The media, understandably, tends to focus on the difficulties the residents of this planet face, so it’s easy to forget that there are good things happening as well.
But, if you’d like to read some positive/uplifting stories, consider subscribing to A Bit of Good News.
Some people view obituaries as morbid, but in truth only one line in these stories deals with death. The rest of an obit focuses on the amazing lives people led.
In 2022, these obituaries featured people whose lives — and deaths — most affected me:
* Sidney Poitier, Oscar-winning actor
* Bob Saget, comedian
* Meat Loaf, singer
* Howard Hesseman, actor
* Ivan Reitman, director
* P.J. O’Rourke, satirist
* Ned Eisenberg, actor
* Emilio Delgado, “Sesame Street” star
* Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of state
* Dagny Carlsson, world’s oldest blogger
* Gerda Weissmann Klein, Holocaust survivor
* Joanna Barnes, actress and novelist
* Collarwali, tiger
* Elaine Brumberg, fairy godmother of bowling
* Colin Cantwell, designer of the Death Star
* Ray Liotta, actor
* Ann Turner Cook, Gerber baby
* Betty Rowland, burlesque queen
* Woody Williams, last remaining WWII Medal of Honor recipient
* Charlie Milan, candlepin bowler
* Muriel Engelman, WWII nurse
* Dr. Randall E. McNally, plastic surgeon
* Raymond Allen Murray Jr., one of the nation’s first Black marines
* Nichelle Nichols, “Star Trek” star
* Roger E. Mosley, “Magnum PI” star
* David McCullough, historian
* Olivia Newton-John, “Grease” star and pop singer
* Marty Martin, snake expert
* Janice Bluestein Longone, cookbook collector
* Roland Mesnier, White House pastry chef
* Anne Garrels, war correspondent
* Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch
* Al Siegal, editor
* Ilse Nathan and Ruth Siegler, Holocaust survivors and sisters
* Nancy Hiller, woodworker
* Loretta Lynn, country music legend
* Patricia Marvin, Butterball Turkey Talk-Line operator
* Angela Lansbury, actress
* Mehran Karimi, the Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and loosely inspired the film “The Terminal”
* Allen Kay, ad exec
* Bob McGrath, “Sesame Street” star
* Dorothy Pitman Hughes, pioneering feminist
* Don Christopher, Garlic King
* Frances Hesselbein, Girl Scout leader
* Ali Ahmed Aslam, credited with inventing chicken tikka masala
* Dave Whitlock, fly-fisherman
* Barbara Walters, pioneering journalist
“Buy more books. Read more books. Give more books as presents. Get more books from the library. More books is always a good thing.” –Gabino Iglesias
Each December, I always take the time to examine the ups and downs I experienced over the past year. What follows is my personal and professional review of 2022. I:
* Produced/edited hundreds of breaking news stories about the global coronavirus pandemic, the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 2022 election cycle, the fall of Roe v. Wade and the transformation of U.S. women into second-class citizens, the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the rise and fall of British Prime Minister Liz Truss, the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Hurricane Ian, numerous mass shootings, outbreaks of the bird flu, monkeypox, polio and the return of influenza and many celebrity deaths.
* Promoted to deputy editor at HuffPost.
* Relaunched A Bit Of Good News.
* Penned at least 20 journal entries. Must do better next year.
* Sort of maintained two Instagram accounts: @thejadewalker and @catsofjade.
* Read 61 books and completed the 2022 GoodReads reading challenge
* Read numerous magazines, including Cook’s Country, Cooks Illustrated, Bake From Scratch, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, The Saturday Evening Post, The Writer and TeaTime Magazine.
* Watched at least 73 TV shows and 64 movies and listened to many podcasts.
* Participated in The Society of Professional Obituary Writers, the New Hampshire Writers Guild, the New York City Writers Group, the South Florida Freelancers Group, the Authors Guild, the Writers Guild of America East and the Silent Book Club, Manchester, NH chapter.
* Made 10 bottles of vanilla.
* Planted a large container garden, three bushes and a tree.
* Spent months searching for our next home. Alas, between the rising interest rates, the lack of available housing stock and the increase in prices, we had no luck. The search continues.
* Mourned the death of my friend, author/editor Bev Walton-Porter.
* Tried to get more sleep. Failed miserably, due to stress.
* Had our cat Pepper fixed.
* Continued to wear these damn braces.
