Productivity

I have things I like to do to make me feel productive, but I don't always get them done.

For 2016, I resolved to clean every day and do strength training every week. I didn't do perfect, but I did decently well. I made no commitment to do these things in 2017, but I would like to do them. I'm a terrible housekeeper, and I have practically no muscle.

Realistically, though, I don't get them done as much as I would like. This week, I only cleaned once (and by that, I mean I only had one period of time where I cleaned--I clean up smaller messes), and I only did strength training once as well. I've been trying to think of what I do that prevents me from being productive. But in truth, I think I usually am being productive. I just can't get everything done I want.

First off, I sleep. I go to bed early or get up late or both. I don't regret it, especially since I have a job that requires full mental engagement. Sleeping is very productive.

Yellowbell

Trail season has returned! For which I am very happy. I got three runs in this week, but I might have done four or five if it hadn't been so rainy. I wouldn't consider trail running to be unproductive, but it's also my very favorite activity. Never before have I daydreamed about a hobby so much. It's nice when what I love to do is also semiproductive. (It's exercise, after all.) The wildflowers are back in season, so there's been lots of pink longleaf phlox and dozens of yellowbells, which have been as abundant as sego lilies are in June.

Glacier lilies

 I really know wildflower season has returned when I see the yellow glacier lilies. I first encountered them two years ago, though I didn't know what they were called until last year. They kind of freak me out, due to the fact that they face downward but curl back. Also, two years ago my Pandora stations were playing some really weird songs (like this one and this one), and I would think about them when I was running and seeing all the flowers. Although glacier lilies aren't my favorite, I'm happy that they lead to the arrowleaf balsamroot of April, the various penstemons of May, the mulesears and sego lilies of June, the Richardson's geranium of July, the sunflowers of August, and the chicory of September.

(Can I just say how happy blossoming trees make me? I love them even more than autumn trees, even though I prefer autumn as a season. But I am sad that our apricot tree had like fifteen blossoms before they died out, so we won't have apricots this year. Oh well. Looks like we'll have plenty of plums. And I mostly like apricots to make desserts, so it's healthier this way.)

I also spent time trying to find the next candy I'm reviewing for The Impulsive Buy, so I spent Wednesday going to lots of different stores. I didn't find the candy I needed until Thursday, but I did amass quite a collection of Easter-themed treats on Wednesday. I wouldn't call it a waste of time, since I do get paid per review. I'm only sad that I bought some small Lindt chocolate bunnies that have turned up missing. :(

Thursdays I spend tutoring, because I try to give back to the community after I was born privileged. So that's productive.

And on Saturday, I made parsnip soup. On Monday, I was at the store, and I saw they had a large supply of fennel, a vegetable I tried at Christmastime. (It blew my mind, because it's basically licorice-flavored celery.) I thought, "Do that many people use fennel?" And then I thought I better try some vegetable I hadn't had before so that the obscure veggies don't go to waste. So I bought some parsnips, in part so I would feel better about myself (I was also buying Peeps Oreos, carrot cake Clif bars, and bunny-shaped graham crackers). The parsnip soup was good, but not as good as the carrot or celery soups that are basically the same.

So if sleeping, running, shopping, tutoring, writing reviews, and cooking are all things that I do that are productive, what am I doing that's not productive? What's keeping me from the productive things of cleaning and strength training? And the answer is Facebook. That's basically the only thing I do that's not productive. But I'm not ready to give it up. However, I'm trying to make it so that it takes less of my time. It's extremely annoying, because it shows me every time my friends like or comment on something. So whenever my feed shows them liking a post by a person or page I don't know or don't like, I will unsubscribe from all posts by that irrelevant person or page, and I hope that eventually I will have unsubscribed from pretty much everything that doesn't interest me. I don't usually unsubscribe from shares, except when they're from those obnoxious old ladies who share everything under the sun. It also makes me feel less guilty not accepting friend requests from people I hardly know and unfriending people, since I don't need more people to contribute to my news feed. (I have nine more unfriendings for 2017, but I'll do them weekly again in 2018. I'm very OCD about this.)

