In no particular order:

1. Seat belts on airplanes. Someone goes through, I swear, and shortens them all up before we get on board. I always feel an urgency to hide how far out I have to extend the thing to get it around me. 

2. Finding a moldy potato in the middle of a 10-pound bag.

3. Weeds. Particularly the pernicious ones that get right in among the roots of other plants.

4. Having to decide what to fix for dinner every single night. I don't mind the cooking. I just hate the deciding.

5. Fatigue.

6. Getting sucked in to a TV show for an hour and at the end of the hour thinking, "Man, that was a waste of time."

7. Burning the roof of my mouth because I'm too hungry to wait for my pizza to cool. And then having that little flap of damaged skin hanging there right behind my front teeth for several days afterward.

8. Waking up from a nightmare feeling more exhausted from the trauma of the dream than I was feeling  when I fell into bed exhausted from the trauma of the day.

9. Worries that never quite shake themselves loose from my subconscious, even when I know there's nothing I can do about them.

10. Feeling hungry when I know darn well I've consumed enough calories to fill me up and my continued "need" to eat is purely emotional.

What's on YOUR list?

So a couple of weeks ago, I was over at the ward with my husband, who was being set apart for new calling, and as I was leaving I heard the bishopric saying to each other, "Let's ask HER. Maybe she'd have a good idea." So they called me over, conspiratorial grins on their faces, and said, "We're thinking of getting the mothers a TOMATO plant this year for Mother's Day. What do you think of that?"

It may have been wrong of me to presume to speak for all the women in my ward, but I told them I thought it was a not-so-good plan. For one thing, now you have automatically expected every woman in the ward (many of whom live in the large apartment complex in our neighborhood) to replant her Mother's Day gift. At least with a flower you can enjoy the beauty in your home for a couple of weeks before you chuck it. A tomato plant imposes either automatic work (put it in your garden now) or automatic guilt (let it wither and die, or save time and just euthanize it on the spot).

"Well, what would YOU buy, then?" the men asked.

Such an easy question. The best Mother's Day premium I had ever gotten, I told them, was when I visited a ward in Seattle and the bishopric just stood at the back of the chapel after sacrament meeting and dealt out large Cadbury bars to the women. No awkward standing in the pew waiting for the young men and young women to figure out you hadn't gotten your plant yet. No juggling the potful of dirt through the remainder of the meetings. No lingering guilt over what to do with the thing once you got it home.

The bishop took the hint, procured several large boxes of Caramello bars, and passed them out in Relief Society, which he taught and which all the women got to attend together because the men took over their positions for the last hour of church. He even made it clear that he was doling them out in plenty of time so the women wouldn't have to share with their kids. He shook each woman's hand individually and thanked her as he handed her the chocolate. It was genius. (The only thing I might have suggested he do differently is maybe have a nice basket or bowl or something instead of just ripping open the boxes at the front of the room and scooping out the bars.) He left us the last 10 minutes of Relief Society to chat and nibble.

Then I went home and crawled into bed for a nap so the kids could bring me lunch in bed, since 9:00 church had precluded the possibility of breakfast in bed on any level. I'd already bought myself a present, so that was all taken care of.

All in all, it was a really good day. Hope yours was, too.

I think I may be losing my mind.

And it's not from big problems. It's from the accumulated effect of a lot of little things going drip, drip, drip on my psyche.

For example, we recently drove down to Springville, Utah, about 40 miles from our house, to see our son and daughter-in-law and their baby in their new apartment, to which they have just moved from Virginia (significantly farther than 40 miles from our house). It's not much of a drive at all. But we did it in my car, which almost never has anyone in the passenger's seat, and discovered that the visor on the passenger's side is broken and will not stay up.

Big deal. Except that I am a tall woman, and if I'm sitting up straight and the visor is all the way down, I can see only about six inches of road slipping past in front of me. This is surprisingly annoying. I have a few choices, and believe me, I employed them all in the hour and a half we spent in the car that evening. I can just sit there and bear it. The challenge with that is that there is a mirror on the back of that visor, and if I just sit there I am consigned to stare at myself in that mirror, which is a hideous experience for me. I find myself noticing all the flaws in my teeth, the hairs on my chin, the unevenness of my complexion. I do not hold up well under this kind of scrutiny.

