It's been an eventful first half of the year with giving my first presentations, writing a lot of articles, learning a bucketload of new CSS and following along with Open UI. It's been great fun and I do these things with a passion, but even so, it's time for a good break.
Being honest to yourself and your company
I always think it’s important to reflect on the time you invest in certain side projects. I love doing things such as following along with Open UI meetings, spreading the word by giving presentations, tutor some CSS and writing about my own take on it. It helps me grow as a developer, as a writer, maybe even as a presenter.
All of these things happen in my free time. I do enjoy my job at iO in general as I get to write CSS for a living, but making 3 presentations in 8 months is hard as well as trying to write good content and creating demos. These things are especially hard if you have to do them in evenings and weekends while working on a hard deadlined project. I never get to use any company time for these things, so yes, It does take up a lot of energy.
Family matters
I am a truly blessed person with a supportive - and just generally fantastic - wife and a healthy daughter who allow me to follow my passion. But not everything is perfect as my dad is still fighting cancer and this is still a struggle. I don’t talk about it that much, for the same reason that I don’t share a lot of pictures of my daughter on social media. I like to keep things a bit private.
But I’m looking forward to spending 4 weeks with my daughter, taking walks, maybe teaching her a thing or two, creating awesome foods and sporty activities. It’s going to be awesome! As well as some well-deserved rest together with my wife. Barbecues, board games, all that stuff.
Hobbies
I don’t get around doing much photography anymore, I hope to pick this up again as well. I do have a few personal “lazy side-projects” I’ve been willing to do: Build that Lego set I’ve never finished, start playing the latest Zelda game and start jamming on that guitar again - cranking it to 11 - just for the heck of it.
An “almost” digital detox
I’m mainly going to stay away from overly using social media, the day job and writing in August. I will be following the Open UI telecons but that will be pretty much it. Keeping the code to the minimum and enjoying some sunlight and activities. I don’t really have to “turn off social media” as I’m pretty lousy at following up socials anyways.
But mainly, thanks from me
I’ve noticed a growth in popularity of this blog, people sharing, commenting on Mastodon or Twitter (X?). It’s grown from a handful to thousands and I really want to thank all of you readers, even though I don’t really know who you are. The support really matters, a simple “retweet” or “like” can make my day. This blog has already given me the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people and I hope to continue this in the future - after - the break.
One last demo
Before I end, some final demos in which I played around with OKLCH colors in Chrome with the theme “summer vibes”. One of them as an “iO challenge” and one of them in my spare time. This time without explainers, if you’d like me to give some more info on them, let me know, but it will have to wait for now…
☀️ Summer mode engage ☀️
