There are days that the stress of administering a child care program outweighs the joys, unless the center director has good coping mechanisms. This article discusses how keeping a journal helps the author cope with the stress she is facing as a child care center director. The author defines a journal as a recorded account of the writer's experiences, a record of observations, reflections, hopes, goals, questions, and doubts. It is a record of dreams and fantasies, nightmares and woes, a register of unspoken complaints and condolences. The author discusses what should be written in the journal, when to write a journal, and how to keep a journal.