Alternatively, I can hold the visor up, which I did with one finger for a good portion of the trip. Very wearing. I'm sure this is not good for my carpel tunnels or whatever part of your hand it is that doesn't like to be in one position for very long.

I try to look out the side window, but it impedes conversation and makes me dizzy. I can try to doze off, but for some reason that just isn't working. I am stir crazy by the time we get home.

The next day, a couple of my colleagues from the next floor up show up in my office. They come in and sit down, we exchange a few pleasantries, and finally I say, "So what can I do for you?"

"We don't know," they say. "You called the meeting."

I did. That's very true. And I didn't remember having called the meeting EVEN WHEN MY COLLEAGUES SHOWED UP FOR IT. You'd think their arrival in my office would have triggered something, wouldn't you?

I am so far behind at work that when I get home at night all I want to do is curl up in fetal position and watch old Gilmore Girl episodes that I got from Netflix. And eat chocolate chips. Every pot in my house is dirty. The dishes are okay because they go in the dishwasher, but I always wash the pots by hand because they make the glasses too dirty when I run them in the dishwasher. Dinner is going to have to be something made in the microwave tomorrow because I can't seem to bring myself to wash the cookware.

I made 15 phone calls to try to find a substitute for my Gospel Doctrine class on Sunday because I'm going to be at Time Out in Edmonton. I have known for six months that I would be in Time Out in Edmonton this week. Why did I not get a substitute earlier? Refer to previous paragraph. Fetal position, reruns, chocolate chips.

What could be wrong with me? I'm totally blaming menopause.

They are jackhammering outside my window this week.

The construction of downtown Salt Lake proceeds apace, and at this time they are tearing out the old concrete footings of a former parking garage so that they can pour NEW footings or a new ramp or something for the upcoming new parking garage that I hope to get some use out of before I retire from this place. I have been relatively resigned to life in the construction zone, though I have to remind myself repeatedly that there are workmen right across the breezeway now, and although they are not technically in my building they can still see me through the window and I ought to think twice about yanking up my skirt to adjust my slip before important meetings. I'm just sayin.

But this newest assault to the eardrums may be the straw that breaks this camel's back. I feel sad for the books I'm working on currently, because my concentration is about as shattered as those concrete footings. Worse, the banging is intermittent, so just when you think maybe they've packed up the equipment and moved on to something else, it starts up again.

Time to consider telecommuting again, I think.

So we're coming home from Time Out for Women in Orlando on a 7:10 flight. That's 7:10 A.M. Which is 5:10 A.M. on my body clock, which means we're meeting in the lobby of the hotel at 3:15 A.M. my time to catch the ride to the airport. I didn't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a stretch all night for fear I wouldn't be able to get up in time. So I'm pretty hashed.

And it is MOBBED at the airport. I simply can't believe this many people are flying at this hour of the morning, but it must be spring break for a lot of people and Orlando IS the fun capital of the nation, after all. Or at least it was for the 1,250 high school students who were staying in our same hotel (and no, I did not make that number up and it is no exaggeration; there was some conference going on).

Anyway, we're on our way home now, and we have worked through security and are getting on the plane when I get pulled out of the line for a "random bag check." They just want to look in my shoulder bag.

I have many significant and impressive things in my shoulder bag. I have a manuscript I'm proofreading, complete with red pen; a book I'm reading for our book group; a Sudoku book; my travel-size clutch purse. But the security guard doesn't see any of that. He goes straight for the main pocket. And this is what he finds:

1 box (half-gone) Triscuits Thin Crisps

1 large Fuji apple

3 packets Jack Link's Steak Bites

5 packets Grilled Cheese 'n' Crackers

1 8-oz. can Blue Diamond Almonds with Sea Salt

1 ziplock sandwich bag Tootsie Rolls

1 ziplock sandwich bag Hershey's Kisses

1 package LifeSavers (5 Flavor)

1 tin breath mints

He starts to grin. I say, "It's a little embarrassing, really, but it IS a 5-hour flight with no food service." He says, "No, no, it's my kind of bag." And he snaps it shut and hands it back to me with a smile. We WANT this woman on the flight, I can hear him thinking. If the plane goes down, she can take care of everyone until help arrives.

If I'd been a little more awake and on top of my game, I would have raised my fist into the air and quoted Scarlett O'Hara to him: "AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I'LL NEVER BE HUNGRY AGAIN!"

