Over the past week, I have found myself squeezing Dayton's arm, forcing him to look at me so I can tell him, very seriously, "babe, I'm really happy with our life.  It's so good."  Of course, that is every husbands goal in life to make his wife happy so he's pleased to hear it.  My friend, Nadia, posted a while back how she has everything she has ever wanted in life.  A family, a house, and everything she needs. That totally resonated with me and made me think how I'm constantly in 'I want' mode.  My mom has told me, from a very early age, that there will always always always be something more you'll want.  Even if you get the pair of jeans you've been saving for months for suddenly you need the perfect sweater, and so on.  Don't even get me started on rebuying the new versions of broken things you already have.  This life, right this very second, is the one I have always dreamed of. To be married to a hot/sweet husband (who didn't have cute husband written in the bottom corner of their "dream man" list from Young Womens??) and be a mom.  I mean seriously, I was a Mom for Halloween in Kindergarten.  It's been a dream of mine for that long.  

If you're comparing me to someone on Instagram I may not measure up in a lot of areas.  We don't live in the nicest house.  We don't even own a house! haha But we've made the one we have our own.   Once Christmas is over we'll need to fix our cars, flights add up, and I'm already anticipating some stress meeting with new doctors while trying to diagnose Winsley.  I'm not the mom I want to be yet.  I want to change alot about the routines we have but I am beyond lucky to have the opportunity for a new chance everyday.  Dayton and I have our hard days every now and then but I still imagine me holding on to his coat tails catching a ride to heaven.  I could give you a list of 40 more reasons I want to complain.  40 reasons to not be happy.  Some of them big and some of them are really sadly superficial and lame.   But I want to remember that when I was 23, Winnie was one and a half, we were living in a small condo in Renton, away from our families,  and I was so happy I could barely stand it.  I've been happy like this before. But I don't think I realized it until after the time has passed.   I remember at those times I kept worrying about the reasons to not be happy.  Those excuses took over.  I didn't know how to get out of my own way to realize that everything was good!  I can find so many things to want or stress about.  I want to not want.  I don't want to be stressed more than I'm happy.  I don't want to compare my life to someone I don't know.  I want to set goals that push me to improve who I am. 

I'm happy because there are way too many reasons to be anything but.