Today is my birthday.

I’m not a huge fan of birthdays — you know, that hole time flying by too quickly thing — but there are some things I love about them: Extra hugs from my daughter, a breakfast with my husband, my small but mighty family always getting together for a tasty dinner (my parents are on their way home from Peru right now so that they won’t miss it and I’ve been working on a menu for days). Oh, and yes, I like gifts, thank you very much:)

A few years ago I started doing something on my birthday that I’ve also grown to enjoy: I make a list of things I learned in the past year, challenges I overcame, and any life wisdoms I’d acquired. If you were reading this blog last year you know that I shared a few here, so I thought I’d do the same this year. With all the talk about New Year’s resolutions during this time of year I think it’s important to look through the past year and collect some great memories, learnings, accomplishments. It’s not been the easiest year for many of us and I think that’s just more of an impetus to do a little positivity searching.

OK, without further paragraphs, here’s a bit of my list:

• I have learned to not completely give into stress and anxiety and let them take over my entire life. For a general stress-case like me, this was truly a big deal. And I am completely imperfect at it still. But after having a wake-up call at my doctor’s office earlier in the year I got serious about realizing that even the worst things that can happen at work aren’t worth my sacrificing my health over them. I have a lot more to learn and something I am working on for 2009 is getting better at compartmentalizing things in my life — e.g. work stress should stay at work — but I am doing better.

• Work It, Mom! has continued to grow into an amazing, passionate, intelligent, active community and I continue to just be in awe of our members, bloggers, readers, commenters. It’s a daily treat to be part of this.

• We moved, again, to a house we finally absolutely love and adore. Moving twice in one year was not ridiculous, exhausting, and extremely stressful and truly tested my marriage (which was already being tested by my working hours and being part of a start-up). But we made it, we’re happy, and I am just giddy.

• I have become a much better blogger. This is a subjective opinion, of course, and if you know me personally you know that I am not big on self-praise. But I do believe that practice makes better and after a year and a half of writing this blog regularly I like it a lot more. I feel it’s more honest, more genuine, more interesting, frankly. This post about having an only child is an example of what I mean.

• I’ve learned to be even more productive at work (especially when I have a lot to do) and how to enjoy my work days better. In fact, I’ve gotten so productive that I’ve found time to take on another gig in addition to running Work It, Mom!. Starting in January I am going to be helping out the rockin’ team at DailyGrommet.com share unique and wonderful products with the world. I’ll be focusing on building a passionate community of users, publishers, affiliates, bloggers, and partners — hey, kind of like what I do daily at Work It, Mom!.

• I’ve been cooking a lot more, have tested out tons of new recipes, and really love making a great meal for my family and friends. I don’t have enough time to cook often — and sometimes I’m up at midnight cooking my daughter a fresh dinner for the next day because I feel guilty because I work too much — but I can honestly say that I’ve become somewhat of a foodie this year, and one who is getting more and more into cooking. (On the birthday dinner menu: Cream of mushroom soup, osso bucco, roasted vegetables, grapefruit and avocado salad.)

• Any notion of some magical work-life balance continues to elude me completely, but I do feel like I have a better sense of what’s really important to me and what makes me feel like we’re managing just fine. Some of them are: Dedicating some non-work time every night, during which the laptop is closed and I am not on the phone. A morning coffee date with my husband a few times a month. Spending at least one weekend afternoon doing not much of anything but just the three of us being together. Having a family breakfast, where all three of us are sitting down, at least once a week. Spending time with friends and making an effort to not just email, but to actually get together, as often as we can.

OK, those are some of mine — would you share some of what you’ve learned or accomplished in this past year in the comments? It would be a really fun birthday present for me:)