Reasons to be Cheerful: Merry Month of May #R2BC

 
I actually quite can't believe its May already, what on earth happened to April? Any how it's time for Michelle to have a break and my turn to be the host. In case you hadn't realised we have changed the day of the linkup to Saturday as with all our busy schedules our regular linkers voted for a change from Thursday. This may take some getting used to! 
Happy Star Wars Day and here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Phone
Last week I had a disaster and knocked my phone down the loo... Unfortunately it didn't survive the experience. I have now got a new to me replacement which is in much better nick than my old one so I am so happy! Let's just hope I have no more tech disasters...
2) Bathroom
When we moved in the budget for decorating ran out and the bathroom had to be done in the left overs from my bedroom. The off white paint which looks nice in my room made the bathroom look drab and dirty. So I decided that after 4 years it was time to finally give it a mini makeover. The new teal is so bright, cheerful and fresh:

2) Running

For one reason or another I just hadn't been out running. So whilst my first coat of paint was drying I headed out along the old canal for 5km in glorious weather:

I really need to make sure I get out more regularly as my mood is so much better when I've running!

3) Home and Away

Reasons to be Cheerful: Time #R2BC

This is Michelle's last week hosting as the linky comes back to me for October! I had better be super organised from next week. Let's hope I have as much time to be organised as this week... The advantage of being underemployed is that time has not been in short supply. So what have I had time to do this week that has made me smile:
1) Time with family and friends
This week I have spent more time with my local based family including a trip to Victoria and Abdul, tea out and a relaxed coffee. When things have been a bit bonkers this is so essential! Accidentally bumping into a friend when out and about is great reason to smile too.
2) Time to organise
The airing cupboard was out of control so I spent an entire day culling our bedding and towels and putting in back in an organised fashion. How long will it stay this tidy:

3) Time to finish fixing my iPhone

To get all the features of my phone working I had to get help to remove the LCD plate off the remains of the old screen:

Luckily once again my dad had time to come to the rescue and we successfully put the plate on the new screen and I now have a fully functioning phone with Home button and both cameras!

4) Time to appreciate my garden

I am very lucky to have been given some autumn flowering plants which are providing colour for me and food for insects:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Smiling Despite the Rain #R2BC

The lovely Jo is hosting again this week and she has such lovely reasons to be cheerful herself! As for me it could have been hard to still be smiling after a series of illnesses and injuries to all three of us but that's the joy of this blog hop it focusses on the positives. 

1) Beautiful mornings

Yes its been a monsoon mostly since October started but we have had some stunning frosty mornings. Looking out of my kitchen window to views like this starts my day with a smile:

2) Mended phone

I finally gave in (as my iPhone screen was so badly cracked it barely worked) and got my phone fixed this week. I had felt so awful not being able to text, take photos or answer the phone.. So I coughed up to get the screen replaced and its such a relief to have it back. It is on its last legs as the battery randomly discharges but at least the majority of the time I have a working mobile!

3) Student finance

After 3 months my finance is finally approved!! OK so its not reached my bank account yet but I know that the children and I won't be starving as I study! Just have to remember that I have to pay half of it back eventually..

4) On the run

You may have seen yesterday that I managed a run after a week off. Despite the rain it felt really good. Just hope I don't have to wait a week until the next one..

Have you got reasons to be cheerful to share?

How not to: change an iPhone case

My poor iPhone has taken a battering over its 18 months of life and this week finally got to the stage where the power button would no longer function. All it needed was new case so I popped on to Amazon and got one quite cheap. When it arrived today I checked out this video on how to disassemble your iPhone:




It looked pretty straightforward so I got myself a nice flat work area and set to with the tools that came with the new case. Taking everything apart was fairly simple although a few broken bits of the old cracked case came out to scare me.


So now I had a pile of bits of iPhone and lots and lots of screws. It was at this point that I jogged the surface with the screws on and mixed them all up... So now to put it all back together again - I tried to rewind bits of the video to do it backwards but it didn't seem to work very well for me...


Off to Twitter I went and the lovely Shaun (@actionjaxon666) gave me lots of advice and support and helped me source out a better reconstruction video:



Eventually I managed to get everything but the vibration module back in but one screw flew off and vanished and I must have used some wrong screw somewhere as the ones I had left didn't hold the case together properly! There was a nasty few minutes when it wouldn't turn back on and then I realised the battery was flat...


So I know have a working phone but bodged together. Tomorrow I'm going to hand it over to Shaun so that he can rectify what I have done wrong (hopefully)..


Next time I'm going to leave this kind of thing to the experts ;-) At least I have another addition to my occasional series on How Not To...

Monday review: Children's iPhone Apps

Sponsored post 

I was offered a chance to try out for free a couple of children's iPhone apps. The ones I asked to try out were My First JCB and Postman Pat's Special Delivery Service. Both of these are aimed at younger children so I let both my 4 and 7 year old test them out.

First up Postman Pat as the idea for him originated in Kendal before his debut 30 years ago. We had one little problem when we first started as my daughter's full name was too long for the name field! She has a 9 letter name and it only accepts 8... Once we got past this it was on to the main menu:

A useful feature is the sound mute button so the theme music isn't constantly playing. There are a variety of games each allowing a choice of Easy, Medium or Hard. The instructions are included before you start but on the iPhone the writing was quite small and my 7 year old found it hard to read. 

All the games are pretty simple to operate once an adult has given the first instruction. This would probably keep a child entertained happily for quite sometime. It does need quite a firm touch to ensure that the games work. The more the children complete the more stickers they get for the central puzzle game so it encourages them to do more.

Then we tried My 1st JCB as an alternative. This again included a range of games for the children to choose from:

Unfortunately I couldn't find out where to turn the sound off on these games! They are all pretty simple and the instructions are available from a ? icon in each one. The text on these was larger than in the Postman Pat one. As there was no way of saving progress there isn't the same incentive to keep going back into it. 

My 7 year old prefers the Postman Pat games and my 4 year old hasn't really shown too much interest in going back to play them again.

Saturday Review: Peppa Pig iPhone App

I was given a free copy of the new Peppa Pig iPhone App Polly Parrot to try out and review on my blog. The Peppa Pig Polly Parrot is normally available for £1.79 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore. All the images used in this review are from the official press release.

The application has 4 different activities included in it:

1. Talking Parrot - the player has to make Polly say silly phrases
2. Feed Parrot - feed the right number of crackers that Polly asks for. There are 2 levels either simple one colour or a harder 2 colour game.
3. Where's Polly - a sort of hide and seek game where the player has to look for the parrot in various rooms at Peppa's house
4. Sticker Book - when the player has earned stickers in other games they can use them on a variety of scenes.

We had a few crashes when first using the application especially when my 7 year old played it - her 4 year old brother seemed to have less technical issues.