The new year has begun the 2021 posts are in the past, and we are all hopeful it will bring better times than the previous two years. May the Covid coronavirus wither and die, or at least diminish to another kind of flu we get shots for every year.

Big doings lie ahead on the political, healthcare, and science fronts as well. I look forward to some and I’m holding my breath about others. The 2022 Midterm Elections hold my particular interest.

Changes have also come to The Next Phase Blog. We will miss Susanne Skinner’s regular Monday posts and wish her good luck in her new endeavors. I also (selfishly) hope that she will find so many interesting things to write about that her thoughts, recommendations, and recipes will appear frequently.

Compiling the List of 2021 Posts

This month I’m going to try something I’ve never done before: a roundup of 2021 posts—all of them—by category. They appear in chronological order, so the December posts appear at the end of a category.

Just compiling this list of 2021 posts made me realize how much things have changed. Once I wrote frequently about movies, especially science fiction movies. Since the pandemic hit, however, we have seen far fewer movies and gone to the theater—cautiously—only three times.

I also found it surprising how few posts we wrote about books and how many about health and safely. You might think a worldwide pandemic put good health and long lives at the top of mind. Who’d a thunk it?

As always, I wrote a lot about Boston. A city founded in 1630 has a lot of history to explore, whole centuries of architectural development to describe, and little quirks to highlight. I share these posts with my fellow Boston By Foot tour guides and history buffs, who often add their own comments. I enjoy researching the posts almost as much as writing them and my bookshelves of Boston and New England history grow a little every year.

A Roundup of 2021 Posts

Enough said. Here’s the roundup of 2021 posts for you to check out. I created a separate category for Suze’s On My Mind posts, because they really deserve special attention. Especially the recipes. And I moved one Boston post to Food and Cooking because, well, it belongs there.

Animals

• Humans Helping Animals and Vice Versa — Aline

Boston and History

• Hanover Street and the Prince of Hanover – Aline
• Lincoln Wharf: From Steamships to Condos – Aline
• The Richardson Block: A Phoenix from the Ashes – Aline
• Boston’s Streets: Temple Street — Aline
• Boston’s Streets: Bosworth Street – Aline
• 

  The Hancock Building’s weather beacon

  Boston’s Streets and Common Occupations — Aline

• The New Riding Club Near the Back Bay Fens – Aline
• Boston Photos: Outtakes from the Archives – Aline
• St. Paul’s: Boston’s First Greek Revival Church – Aline
• The Steaming Kettle’s Invisible Creator — Aline
• The Hancock Building’s Weather Beacon – Aline
• Boylston Place: Education, Art, and Football — Aline
• The Buildings of Piano Row: Part 1 — Aline
• Piano Row Buildings: Part 2 — Aline
• The Buildings of Piano Row: Part 3 and Steinert Hall — Aline
• Piano Row: Carver Street and Poe Square – Aline
• Three Building Façades on Essex Street – Aline
• How to Keep Trucks from Being Storrowed — Aline
• The Army Supply Base/ Innovation Design Building – Aline
• Questions for Boston Tour Guides – Aline
• Obnoxious Noise Around Boston Common — Aline
• The Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts — Aline
• Boston’s Tuscan Fire Lookout Tower — Aline
• Where Somerset Street Meets Sudbury Street — Aline

Books

• Pandemic Books: Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down – Aline
• Novels About Art, WWII and the Monuments Men — Aline
• Four Books for Holiday Reading — Aline

Business and Technology

• Living in a Zoom New World – Aline
• It’s a UAP, Not a Bird or a Bat – Aline
• The Negative Loop – Doers vs. Objectors – Aline
• America’s Wealth Dragons — Aline
• Phishing: Don’t Take the Bait — Susanne
• The Invisible Sneaky Insider — Aline
• Driving Through a Rural Food Desert – Susanne
• 8 Reasons Why I Don’t Shop at Amazon – Aline
• Why It’s Important to Back Up Your Computer — Aline
• Attention Theft; Are You a Victim? – Susanne
• Where Have All the Workers Gone? – Susanne
• Things Change — Susanne
• Customer Survey: Tell Us What You Think – Susanne
• America’s New Robot Workforce — Aline

Entertainment

• Pandemic Watchlist: Version 7 — Aline

 Food and Cooking

• Pandemic Food Finds – Susanne
• Food for Thought: Cucina Povera – Susanne
• Food for Thought: Spice It Up — Susanne
• Wisconsin Supper Clubs: A Culinary Tradition — Susanne
• Salt: The Only Mineral We Eat – Susanne
• Boston’s Missing French Canadian Cuisine — Aline

