See previous year in review posts.
My view from the end of all things 2021:
With the day off from work, I spent the morning traipsing around our snowy yard with Little Man. He introduced me to his snowman (above), we threw snowballs at trees, and rolled down the small hill in our backyard. Lots more snow is on the way, apparently, so we’ll be out there shoveling again soon to welcome the new year.
I don’t have an overarching thesis of my 2021. In most ways it was just like last year: COVID, living with a rambunctious and hilarious toddler, and doing the little things of living every day. Sometimes that’s all you can and should do: shovel snow when you have to, and roll down a hill when you can.
A few highlights:
- Celebrated 15 years of blogging!
- Read 31 books and watched 57 movies
- Got to see Little Man:
- get potty trained
- attend a (chaotic, barely structured) park district soccer class for 2-3 year olds
- take swimming lessons and learn how to play in the public pool
- encounter the fauna of Brookfield Zoo and the flora of the Botanic Garden
- share endless hours of ball play in our dining room with the Okee Dokee Brothers in the background
- Finally wrote about my undying love for the TV show Boomtown, not once but twice
- Watched some good TV: Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon, Bluey, Love on the Spectrum, The Great British Baking Show, The Underground Railroad, The Good Lord Bird, and currently Station Eleven
- Saw my first movie in a theater since COVID
- Compiled my top 5 tips for planning a wedding
- Established a professional pantheon
- Debuted One Typed Quote
- Grew weary of Marvel
- Got vaxxed
- Did a status update on my favorite podcasts and productivity tools
- Enjoyed a friends weekend in Chicago
- Added these cheap used DVDs/Blu-rays to my collection: Jaws, WALL-E, The Count of Monte Cristo, Red River, Apollo 13, Columbus, The Death of Stalin, Jurassic Park, Knives Out, Paterson, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
- Endeavored to Better The Beatles
- Decided my top 5 autumn movies
- Did a lot of gardening (and mulching and raking and mowing et al)
- Took stock of my presidential biography reading
- Tried and mostly succeeded at pumpkin carving
- Started retroactively making annual top 10 movie lists, starting with 2006 (see all of them)
- Kept up several ongoing series:
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