St. Paddy's Day bucket list

For 2017, I made a bucket list of things to do for every holiday, and the things on the list for St. Patrick's Day had to be accomplished between February 15 and March 17. St. Patrick's Day is my second-least favorite holiday, since it seems a little pointless, but there's still something fun about it. Here are the ways I accomplished the items on the bucket list. (As I often do, I like to take a theme and then fit everything that happened within that theme. So forgive me for the tangents.)

Wear green. This one was very easy; early on in the season, I fulfilled it by wearing a green tie. But I can't let it go just with that. Twice this week (once at a St. Patrick's Day party and once at a free BYU Vocal Point concert) I was decked out from head to toe. I bought some prescription glasses with green frames from the internet. I don't love how they look, but oh well. On previous St. Patrick's Days, I would wear these old Taiwanese glasses with green lenses--but I got those in 2006, so you can imagine how hard it was to see in them. I opted for clear lenses this time. I have two different green t-shirts (one is a four-leaf clover that says "May the road rise up to meet you" and the other says "Irish-ish* *When I'm wearing this shirt"). I have some poor-quality green pants that I got in 2012. I have green socks with Irish flags on them. And I have neon green Vans shoes that I got three years ago! (Seriously, it blows my mind what happened three years ago. That's when I graduated from BYU! At the Vocal Point concert, they said that all of the members of the group were born in the 90s. I was born in the 80s. I feel old. Also, three years ago, my mom broke her leg. My dad would tease her by limping, and it got so it was a habit, and he still often limps. Yesterday, he broke his foot, but I am so used to seeing him limp that it is hard to remember he is actually injured.)

Pinch someone not wearing green. There's only one day when it's socially acceptable to do this, and that's March 17 itself. I was a little worried about finding someone not wearing green who I could pinch. Well, at work I was invited to a luncheon in honor of the 175th anniversary of the Relief Society. An editor who I used to work with sat by me, and as he admired my green glasses, shamrock tie, and green slacks (different from my other brighter green pants), he remarked that he wasn't wearing green. So while we were standing in line for food, I explained my bucket list item while I pinched him on the ear. At the luncheon, we heard from Rosetti Bahati, the Relief Society president of Salt Lake's Swahili branch, who is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was certainly interesting to spend a holiday celebrating a white culture by hearing a talk translated from Swahili and hearing a choir sing hymns in Swahili while decked out in traditional African dresses and head wraps. (Most of the people were African, but there were a couple of white women also wearing the same style of clothing.) It was a really neat experience to hear firsthand the story of a refugee who went through a lot of hardships.

Go to an Irish concert. At work, a few employees get together during a lunch hour around in March to play Irish music. They're just amateurs, so the quality isn't the greatest, but it's free and convenient and fun enough. There was one old man there whose phone started ringing during the performance, so rather than just silencing his ringer and ignoring the call, he actually answers in the middle of the performance and says, "I'll call you back!" I'm pretty sure this same man did the same thing during a different presentation, and that was even ruder, because someone was speaking rather than just playing music. It would be easy to dismiss it as a generational thing, since he didn't grow up with cell phones, but I don't think that's right, because most people of his generation wouldn't do such a thing. Why, even in the pilot episode of Get Smart, Max's shoe phone went off in the middle of a concert, and he went out in the hall to answer it, and that was even before cell phones. (But maybe that wasn't for politeness but rather so he wouldn't blow his spy cover.)

Go to a St. Patrick's Day parade. This is the only item I didn't actually accomplish. But I tried. See, while I will celebrate holidays a month in advance, my celebratory traditions take the form of "When it's over, it's over." And breaking with years of tradition, they decided to hold the Salt Lake St. Patrick's Day parade after the holiday, March 18, when I've already moved on to Easter. (I don't like the holiday enough to go the day after.) In fact, all St. Paddy's Day parades in Utah were scheduled for March 18. So I began looking into other parades. I thought about San Francisco and taking my nephews, but I didn't think my nephews would like it, and my brother would make fun of me, and getting to downtown S.F. sounded like a big hassle. I honestly began planning a trip to Spokane, WA, my old stomping grounds, but I was running out of time and couldn't find anyone to go with me, and I was feeling nervous when I thought about it. I guess it's just as well, since I was pretty cynical when I went to Salt Lake's parade in 2012. However, even if I wasn't going to see an actual parade, I did decide to celebrate on St. Paddy's Day by going to the parade route.

