My Guilty Pleasure

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.

After all, who has time for games during the week?

Tag!

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.

1. At 32 years of age, I am still afraid of the dark.
2. 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!)
3. 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, perhaps - or maybe I just wanted to fit in?). As a result, I cannot read or write Spanish fluently. Sometimes, it seeps in every now and then...but most of the time, Nada. (Ha! See? Nada means "nothing" in Spanish).
4. I took two years of Spanish in high school to fulfill a foreign language requirement. I still cannot speak Spanish (see #3).
5. I, too, have moved a lot in my life; so much in fact, I was convinced that my step-dad was involved in something where he had to hide. I have lived in CA (where I was born), AZ, IN, NC, VA, FL and finally, GA. I've not only moved state-wide, but city-wide, as well. In fact, in the first 7 years of my marriage, I had moved ten times. And no, The Man Beast is not in the military (neither am I, for that matter).
6. When I first got married, Man Beast did all the cooking because I could not cook. He remarked the other day, "Haven't you noticed that I haven't been cooking as much?" As a matter of fact, I had. I just figured it was because he did that little thing called provide for his family by working 12 hours a day. Who knew that it was because of my improvement in cooking that he wasn't cooking as much?
7. The term, Man Beast, is not my own. I owe it all to my dear friend, Taxi, who coined the phrase after she met my husband. It is to her that I give all props, high fives, back pats and belly rubs. Thank you, dear friend, for coining such a bodacious phrase.

I now tag the following friends:

• Gator Linda over at Chicken Soup for the Blogger's Soul
• Shellbell over at My Life According to Me
• Ronnica over at Tale of a Kansas Girl
• Julie over at Bipolar Muslimah
• Susan over at Raisin Toast
• Birdy over at Birdy's Blog
• Chocolatechick over at Chocolatechick
  

Putting the 80s to rest,

Enjoy your Sunday

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

Open Seasame

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?

Until next time...

A Saturday Evening Post

(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. You know - to let you know that you really aren't alone (and no, as your friends, they really aren't just saying that).

I'll give it some serious thought.

I'll leave you with this blog. I don't promise that there is nothing offensive on the blog...but it sure is funny - if I baked more, I'm sure I could claim some of these train wrecks myself!

Until next time...

It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day, Savvy?

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.

Pray Without Ceasing

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, well, spare. I didn't have any, so I went sans coffee that morning.

About ten minutes after I got to schoo, the headache started coming on full force. Then the hormones kicked in and I started feeling ugly.

Now, under normal circumstances, if you feel ugly, you can retreat for awhile or just not talk to anyone. Considering I work with four kids, very closely, who don't understand certain concepts - like headache, sick, or snarky - feeling ugly is just not an option.

Well, let's get real. It's not like we can turn these hormones off. And if we could, I suspect many of us wouldn't have them at all. (Well, we need them...but none of us need the side affects of these hormones when they go wonky, right girls?)

So, Big Man on Campus needed to go to the bathroom. He's prompt dependent, so I had to go with him. While I was waiting in the corner, I just prayed: "Lord, take this ugliness away from me."

Twenty minutes later, BMOC and I were heading back to the lunch room and I felt remarkably better!

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we are instructed to pray without ceasing. In the simplest of terms - don't stop praying or pray without stopping. Pray all the time.

I'm sure many of you might have rolled your eyes when I told the above story. Our God is so great, to pray for something so trivial is blasphemous!

Honey, in the grand scheme of things, our whole life is trivial. But our Great Creator is loving and He cares about each and every one of our trivial things. Even my crazy hormones.

After all, it was My Father who gave me the job at the school, shouldn't it be Him that I turn to when I need help?

I challenged my Sunday school students this past Sunday to take God out of the box and let Him walk with them the whole week through everything - tests, reports, sports, homework, and chores.

Won't you do the same?

Until next time...

I Kind Of Got Side-Tracked

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 the filing cabinet - including the certificates.

And...are you sitting down? Since there were small scraps of paper on the floor where I was working, I got up and vacuumed!

Will someone please check for a temperature?

Until next time...

A Mid-Week Post?!?

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 done and you'll be so glad you did it.

It really is so nice to come home to a picked up house. My goal is to keep it this way for the week so that Saturday morning, I can clean out my fridge before I go shopping as well as sweep, mop, vacuum and dust. (Dusting is actually Baby Gurl's job...so since I have to stay on her to do the living room, I stay on top of doing the rest of the house.)

Maybe, just maybe, we'll get to the library this weekend with enough time to actually peruse all that the library has to offer instead of running through the doors at the last minute yelling, "Don't shut down the computers! Here are our books!"

I'll let you know if I'm successful.

First Day of School

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.

A promise is a promise

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.