This Side of Perfect

Guilty Pleasures. Everybody has one. A year ago, I revealed that my guilty pleasure was South Park. You'll be glad to know I've moved on to bigger and better things:









Yes, I confess: I like video games. My favorite currently is Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. My band name is The Ivanators. Lame, I know. *sigh* I just cannot help myself. For those who are not aware, Guitar Hero is a game where you play a guitar as notes scroll down the screen.

Here is my other guilty pleasure:





Rock Band - very similar to Guitar Hero except that instead of just Mom playing, she pulls in the Man Beast (drums), The Boy (vocals) and Baby Gurl (bass). Quality family time.

Why would someone like me play games like these?

Because everyone wants to be a rock star!

Well, I want to pretend that I'm a rock star (without the booze and the wild life). I just like to belt out some B-52s, some Bon Jovi or some Lenard Skinnard.

Just for awhile...just for a bit. And usually, just on the weekends.

Aft…

I've been tagged! How totally cool is that? (Hello, my name is Iva and I'm a child of the 80s who apparently has never left!)

I have been tagged by Hi-D over at Bugs, Boys and Burritos. I've only been tagged on other time, I believe (Will I repeat myself? Probably). What's so great about being tagged this time is that Hi-D is from a blog that I stumbled on in my Blog Bumblings. Her blog is wonderful - I highly recommend you check it out.

At 32 years of age, I am still afraid of the dark.I am an all-or-nothing kind of person. Either I do what needs to be done or don't do it at all. (I'm working on this - in fact, that's what Horizontal Yo-Yo is all about!)I was held back a grade in early elementary because I couldn't read or write English. I had moved to Mexico with my family in kindergarten and became fluent in Spanish. When I came back to the States, I got it in my head that since I was in America, I needed to speak English (an adult told me, pe…

Here's a neat video. Since it's on a blog, I can't embed it, but just click on the link and watch.

Happy Sunday, y'all!

http://www.mychurch.org/blog/30635/coolest-video-ever

Good morning, Dear Friends.

What are you doing this morning? Oh, what's that you say - you're not even up yet? I'm sorry. Is it too early for you?

It's too early for me.

But yet, here I am on the computer before 7 o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday, with nothing special to do.

Why oh why am I up?

The Man Beast of course. He was looking for clothes. And since I'm on a silly thing called a schedule, if I wake up around 6:30, I'm up around 6:30.

I figured since I was up, I'd take advantage of a rare, cool Georgia morning. I've opened up my front and kitchen door and I hear birds chirping as a cool breeze wafts through my house.

It's lovely.

Unfortunately, it's too lovely. The Boy and Baby Gurl have woken up before 7 o'clock as well.

Need I remind you that we have nothing special planned today? We could be in bed for another hour at least, getting our beauty sleep. Instead, we're wide awake.

I wonder if today will be a productive day?

U…

(Is that considered a copyright infringement?)

Happy Saturday, y'all! I hope everyone had a great day.

I spent my day cleaning (of course). I actually got around to cleaning out my refrigerator today. It hasn't been done for a couple of weeks. There was nothing growing in it...but there were little drippings here and there.

I took the kids and the Boy's Friend to the park today. It was nice! It wasn't quite cool enough to open up the house, but it was nice. I didn't check the temperature, but I'm sure it didn't get any hotter than 85 today. Maybe it was because the humidity was low?

I took a video of my kids with my digital camera. I'm contemplating whether I should air my dirty laundry or not. After all, with the Back to School slide show, my crew looks calm and even tempered. I'd hate to destroy your illusions. But, on the other hand, it might just make you feel better, just like Saturday Mom Confessions makes me, as a mom, feel better. …

I cannot believe I almost missed it! National Talk Like a Pirate Day is probably one of the coolest days in the world and there's only 3 hours and 10 minutes left! Arrrg! I'm so sorry, Matey.

This is a work-related post. And technically, it should be over at LATI, but being that it's more personal in nature, I think it belongs here.

Every woman reading this knows that there is a certain week out of the month that we are not ourselves. I suspect that we never stop entertaining this certain week as the week we become the worse possible versions of ourselves, which is really quite unfortunate. It leaves us with two options - deal with it and make everyone around us happy or let everyone else deal with it while we remain miserable.

Yesterday was such a day for me. I didn't wake up ugly. I woke up just fine. When I went to take my mug of coffee to work, I discovered that I had left it at work. I didn't sweat it too much, figuring I could grab a cup of coffee in the office. Everyone else does it.

Apparently I'm not everyone else. I need to go to the Media Center and the coffee in there is not free. It's run on donations. Whatever spare change you can,…

Don't you hate it when that happens?

I've talked about getting side tracked in the past, but I'm happy to report that this time, my getting side tracked wasn't all that bad.

After going back to town to fill up the gas tank (just in case), I came home to clean off the dining room table. (The house is still clean - I promise - the dining room table was cluttered from last night's PTA paperwork. We didn't get home until late and I didn't feel like dealing). I go to put up my marriage license and the kids' birth certificates (I had pulled them out of the file to fill out some new-hire paperwork) and open up the filing cabinet to find a mess.

I immediately pull all the files out and start sorting through them.

I find pictures of the kids two years ago. I find a family picture taken three years ago. I find old speech therapy paperwork for Baby Gurl from five years ago! It is a total memory lane thing.

An hour later, I'm putting much smaller files into th…

Yes, believe it or not dear readers, I am doing a mid-week post on Yo-Yo. I'm doing it because I have time to do it.

Would you believe that my house is as clean now as it was on Saturday after I spent four hours cleaning it? It is. It's really kind of weird how it happened, too.

I just did it - I stayed on top of things.

Last night, while the Boy was doing long division with decimals at 10 o'clock last night, I was folding and putting away that day's clothes.

Now, to some of my readers who keep immaculate houses or at least keep up on their chores, this is a big "Duh!" from you, I know. But for those who are like me and never seem to be able to keep anything clean for two seconds, I will show you how.

Just do it.

Don't self-talk yourself out of it by saying you're too tired. (I know you do because you're like me and I do.) Just get up and do it and you'll find that it doesn't take as long as you thought and when you're done, you're …

I realize the irony that it is actually going on the sixth week of school and I'm just getting First Day of School photos uploaded. Look at it this way - at least it's the current year. I'm doing better.

I come bearing pictures! Lots of pictures! I've included a slide show of Baby Gurl's 7th birthday...day. (It really wasn't a party. I should have gotten pictures at Ryan's and Claire's, but I didn't...)

Enjoy.