Guess I'll store that line away for next time.

No, not spring, silly! Girl Scout Cookie time!

It's been a couple of years since I knew a Girl Scout personally, and our home is on the outer edge of the subdivision so when neighborhood kids go "canvassing" they generally skip us. (This is also true on Halloween, for which I purchase candy AS IF we were going to have a typical number of trick-or-treaters, then "bank" most of it in the freezer to help us ride out the dry spell until Christmas.)

But this year my first cousin twice removed (translation: my cousin's granddaughter; aren't you impressed that I know what that relationship is?) is a Girl Scout, so she brought the order form to our Family Gathering and we all had a chance to support the one fundraiser in my life I'm actually glad to see.

And today I'm in my office with a box of Samoas of my very own, and life seems very, very good.

I can't remember if I have admitted on this blog that I am a little compulsive when it comes to colored candies. For example, when I used to fill plastic eggs for our Easter hunt, not only did I count out the Skittles to be sure each kid got an equal number, I made sure they each got the same number of red ones, the same number of yellow ones, and so on. I know. Borderline compulsive. But I just didn't want to deal with any potential fights.

As a "more mature" adult, I am no longer a Skittle counter, but I am still a liner-up of M&Ms. I buy them in the snack-size packages (only 100 calories) and line them up according to color. I don't know why. I usually make pyramids with the most plentiful color on the bottom. If the colors are pretty evenly apportioned, I make squares instead. Sometimes I make flowers out of the higher-volume colors with centers made out of the scantier ones. I don't know why I do this. It just cheers me up.

Anyway, we had a meeting one day that went kind of long, and someone brought in M&Ms to tide us over till we could break for lunch. I had arranged a handful on my notebook in one of my usual patterns. My friend Bob, who was sitting next to me, snickered rather ungraciously at this and got even more derisive as time passed and I kept rearranging the colors to accommodate the occasional consumption of an M&M.

Finally he could stand it no longer. When I turned my head for a moment, he reached over and scrambled my M&Ms all up.

Given this evidence, which one of us would you say was more compulsive?

The other night when I was turning off the light on my nightstand, I noticed for the first time that my watch (which I have worn and loved for several years now) has little glow-in-the-dark dots indicating the hours, and also glow-in-the-dark insets on the hands. This would be pretty cool, except that these are the kind of glow-in-the-dark materials that have to be "charged up" by a light source before they'll even glow in the first place, and then they only stay lit for about 30 seconds before they start to fade.

It strikes me that the manufacturers (and subsequently the advertisers) of this watch were excited to list these glowing bits as a "special feature" to make the watch more appealing. I may even have paid extra for the privilege of double-checking the time half a minute after I turn off the light. I'll confess, I'm getting a little weary of a world that tries to pass off superfluities as bonuses. I don't care that much how long the flavor of my gum lasts; I'm going to get tired of chewing it long before the mint wears off. How does one determine scientifically that a shampoo makes your hair "5x stronger"? What objective measures have been created to calculate hair strength? 

The assumption that "more" is "better" is an exhausting one. They recently upgraded my word processor at work, and now I can barely use it. It is constantly inserting lists where I don't want them, turning my asterisks into bullets, capitalizing words I wanted lowercased, and in various ways intruding on my own creative process. I have no use for "word art," watermarks, or pi symbols. Just get out of my way and let me type in peace.

Worst of all, though, is that we just got satellite TV at our house, bundled in a package that was so much cheaper than what we had been paying for the various services that it would have been silly not to change. Now I can barely go to bed at night for fear I haven't exhausted all the possibilities for things I might want to watch or at least Tivo. It already feels like we'll never get around to watching all the things we've recorded, and we've had the system exactly ONE WEEK!

That's my latest test, I guess: learning the self-discipline to cry "ENOUGH" in a world that increasingly feels like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Just because I can get it "for free" doesn't mean it's not costing me anything. I think I'd better get myself outside and take a good old-fashioned walk in nature, which is never superfluous but always exactly right (probably because Heavenly Father is in charge of it instead of us).

I was watching Olympic highlights the other night, and learned to my surprise that badminton is now an Olympic sport. How did I miss that? How long has that been on the roster?

It got me thinking. Perhaps someday there might be something admitted to the Olympic arena that I could actually be good at. And it has occurred to me at last what that might be.

