1.  If you think you’re having a nervous breakdown over the upcoming wedding ceremony in the backyard, even though your daughter is marrying the perfect guy for her and your husband is doing all the yard work and one of your very best friends is flying 3000 miles to help you decorate, should you:

a) have your thyroid tested again
b) have your hormones tested again
c) buy a bottle of tequila and learn how to relax
d) browse more wedding blogs and websites
e) thank everyone who is helping you and, for heaven’s sake, get a grip!

2.  If you are depressed and cranky because you are not losing weight despite two years of dieting, exercising, spinach, diet pills, insulin medication, Dr. Oz supplements and bean soups, should you:

a) stop eating fruit
b) buy Spanx
c) have your thyroid tested again–for gout?
d) have your hormones tested again–too much estrogen?
e) give up, eat ice cream and buy housedresses at Walmart: embrace your Inner Granny
f) order more Kindle books on thyroid and hormone issues because doctors really enjoy hearing what you found on the internet

3.  If your brain is lethargic, foggy and confused, if you can’t remember how to cook, if you have family coming for the wedding week and need to make do-ahead party food for 40 people for the after-the-wedding party and yet can’t compose a grocery list even though your husband has inventoried everything in the freezer to make it easier, should you:

a) have your hormones tested again–for lack of progesterone?
b) have your thyroid tested again–it’s a mysterious little bugger!
c) start drinking coffee with caffeine
d) browse cooking websites and try not to fall asleep at the desk

4.  If your brain is lethargic, foggy and confused, but you have to expand a 10-page concept to a 20 page synopsis and write concepts and characters for two more books in order to sign a new three-book deal and it should have been finished 10 days ago and you used to be smart but now you can’t even compose a grocery list, should you:

a) test the freakin’ hormones and thyroid and anything else that courses through your 60-year old bloodstream  yourself by buying your own test kit on the internet and skipping the whole begging-the-doctor scenario?
b) stop feeling sorry for yourself and just write the damn synopsis while eating a $4.00 bag of Lay’s Original Potato Chips and drinking Diet Coke from the gas station
c) stop setting the alarm for 5:30 AM, stop exercising, stop cleaning the kitchen, stop writing and instead plug the violin into the amplifier and play “Midnight on the Water” very, very loudly over and over again until you get a new book idea
d) count the hours until the American Idol finale

That’s it, folks.  Tomorrow I will show photos of baby geese.  For now, here are turtles.  The two on the left are waiting for the results of their thyroid tests.  The two on the right are having hot flashes and wondering why they bothered getting out of the water.  One of them is craving flies.