(A)Live from Whateverland

People have started to check in and make sure I’m still alive, which means it’s definitely time for an update.  It’s comforting to know that if I die buried under the piles of crap stacked around my house, my body won’t go unnoticed for months.  Someone will miss me.

I’m alive, and this morning I arrived in Whateverland.  I think this is probably the earliest I’ve ever arrived.  If you’re not familiar with Whateverland, it’s more of a state of mind or acceptance rather than an actual place.  It’s the place where I stop stressing out and running around trying to make everything perfect or at least presentable, and sit down, pour myself a beverage, and say “whatever.”

This morning I dropped Norah off at preschool just as they were preparing for their holiday celebration.  When the teacher asked if I was staying I said that I had to go home and clean up because my mother’s arriving today.  She said, “Why are you worrying about cleaning?  It’s your mother, not your mother-in-law!”  Maybe she has a point.  What’s my mother going to do if the house is a mess when she gets here?  Fire me?  Tell everyone?  Write about it on her blog?

I did come home and do a few things, but there’s absolutely no way that I’m going to get everything *ready* the way I want it to be, so whatever.  I just went to BJs because someone had an accident on my featherbed (whatever) and I also had to buy new Christmas PJs for Adlani.  I had to let him wear his original new Christmas PJs to pajama day at school today because he had no decent pajamas to wear (whatever).  The kids’ rooms aren’t ship-shape (whatever), and my room isn’t ready to be occupied by Mom and Keith (whatever).  The presents aren’t wrapped (whatever), I haven’t done the grocery shopping (whatever), and I didn’t have time to hide the piles (whatever).  I haven’t printed and framed the annual photos (whatever), the Christmas cards will have to be Happy New Year cards (whatever), I didn’t ship out boxes to my 3 sets of remote peeps (sorry, but whatever), I still have a project that I really want to finish before Christmas (but if I don’t, whatever), and people are still emailing me about door hardware emergencies (sorry, I’m out of the office and I’ll answer your email when I get back from Whateverland).

On the bright side, I have to give kudos to Ben, who put up the Christmas lights and the tree, installed a new toilet (that’s a whole separate blog post), and spent 3 hours cleaning last night.  I got him a really nice present this year.  I hope he likes it, but if he doesn’t – whatever.

By the way, in a poll of 938 Americans, “whatever” was deemed to be the most annoying word used in English conversation (whatever).

Now where’s my beverage?