Floating.

I really believe I could float at an Olympic level. Judging would be based on how still you could hold and how much of your body was actually on top of the water. Perhaps there could be extra "degree of difficulty" points for lifting both feet out of the water at the same time while lying on one's back. I'm very good at all these things.

Regrettably, I think capacity to float is directly related to body fat content, which doesn't work so much in my favor in the real world. But hey, if it were an Olympic sport, training for it would be a dream come true!

I am attempting to perform delicate editorial tasks requiring intense concentration. Outside my window, a jackhammer is sounding  - but the sound is intermittent. Just when I think, with a sigh of relief, that they are finished banging around out there, they start back up again.

This is the joy of having an office in downtown Salt Lake City during the most intensive area renovation since they started throwing up buildings 160 years ago. (Okay, I can't really document that last statement. But it FEELS like the most intensive renovation.) It's going to be GREAT to work here four years from now. I'll be the envy of all my friends. But for the foreseeable future, we've got a high-rise condo going up on the west, a lower-rise condo on the east, and all kinds of stuff coming in on the south. It looks and sounds like a war zone. If I miss my train and have to drive in, my parking spot is a quarter-mile away, and they've closed the mid-block crosswalk I used to use, so the route to my office is now a tedious walk AROUND Temple Square instead of a restful walk THROUGH it.

It doesn't help that my husband keeps forwarding me email reports of crane accidents.

When I think of how much easier it would be to email myself my files, pop them on my home computer, and work on them in my jammies, in silence, with a fully stocked refrigerator close at hand, it really makes me wonder what I'm doing here.

Hold all my meetings, friends. I'll see you in four years. (I wish!)

Last week, my daughter and her husband went to the doctor for physicals. The doctor told my daughter that her Body Mass Index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height) was a bit too low, meaning that she would probably feel better if she could put on a little weight. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders how THAT could happen in MY gene pool.

But anyway, cool. Wouldn't you think the "cure" for that ailment would be something like Oreos and whole milk? No such luck. He told her that the best thing she could do would be to exercise and build up her muscle mass.

Then it was her husband's turn. His BMI was a little on the higher end of the scale, but the doctor told him that it could be easily fixed. The best thing he could do would be to exercise.

The irony is inescapable.

If I ever pull myself together sufficiently to write another book, I'm going to title it "I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer." I hate it mostly because exercise ALWAYS seems to be the answer. Pick up any women's magazine on any given week. Exercise is prescribed for weight issues, heart issues, diabetes issues, depression issues - if you've got issues, you're gonna have to exercise. If your issues are with exercising, as mine seem to be, you're just out of luck.

I suspect that what I really hate, though, is not the notion of exercise per se, but the idea that I've known all along what I SHOULD do but just haven't done it. It's the same with the "Sunday School answers" of reading the scriptures and saying your prayers. You can hope all you want for some mystical answer that will bring you that "mighty change of heart," but when it comes right down to it, those are the answers that always come up.

Maybe it's time for me to grow up and admit that it's because they're the right answers.

When we moved our corporate headquarters to new offices a year ago, I learned that the new restrooms had those faucets where you don't have to turn a handle, you just stick your hands under the spout and the water begins running automatically. I understand the desirability of this from a sanitation point of view. But I have a problem with it.

My problem is that I seem to be the wrong height or girth or something to make those auto faucets work properly. I first noticed this in the airport, when all around me were merrily washing their hands and I was thrusting mine back and forth, trying to get the angle right to make the water come out.

The faucet in our restroom at work seems to obey me pretty well. The only problem is, it always - and I mean always - turns off before I have gotten all the soap off my hands. And then it refuses to turn back on unless I step clear away from the sink, drippy hands and all, and approach it anew.

The reason I attribute this problem to my height is that I haven't ever noticed anyone else experiencing these kinds of difficulties. I'm suspicious of height discrimination anyway because I always get a sore back when I wash dishes (from leaning down to get to the sink), I can't sit comfortably in an airplane, and it took a week of trying and finally some help from a shorter friend for me to figure out where to put the coins in the drink machine at work because there was a little metal "outcropping" over the slot and I couldn't see under it from my angle. On the other hand, I can reach the items on the top shelves of all my cupboards. So there are tradeoffs.

