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