“I think this is a simple and amazing exercise. I am challenging all my readers and the following bloggers to do this exercise and to either a) list it in the comments or b) post it to their own blogs and comment below that you’ve done it. I will update this post with links to everyone’s “I can…” list. The Rules are simple:
You have 15 minutes and 15 minutes only.

• Time yourself.
  
• No making changes once the list is completed beyond correcting spelling mistakes.
• Be Honest. It’s okay if it’s silly or strange or weird or disconcerting.
• Resist the urge to explain yourself. Wait and see what other people will ask you to explain after they read your list.”

So, here goes

I can:

1. Raise three kids while pregnant with the fourth
2. Not shout at my husband when I’m angry because I’m pregnant and I’m feeling sorry for myself, but really need to get things done
3. Have a baby by the side of the highway–under a tree–because we didn’t get to the hospital in time
4. Stress myself out terribly every day, or make the choice not to
5. Have good advice for friends who are sad and need cheering up
6. Write a blog, even if it’s not the perfect pulled together one
7. Cheer myself up
8. Make new friends even though I didn’t used to be good at it
9. Argue with my husband about fine theological points in Judaism, even though I just got to know about it at all since a year and a half ago when I started researching my religion-of-birth
10. Make the kids clean up their mess
11. Make the kitchen really clean at least once a week on a regular basis
12. Drive a car
13. Drive a tractor
14. Write a simple html code and some other computery stuff like that
15. Put my website on my own domain from blogger all on my own, including installing the wordpress program on a server and and refining it
16. Speak both Russian and English fluently, even though I didn’t know a word of Russian till twelve years ago
17. Live in both America and Russia and be mistaken for a native in both places
18. Keep my children’s enthusiasm up about Judaism (with the help of their schools) even though I know hardly anything myself
19. Keep my head in an emergency
20. Type 60 wpm
21. Work with other people in an office and get along and be respected, after entering the workforce later than most
22. Keep my good attitude even though I used to be depressed for years and years
23. Be sure of my opinion
24. Write this list
25. Keep writing this list even though I am feeling silly
26. I can be a mom and a worker and a friend and a wife all in the same person, and not go crazy yet
27. Sing
28. Watch and critique a movie or play in my own head and later be proved right by reading other’s critical analysis
29. Exist in a former-communist society
30. Shout at the babushka ladies who man the metro in Moscow in the expected manner for those who being harassed by them
31. I can keep on going even when things are hard
32. I can nurse a kid for almost two years, and then be pregnant, and then again nurse, etc, and not complain or whine
33. I can live in very close quarters with a bunch of what one-would-call-unsavory-characters for a year (due to temporary financial difficulties), and still bring my family out unharmed and polite
34. Get along with my mom and sister after many betrayals
35. I can be brave
36. I can learn new things and expect the best
37. I can say the beginning of the Shema by heart
38. I can stay friends with my new friends and continue to have a good relationship
39. I can fold six loads of laundry in one afternoon
40. I can drive a stick shift as well as an automatic car or van
41. I can not be scared when life gets me down
42. I can translate Russian-English-Russian simultaneously
43. I can keep a secret

Hopefully I can meet some people online in the blog community who would give feedback on what it’s like to grow up in this day and age knowing that you’re Jewish, and being a part of the culture.

Hi everybody!