End of 2021 update

This isn’t quite a home ownership blog post, nor is it only about this blog. This is kind of a quick personal update about how my year’s been, some recent updates to my house, and ideas for movie theme months for the coming year. This isn’t meant to be a focused blog post at all. Also, feel free to let me know in the comments how your 2021 went.

This has been a weird year in a number of ways for me. I don’t feel like digging into too much here, but work’s been very unpredictable. There were even a couple of times where my hours started affecting my physical health. And I’m one of the lucky ones – some of my co-workers were out of work for 4 months, due to circumstances outside of my company’s control. I worked fairly consistently for the most part.

I’m itching to get back into novel writing, but with the mix of a year where work’s been a whirlwind, and not much seems to be happening outside of work, I don’t have any inspiration. I might try to edit a book or two next month to see if that helps, but that partly depends on how work goes. I need some sort of routine, and I haven’t had one all year.

On the plus side, I’ve watched a number of movies I’ve been meaning to see for years, but never quite got to. Some I reviewed for this blog, and others I watched in my spare time. I’ve also been catching up on video games lately, both with games I’ve meant to play for a while, and replaying games that I feel a lot of nostalgia for.

I never got around to doing any more major renovations or additions this year. This is mostly because of how unpredictable work has been, and at times it felt like I wasn’t guaranteed to work the next week. But a couple of days ago, I replaced two light fixtures in my house. One of them had burnt wires that were about to become a fire hazard, so that needed to go. The local restore held a 40% off sale this week on all light fixtures, so I ended up buying two for less than $11. They’re both better looking, they both have more room, and best of all, no burnt wires. The other one I replaced was ugly, covered in paint stains, and despite having two light bulb sockets, was only big enough to fit one bulb. What’s up with that?

The biggest change is that I adopted two kittens in September. They were just over 4 months at the time, and are just over 7 months old now. They’re brother and sister from the same litter, and they get along famously. As I type this, they’re napping on the bed behind me, right next to each other. I generally prefer dogs, but for someone who is currently living on my own, with wildly unpredictable work hours, cats are easier to take care of. Especially since they can keep each other company when I’m away. They also like taking turns napping on my lap. And yes, they both like playing fetch.

As for my ideas for movie theme months for next year, I’ve already decided on January and February. Next month I’ll be catching up on the MCU – in fact I watched Black Widow yesterday afternoon, and will write my blog post either tomorrow or January 1. In February, I’ll be looking at the Jumanji film series, including Zathura since both the original Jumanji and Zathura are based on books by the same author, and that author was involved with both movies. The first movie was the hardest one to keep off of my Robin Williams month from 2019.

Beyond that, here are some of my ideas for other theme months for the year.

Ridley Scott month, where I look at some of Scott’s biggest movies over the years.

So bad it’s good month, where I look at a handful of hilariously bad movies.

On that note, cheesy Christian movies, where I make fun of four ultra-cheesy Christian movies that are impossible to take seriously.

Chadwick Boseman month, where I look at four of his movies outside of the MCU. The Black Panther actor died in 2020, so I’m a bit late on this, but I would do this in August. That would be the 2-year anniversary of his passing.

Disney straight to video month, where I look at four straight to video sequels of animated Disney movies that don’t suck. Or I might even do a pair of months, where for one, I look at the worst, and for the other, I look at the best.

Another Disney themed month could be rewatching 4 or 5 movies that I looked at for my first movie series from back in 2017. Movies that I hadn’t seen before, and wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about them. Meet The Robinsons, Robin Hood, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad would be included in this.

Fantastic Four month, where I look at the four Fantastic Four movies.

Tom Hanks month, where I look at my favourite Tom Hanks movies.

Hollywood Epic month, where I look at a handful of classic and modern Hollywood Epic movies. I would most likely include The 10 Commandments in this.

I’m also open to further suggestions, and just because they’re ideas at this point, doesn’t mean I’m going to do them. Let me know if any of these ideas sound particularly interesting to you.

Anyway, happy new year everyone, and let’s hope that 2022 is a much better year than 2021.