Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!
I was recently asked to review the “House of Twits” app for iPad and iPhone. As Lily is really into Roald Dahl at the moment, I jumped at the chance. Having read the BFG at school, Lily and I read together; James and the Giant Peach, Danny the Champion of the World and we are currently reading Matilda. We own the complete collection so I imagine we’ll be making our way through them all.
This week, I discovered a new app that I had never heard of before. Already I’ve used it four times and I have a feeling it will get a lot more use! Have you ever heard of Parcel Genie? It’s available in the app store for free and once you load it up, the basic concept is sending little gifts to your friends and loved ones.
First you pick the gift you want to send. There is a really large choice of gifts, most around £3-4 but ranging up to about £8-9. All prices include the postage too, so what you see is the price you actually pay. Add your friends mobile number and a personalised message if you want to, then move on to the payment. You can pay via Paypal or Debit and Credit card and it literally takes just a minute to do.
Next your friend will get a text message. This part can be a bit confusing because it looks like the text came from you, but hopefully your friend can figure it out! Your friend will then need to reply with their delivery address and Parcel Genie do the rest.
As I mentioned, I’ve used the app four times so far and from my experience of it, the gift is usually dispatched the very same day, if its done early enough I assume, and arrive the day after that. My mum, my partner and my best friend Amy, all got theirs the day after I ordered them.
As you can see, all the boxes are packaged really beautifully and they look like a lovely gift when they arrive. Of the three gifts I’ve seen so far, all fit through the letter box which is also a bonus and will save anyone a trip to the Post Office if they’re not in when the post arrives!
On top of all this, the app offers a shake function where you can win a discount on certain days. It also offers a tracking system, a reward card etc. I honestly cannot say enough good things about this app and like I said, I’m sure I will be using it a lot in the future.
However, you may be wondering what you will do if you don’t own a smartphone and can’t download the app! Well good news. Parcel Genie have just launched a new text website, that enables you to have many of the same features, without needing the app.
The site works almost exactly the same as the app. You go to the website, pick out a gift and then text Parcel Genie with what you want and who you’re sending it to. They will confirm the address with your friend and send out the gift. At the moment there isn’t as much choice on the website as there is on the app but its still a great idea. Send a little gift, on the go, in only moments! And even better. First time users of the website/text service will get a 50% discount too. What more reason do you need to give it a go?
I’m going to admit something really awful now. I don’t really have time to watch the news. For the most part, it’s just half an hour (or more) or miserable stories and realistically I don’t have that much time to waste feeling miserable. Sure, there are good things in the new sometimes, but not very often. While I don’t tend to sit down and watch the news though, that’s not to say I don’t keep up with it. As a blogger and full-time user of the internet, I often see what’s going on – either on someone else’s blog, my Facebook feed or Twitter. However when I was asked to review “Bullet News” app, I figured it might be exactly what I was looking for – and really it is.
Bullet News is available on both Apple or Android and can be downloaded for free. So far the ratings are looking pretty good for it, so I was happy to give it a go too. Setting it up is really simple, you either login in or just press start. You’re given all the usual options for push notifications and the news you might be interested in. I allowed push notifications as I figured it was a good way to keep up to date and I also picked UK, World and Entertainment as my choices for specific news.
Though I’ve only been using the app since last Wednesday, I have to admit I’ve already grown quite addicted to it. Not only does the main news push to my phone front screen so I’m aware of anything breaking, the app itself shows news in Bullet points and short amounts (hence the name of the app I imagine).
For those of you who like a little more news than this, there are options to read more. However this is perfect for me as I can just glance at a headline and see if it’s something I’m interested, click to read more and get these nice bullet points that break down the story for me. You can also flip between the tabs of top news and the others you’ve selected (for me that’s UK, World and Entertainment) making it easy to see what you want.
For people like my partner, who have the BBC app, BuzzFeed and god knows what else, not to mention spend hours online every day reading and watching the news, it might not be the right thing for you. However for me, it’s exactly what I need. A quick bite of news, every now and again, especially the breaking news pushed to my screen. If you think you’re like me then definitely give it a try, like I said it’s free to download so you’ve got nothing to lose.
Yep, that’s right! No more days till holiday! In fact, we’re on holiday right now. Not technically in Florida, but away from home at least!
This morning we set off from home, just before 10am. We headed to my mum’s, where we would swap all of our stuff over to her car and then head off down to London. Since I was up till 2am last night, sewing Megan’s final dress, I was exhausted and actually managed to sleep for some of the journey. We stopped not long after midday though, for the toilet and to eat lunch. After that we headed to a car park where we’d parked once before (for LFCC) and headed into London on the tube. We made our way to Leicester Square where there was a “pop-up” Cinderella Exhibition, that I’d booked us tickets for.