Friends and Family

• A Visit with My Sister – Susanne
• An Unexpected Friendship – Susanne
• The Friend Connection – Susanne
• Grief and the Empty Chair — Susanne
• Things My Mother Taught Me — Susanne
• A Surviving Spouse Checklist — Susanne

Health and Safety

• Anatomy of a Cult – Susanne
• The In-Home Dinners Lost to Covid-19 – Aline
• Vaccinated and Ready for the Real World — Aline
• The Meaning and Practice of Self Care — Susanne
• Now is the Spring of Our Re-Emergence – Aline
• Choosing Memory Care Support — Susanne
• Heart Disease: The Lady Killer — Susanne
• Changing Insurance Rules for Emergency Rooms – Susanne
• Women, Health and Research — Aline
• You Can’t Fix Stupid – Aline
• Normalizing Obesity: American Girth — Aline
• Witnessing a Motorcycle Accident — Aline
• Fitness Over Fifty Part 1: Getting in Shape – Susanne
• Part 2 of Fitness Over Fifty Part 2: The Mind-Body Connection – Susanne
• Fitness Over Fifty Part 3: Eat Well, Move More, Feel Better — Susanne
• Spotting a Dangerous Spot — Aline
• Surviving Seasonal Depression — Susanne

Lifestyle and Culture

• 2021: The Year of the Ox – Susanne
• Estate Planning: Executors and Trustees – Susanne
• White Privilege: White Like Me – Susanne
• Why Americans Can’s Speak Proper English – Aline
• What Americans Don’t Know About Civics — Aline
• Forgiveness Requires Accountability — Aline
• 2021: A Better Year Ahead — Susanne
• New Year’s Resolutions – Susanne
• Life Hacks: Why We Love Them – Susanne
• 2021: A Year of Hope — Susanne
• Disable the Label – Susanne
• UFOs: The Truth is Coming — Aline
• International Day of the Girl – Susanne
• The Gap Between Statistics and Real Life — Aline
• The Hot and Cold of October Weather — Aline
• Halloween’s Giant Skeletons in the Yard — Aline
• The Cynical Tears of Men – Aline
• Simplifying the Holidays — Susanne
• Three Extraordinary Art Exhibitions in 2021 — Aline

Military

• Thoughts on the Heavy Costs of War – Aline
• The Cost of War Part 2: Who Likes War? – Aline

Movies and TV

• Pandemic Watchlist Season 8 – Aline
• Delta Watchlist: Part 1 – Aline
• Will Viewers Come Back to the Movies? — Aline

On My Mind

• March 2021 – Susanne
• July 2021 – Susanne
• October 2021 – Susanne
• On My Mind Christmas 2021: The Farewell Tour — Susanne

Science and the Environment

• 

  Artist’s rendering of asteroid Apophis approaching Earth

  The AMOC and Climate Change – Aline

• Asteroid Fly-by and Other Sightings – Aline
• Looking Up to Asteroids and UAP Data – Aline
• Looking Down to Big Doings on Earth – Aline
• Clouds, Asteroids and Pyroclastic Flows – Aline
• Tyrannosaurus Rex in the News — Aline
• To the Heliopause and Beyond – Aline
• Full Moon After a Freaky Week — Aline
• The Law of Unintended Consequences — Susanne
• What We’re Learning About UFO Sightings – Aline
• UFOs / UAPs: When Denial is Dangerous – Aline
• Sky News for November 2021 — Aline
• Astronomical Christmas Lights in the Sky — Aline

Spiritual

• Say Something Nice: a Lenten Redux – Susanne
• The Compare and Despair Trap — Susanne
• 2021: The Year That Wasn’t There – Susanne
• Finding the Positive in a Negative Time – Aline
• In 2022: Do Better — Susanne

Travel

• 6 Tips for Being a Good Tour Guest – Aline
• Three Chicks and a Kubota — Susanne

Writing and Language

• “Frostfire” and a Charity Anthology — Aline
• Newsflash: Words Have Meaning — Aline

Women Challenging Change

• The Vice President: Role and Gender — Aline
• Woman Game Changers — Susanne
• How Women are Doing in Women’s History Month – Aline
• Finding Magic in an Ordinary Day – Susanne

Off to the Races

So, now that we’re done with 2021 posts, we’re off to the races in 2022. Who knows what this year will bring?  Should we strap in and buckle up or relax and take a deep breath? We simply have no way to know. Hope may not be a strategy, but we can only hope 2022 will improve on the past two years in a variety of ways.

Happy New Year Everyone!