Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. ~Buddha

A little over a year ago I was feeling a little lost.  I felt like my life was just a series of actions that I repeated day after day.  Work, cook, clean, take care of Taelin, sleep, grocery shop, etc.  They were all things I had to do and only a few of them were things I enjoyed.  I was also grieving John's death and was helplessly watching Joe do the same.  I was living my life but I wasn't living.

And then I stumbled on my brother-in-law's blog which had a secret tab of sorts.  It listed his 101 things to complete in 1001 days.  It looked and felt a little like a bucket list...but without such a final feel to it.  (We had been feeling that feeling enough as it was.)  As I read through his list, I felt like I was getting to know him a little better and was starting to see part of who he wanted to become.  I stayed up for hours that night scouring http://dayzeroproject.com/ and began to create my own list.

Looking at the list now, I can see that many of the things I put on the list were things I used to do but for whatever reason didn't anymore.  Some of them were focused on newer interests I had but needed a gentle push to not give up on them.  Some of them were geared towards self-reflection and personal growth.  Some of them were geared to making me do something that I had never done before.  None of those thoughts were formed enough back then, I was just trying to fill an emptiness that I felt.  The list represented looking ahead to what was next and it was very much needed.

So, here I am. 370 days into my list; just past the year one mark and it seems fitting that I pause for a bit and reflect on the progress I have made.  In technical terms, I have completed 29 of my 101 items.  Of the 72 items that are left, 19 of them are "in progress".  For the most part those are the ones that are "weekly" or "monthly" goals...something that can't really get checked off until the end.  Honestly, I am feeling good about the numbers.

But it isn't quite as easy as just looking at the numbers, I suppose.  The real question of progress can't really be measured in numbers, but rather in feelings.  I say that only because it was how I was feeling that drove my purpose for creating the list in the first place. So then, you might ask....how am I feeling?

First, I can't believe that it has been a year already.  There have been so many wonderful memories about this past year, many of them directly related to the list.  This very blog, for example, is a direct result of my list.  I had wanted to start a blog for some time, just to give me a place to write but didn't have a clue what I could blog about.  It isn't hard for me (most weeks) to find things to blog about and it gives me the accountable for some of the other things that I might otherwise ignore.  Taelin's first picnic, our recent San Diego trip, my new love for yoga (although you may recall the first class was a little rough)...those things and more have been wonderful and have made this year feel "full."

But while this year has been full of wonderful things, this has also been a challenging year.  The kitchen fire which led to a remodel and Joe's back surgery and recovery were definitely big challenges but were all created externally and somehow were easier to manage. This blog gave me a place to vent the hard parts and celebrate the accomplishments, both of which were necessary.

It was the internal challenges though, the ones I created for myself via this list have been the much harder to endure.  For instance, getting to my goal weight...I scratch my head even wondering what more I can write about that here.  I have more posts about my weight loss than any other topic...and I am not much further right now than I was a year ago.  That doesn't make me feel so great.  I have written a little bit about my work and about education and what I suppose could be my disillusionment with several aspects of what it means to be "teacher."  Just thank your lucky stars that I have only found a few quotes that fit how I am feeling about that because otherwise you might just stop coming and reading.  

But for the most part, I am overjoyed and ecstatic with this whole project.  It has put me in touch with a part of me that I had lost and has helped me learn to look outside of my norm and embrace change.  I have shared food with friends at new restaurants, looked for opportunities to show random acts of kindness, read the best book I have ever read, started new Christmas traditions, been inspired by the words of other people and found gratitude in everyday things.  Without this project, none of that would be true.

So, what's next?  I have a list of recipes that I want to try that will take me far and above the 50 I wanted to get to.  There is a stack of books (on the bookshelf and on my iPad) just waiting to be read.  There are vacations that need to be saved for.  There are few skills that need to be learned (cake decorating and and using chopsticks) and some skills that need to be put to good use (there are 3 different photography goals on the list).  There are some easy ones (paying for someone's Starbucks) and then are more difficult tasks ahead (making a scrapbook album for Taelin of John).  I need to keep working on those things I don't like about myself. There is still a lot to get done.

It only seems appropriate to thank you those of you that read.  It helps knowing that you are out there. You are the ones that I envision sitting across from at the coffee shop when I snuggled up here on my couch.  I forget sometimes that you are out there, because you are so quite. But I am quickly reminded that you are there when I run into you out and about or get a email from you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I didn't really know what this list would lead too.  I didn't even really know if I would get that far.  But here I am; I think, a better person for it.  I guess the biggest thing that I have realized is that I need to be an active participant in my own life.  I need to be more aware of what is going on and be aware of how my actions (or inactions) can affect life.  It is up to me how I spend my time and who I spend it with.  We always have choices....always.  They aren't always the ones that we thought we would choose or the ones that others would hope we would choose.  It is up to each of us to make those choices and then be able to live with them.  If I had a glass of champagne I would say "Cheers!  Here is to another year!"