I walked through the Gateway where they had already closed parts of the road. And near where the parade was to start, there was a green line on the road. I'm not sure if it was there for this parade, but I assume it was. They clearly were setting up for the parade, and I went there in my green clothes from work, so it kind of counts for my bucket list. That was actually the second time this week I was at the Gateway--my cousin Tammy was in town, and so my niece and I joined her family at the Mystery Escape Room. It was fun, though I didn't feel terribly helpful. We escaped with 20 seconds left, but I think the host was helping a bit too much at that point, so maybe it wasn't quite fair.

Eat green-dyed food. In the last few years, I've started making corned beef and cabbage, but when I was growing up, we would always just dye our food green for Paddy's Day. In the last few years, I've preferred unique flavors that go with the colors, rather than just the colors. So I had a variety of green flavors throughout the season, including mint,

 pistachio,

pistachio on the left, mint on the right

 apple,

 avocado,

 and pickle.

But seriously, that packaging is the stuff of nightmares.

See shamrocks (or similar plants). I saw alfalfa growing as a weed on Presidents' Day, and that counted as a "similar plant." But on St. David's Day, I bought this shamrock plant. After I got it home, I worried, because it had wilted pretty quickly. But then I discovered something interesting about it. When it was sunny, the flowers would be wide open and the shamrock leaves would be spread out, but when it was dark, the flowers would close and the shamrock leaves would be limp. Neat, huh?

On social awkwardness

I've been thinking this week about social awkwardness, annoyingness, and my place within them. I've been shy my entire life, and as I've grown older, I've become increasingly aware of just how socially awkward I am, even as I think my awkwardness has gone down. In the past I viewed myself as a weird person who would always be weird. I still think that's true, but I think I have the potential to be more normal than I previously thought. There's charming weird, and there's awkward weird. I'm wanting to be the charming, rather than the awkward, variety.

First, some awkward people:

I find myself exhaling deeply when I find someone doing something annoying. Last summer, I posted about the old man in the cubicle across from me. Sometimes I feel like he's a robot with only a few set programmed expressions, because he always says them over and over, usually with the same intonation. I find myself exhaling deeply whenever I hear him going, "You dumb thing! Arr!" or "Oh, wow, [sing-song mumbling]." I don't know why it should annoy me, but it does. Sometimes I think he forgets he's in a cubicle and we can hear everything he says. He talks to his wife on the phone several times a day, and last week I heard him joking, "You wore a [something something] bra to her party. That's all you had on?" Keep in mind that these are people in their mid-70s who look like they're in their 90s.

There are some people who are terrible parents; and since they're terrible parents, their kids are poorly behaved and may sadly become terrible parents themselves someday. When their kids do something wrong, it can be annoying, but they're just kids, and the parents' reaction (yelling and chiding but not fixing the problem) makes it so much worse. It's very annoying. They're so blasted dumb. [This paragraph has been toned down since I first posted.]

There are a few people in my ward who love to make comments in lessons, and whenever they start talking, I think to myself, "Oh no, here we go." (I'm not talking about all people who love making comments, just a few specific ones I'm thinking of.) They go on and on with some comment that is not related to the topic. Some of these people are autistic, so it's not really their fault, but others are not, and I can't help thinking, "For your sake and everyone else's, will you please stop talking?" (Once, one of the autistic people said, "I have a question. If someone has their baby tattooed before their blessing, would that be considered child abuse?" I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about babies, tattoos, or child abuse.)

Yesterday (Saturday), I was able to get out and do some trail running on the Wild Rose Trail and adjoining trails again.

The lines on the hill were created during the Depression as part of the New Deal.

