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2020 Recap
Jan. 30th, 2021 03:41 pmWELL HELLO THERE, FRIENDS. It's 2021 now! 2020 is behind us! Boy, what a terribly shitty year that I just... entirely lost the will to talk about in any capacity, tbh!
I honestly thought about not doing any year-end roundup stuff; I don't really want to relive things I did last year, and I don't really want to plan things for this year, because quite frankly "making it to the vaccine and then surviving that" is the only goal I really want to set myself (and then be pleasantly surprised if anything else happens!). But despite my somewhat limited media consumption, I do like revisiting those things through the year, and it's nice to have a record for it -- so welcome to my Great 2020 Media Roundup post! I am just... going to go ahead and put them all in one post this time around, because minimizing effort is what we're all about in 2021!
First, let's talk books! I read 113 books in 2020, which is the lowest number I've recorded since I first started keeping track ten years ago. (Fun fact: second lowest is 115 in 2012, the year I moved out of state for the first time and brought VERY few books with me!) It's... really not surprising that this happened, given that my usual library churn had to grind to a near-halt and my tendon/nerve issues really killed a lot of my creative desires, so especially in the fall, my reading pace slowed to a crawl. I'm pleased I made it over 100 regardless, but bummed by hitting a new low! 83 of these books were new books, meaning I clock it at 73% new books vs rereads -- the second highest in ten years, which does at least please me!
So among these, let's hit some highlights: the honorable mentions, the best, and the worst. LET'S GO.
( Five (Technically Six) Honorable-Mention Best Books I Read in 2020 )
( Ten (Technically Eleven) Best Books I Read in 2020 )
( Six (Technically Eight) Worst Books I Read In 2020 )
And next up on the agenda, movies! Unsurprisingly, I watched BY FAR more movies this year than I have in the past ten -- a whopping 160, even more than I read books, primarily thanks to the Hallmark movies that have become my default background noise, ha. More than half of these (90) were new movies -- again primarily of the Hallmark variety -- but I did also manage to rack up a solid set of new-to-me viewings that I genuinely enjoyed -- so let's talk about them!
( Ten Best Movies I Saw in 2020 )
Up next, TV! Hard to properly categorize this because of how differently I've consumed so many shows, ha, but here's some rough categories below!
( TV I Watched in 2020 )
Aaand finally, recipes! I made 83 discrete recipes this year, cooking or baking 139 times if you include the repeat recipes (about 20 of those are bread, too!), which is not only the widest variety of different things I've made in ten years, but also the highest proportion of new recipes (47, aka 57%!). Perhaps not surprising, given pandemic free time! I definitely tried out a bunch of new exciting things, both savory and sweet (as evidenced by the below lists!), as well as getting really into quick pickling for a while, and of course my delightful sourdough experiments (I cannot WAIT to start a new starter in the spring, once it's warm enough in the apartment to nurture it to life!). It's nice to look back on this after a year that honestly felt pretty useless; looks like I got a solid amount out of it in this respect, at least!
( Twelve Best Savory Recipes I Tried in 2020 )
( Five Best Sweet Recipes I Tried in 2020 )
( Five Best Sourdough Experiments I Tried in 2020 )
I honestly thought about not doing any year-end roundup stuff; I don't really want to relive things I did last year, and I don't really want to plan things for this year, because quite frankly "making it to the vaccine and then surviving that" is the only goal I really want to set myself (and then be pleasantly surprised if anything else happens!). But despite my somewhat limited media consumption, I do like revisiting those things through the year, and it's nice to have a record for it -- so welcome to my Great 2020 Media Roundup post! I am just... going to go ahead and put them all in one post this time around, because minimizing effort is what we're all about in 2021!
First, let's talk books! I read 113 books in 2020, which is the lowest number I've recorded since I first started keeping track ten years ago. (Fun fact: second lowest is 115 in 2012, the year I moved out of state for the first time and brought VERY few books with me!) It's... really not surprising that this happened, given that my usual library churn had to grind to a near-halt and my tendon/nerve issues really killed a lot of my creative desires, so especially in the fall, my reading pace slowed to a crawl. I'm pleased I made it over 100 regardless, but bummed by hitting a new low! 83 of these books were new books, meaning I clock it at 73% new books vs rereads -- the second highest in ten years, which does at least please me!
So among these, let's hit some highlights: the honorable mentions, the best, and the worst. LET'S GO.
( Five (Technically Six) Honorable-Mention Best Books I Read in 2020 )
( Ten (Technically Eleven) Best Books I Read in 2020 )
( Six (Technically Eight) Worst Books I Read In 2020 )
And next up on the agenda, movies! Unsurprisingly, I watched BY FAR more movies this year than I have in the past ten -- a whopping 160, even more than I read books, primarily thanks to the Hallmark movies that have become my default background noise, ha. More than half of these (90) were new movies -- again primarily of the Hallmark variety -- but I did also manage to rack up a solid set of new-to-me viewings that I genuinely enjoyed -- so let's talk about them!
( Ten Best Movies I Saw in 2020 )
Up next, TV! Hard to properly categorize this because of how differently I've consumed so many shows, ha, but here's some rough categories below!
( TV I Watched in 2020 )
Aaand finally, recipes! I made 83 discrete recipes this year, cooking or baking 139 times if you include the repeat recipes (about 20 of those are bread, too!), which is not only the widest variety of different things I've made in ten years, but also the highest proportion of new recipes (47, aka 57%!). Perhaps not surprising, given pandemic free time! I definitely tried out a bunch of new exciting things, both savory and sweet (as evidenced by the below lists!), as well as getting really into quick pickling for a while, and of course my delightful sourdough experiments (I cannot WAIT to start a new starter in the spring, once it's warm enough in the apartment to nurture it to life!). It's nice to look back on this after a year that honestly felt pretty useless; looks like I got a solid amount out of it in this respect, at least!
( Twelve Best Savory Recipes I Tried in 2020 )
( Five Best Sweet Recipes I Tried in 2020 )
( Five Best Sourdough Experiments I Tried in 2020 )