Though we did have to queue for about 20 minutes, in almost rain, we got inside fairly easily and wandered around the exhibit. It was relatively simple but lovely nonetheless. We bought a souvenir programme and were given some Cinderella postcards for free. I took loads of pictures and it was so nice to see the props and costumes up close. The highlight was most definitely walking into the side of a pumpkin and coming out of a carriage! All in all, the Exhibition took about half an hour to go round but I’m really glad we took the extra time to do so.
After Cinderella, we took a walk to Covent Garden and the Disney Store but sadly it was closed due to an underground fire nearby. Instead we took a wander around nearby, doing some shopping using the money off vouchers we’d found at www.voucherbin.co.uk. When it got near to dinner time, we caught the tube to ASK Italian, where we enjoyed a lovely dinner, using up some ASK vouchers I’d gotten from Tesco ages ago.
Finally we headed back to the car and then drove to the Travelodge we were staying at. That’s where I’m typing this from, winding down and getting ready to call it a night. Tomorrow we head off to the airport and fly away to Florida – I can’t wait. My scheduled posts begin tomorrow too, but I’ll hopefully find time to check in now and again. I’ve left Saturday, Sunday and Monday free for impromptu posts!
Today is the last of my Countdown posts, all the way from 120 where we started to day 1 (yesterday). I skipped doing it on Sunday as there were only 2 more days left after that and instead have combined all 9 days into this post.
Monday (9) – March 23rd – Make or Draw Disney
Tuesday (8) – March 24th – Play a Disney game
Wednesday (8) – March 25th – Watch Hercules
Thursday (6) – March 26th – Read Disney
Friday (5) – March 27th – Dress Up Disney
Saturday (4) – March 28th – Watch a random Disney movie – Cinderella (motion picture)
Sunday (3) – March 29th – Make Disney food
Monday (2) – March 30th – Read Disney
Tuesday (1) – March 31th – Make or Draw Disney
On Monday the girls had a long day and didn’t have time to make or draw (they both had homework and a class to prepare). Instead I took over the task as I’d been making loads of Disney clothes anyway. I completed my favourite dress to date which is the Queen of Hearts one for Lily. On Tuesday it was play a disney game and both girls got this done but not with Tsum Tsum for a change. I think Megan played on Disney Infinity while Lily was on Frozen Theater. Wednesday was watch Hercules but we actually completely forgot because we were planning a class about Harry Potter for Lily to teach the following day. Instead we caught up on Thursday, watching Hercules AND reading chapters 7 & 8 of the Never Girls book. Friday was dress up Disney and Lily was feeling too ill to dress up so Megan just wore her dress that I’d completed that day. I was pretty pleased with her Ariel mermaid dress too. On Saturday we were set to watch a random movie and luckily I’d booked tickets for the new Cinderella at the cinema. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, as well as the Frozen Fever short. On Sunday the girls headed off to their dad’s and we just didn’t have time to make any Disney food – or the inclination to be honest. For the first time ever we just skipped it completely but I can assure you that none of us had a Disney shortage. On Monday it was read Disney and we finally finished off book 4 of the Never Girls. I’m looking forward to purchasing and reading some more when we get home. Tuesday was the last one and it was Make or Draw Disney. Megan persuaded me into making her another dress so we classed that as our task. We also watched Pocahontas though!
Monday (44) – Feb 16th – Make or Draw Disney
Tuesday (43) – Feb 17th – Play a Disney game
Wednesday (42) – Feb 18th – Dress up Disney
Thursday (41) – Feb 19th – Paint Merida peg-doll
Friday (40) – Feb 20th – Watch random Disney movie – Belle’s Magical World
Saturday (39) – Feb 21st – Make Disney inspired food
Sunday (38) – Feb 22nd – Watch Monsters Inc.
On Monday the girls were with their dad as they’d stopped over Sunday night and were doing so again on Monday night. They both drew something Disney and then sent pictures of it back for me to put on Instagram. On Tuesday I picked them up and they both played Disney Infinity in the car on the way home, though I’m sure they both played on Tsum Tsum later in the day as well. On Wednesday, Amy and Olivia were with us and so all three girls dressed up. Lily and Liv were both Sofia, while Megan went for Elsa in her Coronation outfit. On Thursday we painted Merida the pegdoll, now giving us quite a good collection of peg dolls. We also caught up on Hunchback of Notre Dame from the week before, as we’d not managed to squeeze it in until then. On Friday we had to watch a random movie and the girls and I picked Beauty and the Beast’s – Belle’s Magical World as none of us had seen it before. On Saturday we were going out for lunch so we baked cupcakes in the morning and decorated them in the evening. We made Princess carriages which was basically a packet mix I’d picked up from Tesco and honestly they didn’t look much like carriages! Finally on Sunday we watched Monsters Inc on dvd. This was meant to follow on from watching Monsters University a couple of weeks ago but unfortunately we didn’t actually do that and had watched Bolt instead. Perhaps we’ll have time to catch Monsters University before we go anyway!