* Decorated the front and inside of our house for Halloween and dressed up as a handmaiden.
* Decorated the front and inside of our house for Christmas and mailed more than 35 Christmas cards.
* Tried many recipes. New favorites include: Sheet pan buttermilk pancakes, fried banana bread bites, a new version of pumpkin pie, mini caprese salad bites, cranberry cream tart, spritz cookies and Richard Sax’s cloud cake.
* Wrestled with perimenopause, in all its hot-flash glory. A winner has not yet been determined.
* Suffered from at least 20 migraines and lost 44 days of my life to pain. Average headache duration: 52 hours. Began using a Cefaly treatment, which surprisingly, helped.
* Worked my 32nd year as a journalist.
* Celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.
* Turned 49.
Goals for 2023
* Purchase a new home with several acres of land.
* Improve my baking/cooking skills.
* Work on my fiction.
* Read at least 50 books.
* Sleep at least 7 hours a night.
* Win the lottery.
* Focus more on thriving rather than just surviving.
Over the past year, I consumed 61 books, 73 TV shows, 64 movies and many podcasts. These were my favorites.
(Note: Not all were released during the past 365 days.)
1. “The Hidden Palace” by Helene Wecker
2. “Child Zero” by Chris Holm
3. “The Kaiju Preservation Society” by John Scalzi
4. “Upgrade” by Blake Crouch
5. “Shadow Deal” by M.L. McKnight
6. “Death Moon” by Michael La Ronn
7. “Mortal Terms” by Michael La Ronn
8. “Snake Eyes” by Hillary Monahan
9. “Three Parts Dead” by Max Gladstone
10. “Oddball” by Sarah Andersen
(Honorable mentions: “Running Blind” by Lee Child, “Fairy Tale” by Stephen King, “Cold Hard Magic” by M.L. McKnight, “Spirit Chaser” by M.L. McKnight and “Suicide Kings” by Stephen Blackmoore)
1. “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss” by Amy Bloom
2. “On Animals” by Susan Orlean
3. “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” by Michael Lewis
4. “A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day (And Know Nothing About)” by Spike Carlsen
5. “Lily and the Octopus” by Steven Rowley
6. “If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t)” by Betty White
7. “Finding My Voice” by Nadiya Hussain
8. “The Beauty of Dusk” by Frank Bruni
9. “The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness” by Sy Montgomery
10. “My Life From Scratch” by Gesine Bullock-Prado
(Honorable mentions: “100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet” by Pamela Paul, “Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals” by Laurie Zaleski, “Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World” by William Alexander, “The Nineties” by Chuck Klosterman and “About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks” by David Rooney)
Overall reading ratio: I read 17,927 pages. Books were split 65% fiction to 35% nonfiction and 55% female authors to 45% male authors.
1. The Great British Baking Show
2. Sandman
3. Stranger Things
4. Escape to the Country
5. Gardeners’ World
6. Love Your Garden
7. Julia
8. Ted Lasso
9. The Repair Shop
10. Men In Kilts
(Honorable mentions: Evil, The Great British Baking Show: Celebrity Edition, Nadiya Bakes, The Great American Baking Show, For All Mankind, America’s Test Kitchen — At Home, The Morning Show, The Gilded Age, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages, The Confession, Mike and Molly, Ghosts, Ghosts (UK), Kim’s Convenience, Jack Reacher, Junior Baking Show and Welcome to Wrexham.)
1. The Last Bus
2. Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris
3. The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52
4. Becoming Cousteau
5. George Carlin’s American Dream
6. Luck
7. Sea Beast
8. Hello, Bookstore
9. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone
10. The Dig
(Honorable mentions: Jerry & Marge Go Large, The Last Movie Stars, Introducing Selma Blair, Free Guy, CODA, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Thor: Love and Thunder, The Adam Project, How to Survive a Pandemic, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, No Time to Die and Being the Ricardos)
1. The Vinyl Cafe
2. GrimmCast
3. Small Town Dicks
4. Naked Lunch
5. Against the Rules
6. BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast
7. Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
8. Christmas Past
9. Sue Perkins: An Hour Or So With….
10. David Tennant Does a Podcast With…
(Honorable mentions: Clear + Vivid With Alan Alda, The Christmas Stocking, Nocturne, The Book Case, Criminal, Death, Sex & Money, Backstory, Awards Chatter, Sidedoor and The Anthropocene Reviewed)
