I’m celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Rotary Foundation by engaging in 100 acts of kindness, one each day for 100 days.  I’m not going to broadcast what I’ve done or blog about the individual actions which I undertake to fulfill my commitment.

I mention it here because this blog provides a place for me to be accountable for my quest to learn complaint-free living.  I long to fully embrace joy, a goal that still eludes me.  How goes your journey?  Have you found your path to peace?  If so, please reply and tell us about it.  Me and all the folks who read.  Post it here, so everyone can see — not just on Facebook, where so many of you are kind enough to comment.  Believe it or not, a lot of people don’t read or post on social media!

So tell us — what are you doing to reach for joyful living?  GO!

It’s the third day of the thirty-fourth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

A couple of layers of debris have been pulled from the surfaces around me and shoved into drawers and cupboards.  I think better in less clutter.  I open mail, throw away the tattered envelopes, calculate the utility bills, unload the dishwasher.  The dog trots around the house, ignited by my lightened mood.  I chuckle under my breath at the jokes on the radio, even the lame ones about the looming election. It’s a lovely Sunday morning.  It’s early yet but so far, I’m feeling fine.

I skim my past blog entries, reading their titles and a line here or there.  I’m caught by the recurring themes.  Let go of the past.  Forgive.  Move forward.  Empathize.  I’m tired of voicing words in the feeble hope that my heart will engage.  I shake my head and urge myself to stop complaining.  I laugh again, outloud this time, a long, honey-throated burst that reminds me of my mother.  The dog turns her head, stares, then trots into the kitchen.  She wants to be fed.

I step outside to get her dish and look around me.  The neighbors take such good care of their yard.   My own flower bed has grown wild again.  In its midst, the female holly bush stands brown and lifeless.   I stare at the dead female, flanked by the overgrown male which flourishes on the end of the peninsula. The male’s  lush branches stretch towards the sun, throwing a broad shadow over the bare limbs of its mate.  I choke back a sudden rise of acrid bile.  I set the dog’s water dish down. With my ever-present cell phone, I snap a few pictures.   Then I go inside to start the day in earnest.

It’s the second day of the thirty-fourth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Scott and George’s little oasis, to the north of my yard.

I have not so much as put away one single item of the scores sitting here and there in my house.

I rose at 6, made coffee, wrote for an hour, and then did whatever it is that I do when I should be working.  By 10:15 I had driven the two blocks to get gluten-free scones for my breakfast with Brenda.  Fifteen minutes later, I stumbled on Unbakery – Juicery’s broken sidewalk and pitched sideways into their driveway, box of scones skittering across the asphalt.

A grandmotherly-looking woman ten years my senior who had admired my tights leaped from her car, leaving it diagonal to mine, her young charge in the passenger seat with wide eyes.   She approached me from behind but I cautioned her that my legs could not bear weight from that position and asked her to come in front.  A jiffy later I stood on unsteady legs looking at my Good Samaritan, seeing for the first time that her polo bore the designation, “St. Luke’s Home Health Care”.  Great.  Just my luck, an over-ambitious septuagenarian with a nursing license.

You really should be using a walker, she admonished.

Don’t start with me — I did not say.  I thanked her profusely, waved to the boy in the car (grandson? client?) and sheepishly accepted my rescued box of scones.  I let her pull safely from the lot before following and driving to Brenda’s house, where a Bandaid and a cup of coffee just barely compensated for my discovery that someone had backed into the Prius and cracked the recently replaced bumper cover.

And so it goes:  My useless, lazy, sleepy Saturday.  I’m not complaining, though.  The scones were delicious, and Brenda gave me a book that she had bought to give me for a present, perhaps for Christmas, but which she thought might cheer me.  And it did.

It’s the first day of the thirty-fourth month of My [Interminable] Year [Almost] Without Complaining.  Life continues.