Help.......please?

What a nightmare.

No, not anything life threatening.

Just computer related.

I knew for awhile I needed to monitor the use of the computers in our house. Not because I thought anyone was doing anything bad-just not doing anything productive. I can't tell you how many times a certain young woman or two has been "facebooking" or down loading I-tunes when her jobs were not done, bed not made, breakfast not eaten, self not dressed etc.

And sometimes my one hour limit was pushed to the max-like FOUR or FIVE hours a day.

And some of the crap we avoid by NOT having TV found it's way into our home via Hulu and You-tube.

So, I told James I was going to do it-I was going to set up passwords and he agreed.

Then I didn't do it.

So back up to Tuesday night? Or was it Wednesday. Technically it was 2:20 in the morning so who knows? It's a blur. But a certain daughter was having a sleep over with another young lady that lives here off and on and I sat up from a deep sleep with a sense of something wrong and noticed the downstairs light on. Nothing out of the ordinary there-it's the light I leave on for the kids if I go to bed before they do-they often leave it on. But, as I was stumbling down the stairs to turn it off I noticed a crack of light illuminating under the door of this certain daughters room. I opened it to discover her and her friend TEXTING!!! (Did I mention 2:20AM!!) I was livid. I took the cell phone. Which immediately began vibrating with a message from some boy named Jake. (I might have said "Give me that damn cell phone." as I ripped it out of said daughters hands, but it was so very late so I can't be completely sure. Certainly swearing was justified at this time of night? Right?)

I went to bed. I laid their stewing. Thinking how stupid I must be. I have friends that make their kids dock their cell phones in their rooms at ten pm. I have friends that go through their children's text history. I have friends that check on their kids emails. I don't do any of that. I figure it's a privacy issue and I trust my kids. But I felt like such the fool. TEXTING BOYS AT TWO AM!!!

So I resolved to be a more diligent if not un-fun and controlling by not only taking the cell phone of daughter in question each night but now I was MAD and I was going to password protect the computers.

She will be sorry. She will rue the day she pushed me this far!

I set up passwords for both the Mac and the PC. (Both the same password mind you-I knew I would struggle between the two remembering which was which.) Both passwords worked beautifully. Until the next day when I went to login on to the Mac and it wouldn't accept my password. Nor the original administrator password. I was able to google on the PC-that readily accepted my password-and trouble shoot the Mac back to compliance. (Except now I keep getting these prompts for some sort of key chain password and none of the three passwords I have ever created and used on the Mac will suffice. Yet it continues to let me send and receive mail and use my other applications. Go figure?)

But tonight upon attempting to log into the PC the password I created and have used for the past 24+ hours is incorrect. What the heck? Nothing I do can get me past the login screen. I goggled-this time from the Mac-and tried the administrative override but the memorized password-that I didn't even type in is not being accepted.

Help!

Anyone a computer geek out there? Suggestions? (Besides using a hammer?)

Of course this is all my daughters fault. Wouldn't you agree?

Her only response is, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have put passwords on the computers?"

Grrr......