Anyway, I've noticed that paper towel machines are now starting to be automatic, and even soap dispensers. So I expect to spend a good portion of my days waving my hands around like an idiot, which the more cynical part of me suspects was the manufacturers' intent all along.

 Anyone who claims there are no significant emotional differences between men and women have never experienced Mother's Day and Father's Day in my ward.

Some wards don't even celebrate Father's Day, which should be one indicator right up front that there are gender differences. We observe both occasions in my ward. On Mother's Day, the men take over the Church jobs of all the women so they can relax and enjoy Sunday School and Relief Society. The bishopric agonizes over what gift to present. Plants are a frequent choice, but we have many apartment-dwellers who have noplace to plant them. Cut flowers seem to be out of the question--most men perceive them as a waste of money although women in surveys say they would rather receive fresh flowers than a plant. This year we got a nice booklet. Last year I was in Seattle on Mother's Day, and the bishopric in that ward presented large-size Cadbury chocolate bars, which I applaud most heartily except I know our bishopric shies away from those, too, as unsuitable for diabetics. They just don't want to offend anyone. That seems to be their primary goal on Mother's Day: It's not to honor the moms. It's not to honor motherhood or even womanhood in general. It's just to not make anyone upset.

On Father's Day, during the last 10 minutes of priesthood meeting, they gather all the classes from deacons to high priests together in the multi-purpose room and present them with "Fat Boy" ice-cream sandwiches. Everyone is happy. No one tries to probe for subliminal meaning in the choice of "Fat Boys." They eat their ice cream and yuk it up and go home happy.

What would happen in your ward if they tried to give "Fat Boys" to the women on Mother's Day? Almost too horrible to contemplate, isn't it?

And THAT, in a nutshell, is the difference between men and women.

I have a question about the "five fruits and veggies a day" thing. We are doing this health challenge at work, and this month's challenge is to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. The fact that I am having a ridiculously difficult time fulfilling this simple challenge is yet another indication of the sorry state I have fallen into nutritionally.

But, setting that aside for the moment, my question is this: since potatoes seem to count as a vegetable (they are even pictured on the brochure I received outlining this month's challenge), can I count a carton of French fries as a serving of vegetables? If I supersize it, does it count as two servings?

Or does something happen to a potato when you slice it into little sticks and immerse it in boiling fat that somehow leeches all the nutritional value out of it?

I need a ruling on this right away, as I'm filling out my Goal Calendar as we speak.

I was being virtuous - okay, semi-virtuous. I was on the go, in the fast-food mart looking for a snack to tide me through the afternoon. I had contemplated buying the "sleeve" of Oreos; it wasn't the full-on package, but it probably had 10 or 12 cookies in it. However, I knew that once I started I would eat them all, and I knew that this would probably mean at least 600 calories.

So I talked myself out of them, and opted instead for one "big cookie." You know the kind: a basic chocolate chip number, not quite as good as homemade (or even as good as Oreos), but an acceptable alternative. The operative principle was that there was just one cookie, so you couldn't really inadvertently overeat.

I took my cookie outside and sat down on a bench in the sunshine to enjoy it. I unwrapped it. I took a bite. Then I thought I'd take a peek at the nutritional information to see exactly how virtuous I was being by giving up the Oreos for this alternative. "Calories per serving: 150." Good girl!

Keep reading.

"Servings per container: 4."

Whom are we kidding here? Have you ever met anyone who gathered her three dearest friends around her to divide a big cookie with? If it was supposed to be four servings, why in blazes didn't they make four little cookies out of the same amount of dough? Were they completely oblivious to the distinct possibility that one person might expect to eat one cookie unaided?

Moral of the story: If you're going to eat cookies, throw away the wrapper before you have an urge to read the nutritional information.

I've had some requests to publish my "altered lyrics" to the beloved hymn "Today, While the Sun Shines." I thought hard about this, because I didn't want to seem irreverent in print, but since the original still stands without any statement, and since this is not a protest against that hymn but merely a blatant misappropriation of its rhyme scheme, I thought I'd go ahead. Here they are:

Today, while the kids scream, plaster on a smile!

Today, with the laundry stacking up in a pile.

Today, with the deadlines breathing down your neck,

Bills to be paid, and body gone to heck . . .

Today, today, do the best you can.

Today, today, it's part of the plan,

Today, today, don't forget to pray

That heaven will show you the joys of today.