The Power of OurPact

  • Schedule Internet and App use according to your child’s daily routine, and among the weekdays or  weekend.
  • Set the number of hours your children spend on the Internet and within Apps.  
  • Block Internet and Apps at­a­touch.  
  • Allow Website and App access, whenever you feel your child “needs more time”, at­a­touch.  
  • Block all apps (eg. Facebook, SnapChat, Intagram, Twitter, etc.), as you see fit. 

Aside from being an awesome and easy to use app, it’s also FREE and if you know me, I like things even more when they don’t cost me extra money!

Get the OurPact App

You can download the OurPact parental control App by ParentsWare in the App Store for Free.

 

 Connect

You can connect with OurPact and stay up to date on new features or future apps by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Pass the Xanax please!

Since the arrival of Ellie last month, for some strange reason I have been on edge.
Things have become so bad that I am having a hard time sleeping.
If it wasn’t for things like my DVR, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter I would probably lose my mind.
Even on the night when I do make it into the bedroom and lay down to go to sleep I find myself constantly checking on Ellie.
Every little noise she makes while I am sleeping wakes me up.
Every time she spits up in her sleep, I am right at her side.
Every time she is quiet for an extended period of time, there I am making sure she is still breathing.
And….it’s not just Ellie that is doing this to me.
When I hear strange noises in the house I freak out.
I can’t have any blinds open after the Alex goes to work because I constantly feel like someone is watching me.
I have to check multiple times before I go to bed that all the doors and windows in the house are locked.

See….I am losing my shit.

Oh and when I do finally manage to gather my shit long enough to catch a few zzz’s I wake up over and over and over again either because I hear something or because I have some crazy, screwed up dream that jolts me awake.

Again, I admit it….I am losing my shit.

Over the last few days, things have become worse.
Friends of ours lost their daughter just shy of 37 weeks gestation.
Ellie was born just shy of 37 weeks gestation.
Their daughter didn’t make it, but ours did.
Of course, my heart is aching for them.
I have cried multiple times for them.
I have held Ellie closer, tighter and have had moments where I am afraid to put her down.
It has become so bad that I rarely allow Ellie to leave my sight.

I am at the point where I am so exhausted I don’t know what to do because no matter how hard I try I just can’t get a decent night’s sleep.

I guess it is time to see the doctor…..

Pass the Xanax please.

Best. Day. Ever.

Today while sitting around and Facebooking, I heard a rumor that Adam Richman was in town.
Not only was he in town but he was filming at the restaurant right up the road from our house!
Now, some of you may not know who the heck Adam Richman is.
If you are one of these people, I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.
In this house, Adam Richman and his shows Man v Food and Man v Food Nation are something we as a family enjoy watching on a regular basis.
I’ve been joking with the Alex for a few months now that if I were to ever leave him it would be for Adam Richman because I think they are A LOT alike!

Needless to say, me being me, I had to go see for myself.
I went and woke up the Alex, we hopped in the van and drove up the road to Kroll’s.
We went inside, ordered some food, ate, saw lots of people with video cameras and microphones, but no Adam in sight.
Boo. Hoo.
And then…..
we went outside.
And there he was.
Standing RIGHT. NEXT. TO. OUR. VAN.
So of course, we couldn’t leave since he was filming.
We were going to take a picture but were asked not to while the filming was taking place.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Once they started to move cameras we started to make our way towards the van and closer to OMG–ADAM RICHMAN!
As I got closer, the child size milk shake that I was balancing on top of Alexander’s leftovers started to fall.
Adam kindly came over and stood it back up for me and then…
HE FIST BUMPED MY KID AND BLEW IT UP!
I couldn’t believe it.
Then, Alexander looked at him and said MAN VERSUS FOOD!
It was a totally surreal moment!

Upon our return home I had to tweet about our awesome experience.

Minutes later my Tweetdeck lit up with these!

Followed by this Direct Message

Now I’m sure it was an assistant and not him that responded but that doesn’t matter because now, now….
My day, is complete!!

What Tweeting about a problem I was having did for me

Yesterday, if you were following along with my boring everyday life on Twitter, you know that I had the Libby home sick from school in addition to the terrorizing toddler Alexander.  When I am tending to one kid who is sick and one bursting with ooodles of energy, I try to find something to entrance the toddler with.

You know like shiny things.

Food.

TV.

On this particular day, I went for the TV.

He had been asking for over an hour if it was Hotdog time yet.

Hotdog time in our house is when Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is on.

He calls it hotdog because they do the hotdog dance at the end of the episode.

Anyways……

I turned on Disney and got all ready to watch the hotdog show with him

Out came Mickey and then…..

then my cable froze.

And then it played.

then it froze.

and played.

and froze.

So, I did what I know how to do best when I have something I need to complain about during the day and the only ears around to listen are that of children.

I tweeted.

My first tweet went like this:

Getting ready to open a can whoopass on @att uverse since our service keeps going in & out while toddler is trying to watch MMCH. Grrrrrr!

 

 

And then like magic Hotdog worked again.

For about 2 minutes.

And after a few more minutes, I tweeted again.

Damn u @att Had to switch to a DVD so I can make lunch. Tell me again y I pay so much for crappy service.

 

Apparently, when you tweet something like that…..you can get answers.

Not long after I sent that second tweet, I had a manager with the AT&T Customer Care Social Media Team reply to me asking for my account number and what was going on.
Shortly after that, I got a tweet from the official Twitter source for AT&T.

Then…..when I sat down to turn Ellen on after getting back from scooping Zack from school, our cable service was still all kinds of freaky.
And then, it was like AT&T knew that I was going to send out some kind of not so nice tweet and my phone rang.
It was an AT&T Customer Service Rep who heard we were having difficulty with our service and he could have a technician at our house TODAY to fix the problem.
He let me know someone would be over between 4p-9p to resolve the issue.
We hung up the phone at 3:31pm.
The AT&T Tech was here by 4:15pm.
He was gone before 5:00pm and we had everything working properly!

I was AMAZED with the great customer service I experienced.

I never had to call AT&T, sit on hold and schedule an appointment for a tech to come to the house and wait a few days.

Thank you AT&T for providing us with OUTSTANDING customer service today!

Our family truly appreciates it!