Whatever

A good friend has a decorative sign over her fireplace that states simply "whatever"...and that single word has been my mental mantra for the last six months as we've observed our house being taken apart and rebuilt into the home of our dreams. Our electrician commented one day that we were the most relaxed home owners that he's ever met and I reminded him that we've seen enough fresh hell working healthcare in the last 35 years that an occasional gas leak or watery basement doesn't really trigger the flight-or fight response anymore. Besides, we had a pretty good idea what we were getting into...we've done this a couple times before...and renovating has become kind of a sport at our house.

Living without a roof or heat required that I let go of my high housekeeping standards during the reno and now I find myself lacking the motivation to revive my domestic type A mojo. So I confess that after years of trying to feed the kids tasty nutritious foods I've discovered that they are infinitely happier with any meal that comes out of a box or can and can be prepared in less than 8 minutes. Serve them crispy sesame chicken with a side of scalloped potatoes and we're into a 90 minute battle to coax calories into them. There's a new chef at our house and his name is Boyardee. Whatever.

Lil's officially registered at English public school next year. I'd rather she speak English well and get A's in school than speak French and Catholic and barely scrape by. Her new school board teaches Mandarin classes on the weekend but she doesn't want to learn Mandarin. She wants to be on the competitive swim team, play soccer, ride her bike and hang from things. Lil is a jock. Whatever.

Grace competes with the puppy in naughtiness. She has a high pitched scream that sends the dogs under the blankets and us in search of ear protection. Luckily we have a large home with excellent sound proofing now and have assigned her bedroom the screaming room when she feels the need to express herself in such a manner. Occasionally she stands naked in her 2 story bedroom window to draw attention to her plight. We figure that she will grow out of this phase just as Lil becomes pre-menstrual. We've elected to postpone retirement indefinitely. Whatever.

Tony recently celebrated his 58th birthday and for the first time I couldn't really come up with a gift that would really surprise him...so I gave him my blessing to golf twice a week. No whining. Best present he's ever had...other than the ipad...but that's a whole-nother story. We bought each other a new video camera for our 21st wedding anniversary so we could take some video of the kids and pups in action and once we figure out how to work it we'll post some of the crazy on the blog. When we're ancient and sitting in our rest home we can look back at our action packed lives through rose coloured bifocals.

Bella and Sophie play themselves into a sound sleep every night. It took Bella quite a while to get over losing Lucy and she wasn't thrilled with the prospect of playing Mom to devil dog but they seemed to have arrived at a truce and they do entertain us with their antics. The house is littered with dog toys but the two of them make sure that the floor is cleaned up after each meal saving me from washing the floor every day. Sophie sleeps on the bed, eats shoes and tries to bite the pants off of anyone passing by but she's cute and fun and as long as we don't invite anybody over, nobody files suit. Whatever.

So as you can see, with the exception of Goose, we all survived our reno adventure and may actually be cured of the reno bug. For now my efforts are directed towards maintaining and decorating our new digs in a way that is consistent with my new found laziness. As much as I love gardening, I have found that weeding the rows in my vegetable garden with a weed wacker is just as effective and quite a lot faster that my previous hand weeding efforts. And my birthday gift of a chain saw has come in to very good use in trimming trees, hedges and anything else that annoys me. I've invested in a new kitchen table and chairs constructed of chrome and plastic which can be hosed down when needed and there is new fabric to cover the sofa that will endure 220 thousand double rubs...an assault that even the puppy could likely not deliver. Martha Stewart would be so disappointed....whatever.