1. My family.
2. Our house.
3. Sean.
4. Sean's job.
5. My daughters.
6. Being the kind of mother I'd want them to be.
7. Excitement and hope in our country today.
8. The future. We don't know what will happen but I am looking forward to it.
9. Lunch and catching up with one of my closest friends.
   
10. Baby fat.
11. Baby smiles.
12. Baby laughs.
13. Acting as I would feel. Many times, this is not easy.
14. Listening to Brad's new album.
15. A good meeting today.
    
16. Volunteering to help set up next week.
17. After a hectic week I have no plans to leave the house tomorrow.
    
18. The kids are in bed.
19. Life.
20. A clean kitchen.

1. Call with my mentor today.
   
2. Limitations - trying to be realistic and acknowledge my limitations.
3. Working to let go of the things that I am not.
   
4. The paradox of happiness - sometimes being yourself means being sad.
5. I voted today!!!!!
6. Watching the news and now the polls have started to close - I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!
7. Grocery shopping.
8. Another mortgage payment made.
9. Paying bills on time.
10. Chicago-style hot dogs for dinner.
11. Hebrew National hog dogs. I like that my dinner answers to a higher authority.
12. Everyone who voted.
13. Everyone who voted for the first time.
14. Talking about school with H.
    
15. Giving her my undivided attention.
16. Not judging or jumping to conclusions, just listening to my daughter.
17. C is taking a good afternoon nap.
18. New Brad Paisley album today!
19. Sean stopping to get the album for me on his way home.
20. Joy and laughter in our house.
    

How to be Juli

I am a fan of The Happiness Project, a blog by Gretchen Rubin. I came across this post in her blog and it struck me. I've been thinking about these words for days:

...it makes me sad to realize my limitations. The world offers so much!--and I am too small to appreciate it. The joke in law school was: "The curse of Yale Law School is to try to die with your options open." Which means -- at some point, you have to pursue one option, which means foreclosing other options, and to try to avoid that is crazy. Similarly, to be Gretchen means to let go of all the things that I am not -- to acknowledge what I don't encompass.

But it also makes me sad because, in many ways, I wish I were different. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “You can choose what you do, but you can’t choose what you like to do.” I have a lot of notions about what I wish I liked to do, of the subjects and occupations that I wish interested me. But it doesn’t matter what I wish I were like. I am Gretchen.

Read the full post here: http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/10/paradoxes-of-ha.html

1. I returned my uncle's call and he said he just wanted to catch up and tell me he loves and misses me.
   
2. Today I can believe him and tell him I love him too and mean it.
3. It is what it is and it's OK!
4. Asking my HP for guidance.
5. Cleaning the house.
6. Getting back on track with the laundry.
7. Today did not go according to plan but it still went ok.
   
8. Starting over tomorrow.
9. Going to vote tomorrow!!!!
10. We are so excited to see what will happen tomorrow. It's going to be an exciting day!
11. Jon & Kate plus 8.
    
12. Sitting in bed while I type my list.
13. The baby was a crab all day but she went to sleep early.
14. Patience.
15. Bleach.
16. A hot shower.
17. Laughter.
18. Change.
19. Stability.
20. Self discovery.

1. Halloween with our kids.
2. Deciding to go out all together instead of leaving someone home to pass out candy.
   
3. Leaving candy out on the porch and hoping no one grabbed it all up - people seemed to only take a fair share and it worked out.
4. C's first Halloween.
5. After being sick since Thursday, Sean and I are both feeling better.
   
6. Compassion.
7. Codi.
8. The Kolakowski boys.
   
9. Chocolate.
10. Sean.
11. Our kids.
12. Playing Monopoly with H and Sean.
13. H hanging in there for much longer than she wanted because Sean and I were getting competitive and didn't want to end the game early.
14. Finally remembering AAA batteries so we could also play Operation.
15. Watching H play Tetris.
16. Playing Tetris with Sean - it was a gaming weekend for this family, lol.
17. Gratitude.
18. Chatting with Becca.
19. Making my to-do list for the week.
20. Getting up early to exercise.