Google 70’s crocheted plant hangers. Check those babies out. I can’t make them. Not on your life and not on mine. Google dazzling, adorable baby sweaters. Not made by me. Google easily made by a six year old paper snowflakes. Nope. Not scissored by these fingers.

This being stated, I come to the annual conumdrum: the holiday. That quartet of angsts and chocolate marathons: Halloween then trip into Thanksgiving and oh yeah, gay and fah lah lah Christmas and sometimes even New Years. Those festive crowd pleasing eat me into a coma days.

Except its just me and the hubster. No festive crowds milling at our door or at our dining room table. No anxious oldsters clamoring for a ride over the ridge and through the mashed potatoes to our humble double wide.

So do what to make those days festive and fun and clamped into our memory boxes? That is one tall order. How many Scrabble games can be played? How much sitting around glued to the DVD player or the CD player do we want to do-si-do to?

I am trying to limit sugar intake and sugar munching and sugar ingesting. I am trying to also limit calories. Note the word trying as in trying not to shred my nerves as I shred my sanity. The hubster is very good at making butterscotch candy- the real deal, butter and honey and all boiled to a fine, chewy fizzle. And he is attempting to live past say, sixty-five. So…. I possibly will stretch the cumber band with another apple pie that has zero refined sugar in it but does feature white flour and shortening. Note to brain- again- food is not the end all for noting the passing of another Special Day.

This is where the toilet comes in. (No. Not bulemia.) The White Pony- maybe yours is an Appaloosa. Mine is white and boring. And needed. And aggravating when it does not work properly. We talked around the idea of activities. Things to do instead of cramming more carbs down our gullets on our upcoming Special Day. Buy a model off e-bay. Fine. Would either of us be able to figure out how to turn that flat item into a three D wonder? Without cursing the other’s hair purple? Probably not and then: do what with the item if we do get it into a recognizable shape? Yes. Do what?

This line of questioning led us back to the toilet. In a few years we probably will shut the door on this mobile. I hate that the day is coming but it is. If we plan to sell this shebang, we need to make it more normal, middle class, and well, up to snuff. This is where the toilet comes in. Hubby has replaced a toilet in another place so he can do it again. I am not that talented. He is. I guess we found our Christmas activity: the replacement of the hall bathroom’s toilet. Its practical, it costs about as much as the vintage Mouse Trap game on e-bay and it probably will snag in a buyer better than not having a working toilet. If nothing else, I can spend the day reading and rereading the How to Easily Install Your Toilet manual.

For Halloween? Maybe that day hubby will turn the power off entirely, get his handy screwdriver out and put the cover back on that fits over the dryer plug in. That will ensure that when that plug comes out again, and yes, there is an again, he won’t get a shock that will make him feel like he lives in the Munster’s mansion.

Thanksgiving I haven’t quite puzzled out. Maybe that will be another session of decluttering a closet. Or maybe we will go on a Scrabble marathon or even Yahtzee.

At least my list has a fatter girth than it had this morning. And we can always repeat tonight’s game. Hubby says: I need ibuprofen. Where do you keep it? I look on the bathroom vanity edge. No. Maybe its in the backpack? Maybe I hadn’t unpacked it from our last road trip. No again. He finally got down on his hands and knees and reached around under the vanity. Yes! Fred kitten had had a friendly tussle all on his own. He’d grabbed the rattly bottle of ibuprofen and chucked it under that vanity then off he’d headed to find something else to do. So…. we probably will have something else missing by Thanksgiving. I’m pretty sure Fred is working on that right this very moment.