 Some of my miles were very slow because I was talking to people. One man was new to the area and asked where the trail went. I was happy to help him, but I did second guess whether I should have given him clearer directions and suggestions. The second one was weirder, as he started asking me a lot of personal questions. "How often do you get new shoes?" was the first weird question. I told him it depended on the shoe, and he asked if I had sturdy ankles, and he asked how old I was. When I told him 28, he said something like, "So you still have the mindset of bullets coming at you, indestructible?" What was he insinuating by that!? The whole exchange seemed a bit condescending.

I hate to seem like I'm judgmental or rude, but these are the kinds of behaviors I want to avoid. Not that the people are bad, just that I want to avoid the behaviors that make people uncomfortable. But I often worry that I am equally annoying or awkward.

This week, I was invited to attend a luncheon for the launch of the book At the Pulpit. It was a little intimidating. There were a lot of high-ranking, highly educated people there, and my Target cardigan seemed out of place among all the suits and sports jackets. I feel too much like a little peon to really interact with all these bigwigs, but the resulting awkwardness makes me even more of a little peon. I don't know how to stop the cycle.

There were also several other people I ran into this week where the exchange was awkward. I'm inherently shy and quiet, but I'm also terribly insecure that I'm going to come across as one of these annoying people, so I don't want to say too much. But sometimes that just makes it worse.

I finally got my new suits this week. I'm tired of always looking as awkward as I feel, so I'm trying to alleviate that. But I don't know that I'll ever really be able to shake my awkward image. Even if it's only in my head.

St. David's Day

Quiz: What holiday, besides Ash Wednesday, was on Wednesday this week?

Answer: You already know, because it's in the title of the post.

What is St. David's Day, you ask? Well, it's the Welsh version of St. Patrick's Day.

But instead of the 17th, it's on the 1st.

Instead of green, red is the dominant color.

Instead of shamrocks, they have daffodils and leeks.

Instead of leprechauns, they have dragons.

And, instead of a kitschy, popular celebration, it's largely unheard of in the United States. It does puzzle me why some cultures get their own popular celebrations, whereas others don't. I'm not complaining, it's just curious. The internet tells me that the Welsh immigrants were Protestant, so they assimilated easily, while the Irish were Catholics, so they retained a distinct heritage. Hence one holiday is still common and the other is not

I've heard a little about St. David's Day here and there, but this was the first year I was really aware of it.

When I was a kid, we had these Childcraft books, one of which was about holidays (which was really the only volume I looked at), and it told the story of the Welsh army wearing leeks to distinguish themselves from their enemies, thereby winning the battle. I didn't even know what or where Wales was back then, but I always remembered subconsciously that there was a holiday about leeks on March 1, somewhere. That was the first time I ever heard of leeks, and I didn't like them when my mom later put them in soup.

In 2013, I had a roommate who was a member of BYU Men's Chorus, and one March day he told me that their director, Rosalind Hall, got up and said, annoyed, "None of you are wearing red!" They all were like, "Sorry?" She said, "All you care about is Ireland!"

Sometimes I enjoy thumbing through old editions of the Children's Friend (especially at Halloween). Recently I was looking at some March issues from the 1930s, and one of them briefly mentioned St. David's Day (with no apparent references in the issue to St. Patrick's Day. More Mormon pioneers came from Wales than came from Ireland).

I've been researching different areas of the world from the 1850s, and as I recently wrapped up my work on the Sandwich Islands, I have been researching Wales and the efforts of Dan Jones therein.

And since I now knew more about St. David's Day, I thought it was a perfect time to acknowledge its existence.

So, on March 1, I wore my red sweater (even though I decided it was too warm to wear after Valentine's Day). And I spent the day researching Wales. I didn't learn as much as I would have liked, but it was still fun to delve into a place and language I haven't studied before.

And I had to have some kind of leek dish for dinner. Last summer, I made a tomato cobbler, which was quite satisfying, and one of the recipe variations was leek cobbler.

It was OK. The tomato cobbler was better.

But it was still fun to pretend to be culturally cognizant.