See other year in review posts.
Me and Little Man gathering snowballs, here at the end of all things 2020:
A lot of bad things happened in the world this year, but in my own little world there was mostly just good. Chiefly because I’m blessed to have a COVID-proof job that has let me work from home since mid-March.
This has also meant doing lockdown and social distancing with a toddler, which was simultaneously easy (he doesn’t know what COVID-19 is nor what he’s missing because of it) and challenging (*random shrieking and tantrums*).
Still, life continued to happen in spite of everything, as it is wont to do. Here’s what that looked like for me:
- Got to watch Little Man:
- grow from a chubby baby into an energetic, hilarious, tender, and curious creature
- get very familiar with our local park, playground, and pond through countless walks
- take his first swim with me, which he loved and got to share with his cousin and uncle
- take his first steps
- watch Mister Rogers’s magic
- make an Avant-garde short film
- make me cry
- get into typewriters (and use my banged-up Royal Royalite as his training machine)
- play with trains
- let me pick him up all the time
- trace his hand on mine
- Coined a new Filmspotting segment
- Celebrated five years of marriage with my bride
- Made several home improvements, including adding can lights, getting a new front door, remodeling our house’s original 1956 kitchen (shout-out to soft-close cabinets and drawers!), and opening up a wall between the kitchen and living room
- Learned I’m an Obi-Wan, and pondered statues and Star Wars
- Mulled over marriage and music
- Ranked my top 10 songs from Disney movie musicals
- Kept up my ongoing Recent Views, Magazine Mashups, and Media of the Moment series
- Became a person who listens to podcasts at 1.5x speed
- Became a person who has a pre-lit, artificial Christmas tree
- Refinanced our mortgage to jump on those sweet ‘n’ low interest rates
- Hosted some out-of-town friends for a socially distant autumnal hangout in our garage, complete with space heater and hot cider
- Learned my 3-year-old niece said this about me: “I love Chad because he holds me. He’s the best Chad I’ve ever had.”
- Explored the wilds of Pure Michigan during a weekend getaway, our only out-of-town excursion this year except for a surprise day trip to see family and say goodbye to my sister’s dog (RIP Nox)
- Said goodbye to my beloved iPhone SE and said hello to a new second-generation SE
- Sold our Nissan Leaf to some friends and saw our electric bill drop by about 40%
- Took a few much-needed and much-enjoyed solo bike rides to and through a nearby forest preserve
- Got a new leaf blower with a gutter attachment, which is a game-changer
- Finally got my garage workspace set up with some steel pegboards for tools and our old kitchen’s counter/cabinet as a workbench
- Continued adding to my DVD collection, with new entrants including Out of the Past, Contact, Toy Story 3, Ikiru, and several library discards
- Read 17 books and watched 78 movies
- Watched lots of quality TV, including The Queen’s Gambit, The Great British Baking Show, Big Mouth, Love on the Spectrum, Queer Eye, and The Crown
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