We had this great Relief Society activity the other evening titled "What's in Your Bag?" Various people talked about the bags we carry at different times in our lives, such as The Diaper Bag, The Book Bag, The Church Bag, The Makeup Bag, and what they might represent. After each segment, we earned points for assorted things we were carrying in our purses. One of the points was for a grocery list. I had to peek to be sure I still had one in the little notebook I carry, and I realized that not only did I have a grocery list, I had several other kinds of lists as well.

This caused me to ponder about how much of my life is ruled by lists, and the natural next step seemed to be to make a list of some of the lists I've made over the past few months. It turns out to be an interesting chronicle of the year:

Many, many grocery lists
A Master Menu list of all the meals our family eats regularly, so I don't have to start from scratch when I'm pondering what to fix for dinner
A list of what I planted in my garden, and when
Assorted Christmas lists: family gifts, Christmas cards, neighbor gifts
A list of everyone to invite for my son's wedding ceremony/luncheon, and a separate list of people to invite to the reception
A detailed walk-through list of what to buy and do for when I was hosting a big family party
A list of personal "best practices" for the year to try to be more effective at work
Individual to-do lists for almost every day
A running book list of titles recommended by friends
A list of things to remember to ask my doctor at my physical next month
An ongoing list of talk ideas
Several really depressing lists detailing what I ate on a given day and how many calories it had
A list of movies we want to bring in from Netflix if we could ever get around to sending the old ones back
A list of recipes I'm meaning to try someday

This doesn't even count all the checklists and phone lists and rule lists and number lists that govern my professional life.

Heaven help me if I lose my lists!