Hands down this was one of the busiest months of my career. Aggressive turnaround on launching a client’s new product and checkout experience, got close-to-launch on one of the most impactful sites of my career, wrapped up a two-year design systems project, landed a months-long mega-refactor on an app we’re building on the side, worked with the Tabvengers to land some research work in Open UI, gave a talk on Multi-dimensional Accessibility Backlogs at axe-con, and somehow summoned around ~100 hours to write and record an entirely new talk on Web Components for An Event Apart’s upcoming Spring Summit. I’m pleased with the work I did, but also realize the pacing was breakneck and probably need to say “No” more often.

Git commit graph, March is almost filled up entirely

On top of all that general busy-ness, a shocking dose of mortality hit as I got news that my Aunt Renee passed away and my dad needed to have exploratory heart surgery. Aunt Renee was a great woman, respected coach in her small town of Syracuse, Nebraska, and a wonderful wife to my Aunt Marsha. We’ll miss her. While grieving, I’m also thankful my dad’s surgery went well and they were able to stent a 99% blockage. This all has me thinking about my own general health and my utter lack of “go to the doctor”-ness.

On the subject of doctors, my wife an I got our second shot of the Moderna vaccine which is another major medical relief. We know we still need to be careful, we’re still masking up and following CDC guidelines, but taking the edge off of every human-to-human interaction is untold relief. We’re now able to hatch plans and see grandparents and family that we haven’t seen in years.

More vibes

  • 🏡 Shed: I moved in a ginormous 150lb solid walnut desk from UpLift desk into the office. It’s great and I plan on using it for the next 20 years. I also assembled my dream bookshelf from IKEA. The office space is starting to take shape.

  • 📖 Reading: Made my way through two books The War of Art and The Inevitable while assembling IKEA furniture this month. Of the two, I enjoyed The Inevitable the most, as it’s by Kevin Kelly who is one of my favorite thinkers.

  • 📝 Blogging: I published one post and created two new drafts.

  • 🎙️ Podcasts: Same consistent clip. Got to talk with Evan You again and that was noteworthy because I’m using his new project Vite, but also, he’s a thoughtful person and it’s always nice to come across people like that. The ShopTalk Discord is starting to pop off too and it’s a lot of fun.

  • ⌨️ Open Source: Released an unpacked Chrome extension called Humans vs Robots. It’s based on a blog post by Jim Nielsen and it highlights files in a git-repo based on whether it’s supposed to make Humans work together or make Robots work together.

    Screenshot of Humans vs. Robots repo

  • 💪 Fitness: I attempted the One Punch Man challenge, but didn’t make it more than a week because I wrecked my arms doing the push-ups. Fitness is probably going to be a key focus in April.

  • ⚖️ Budgeting: I’m attempting to budget using Lunch Money (Referral Link). It’s akin to YNAB in intent but a cleaner UI. Big original Mint vibes before it sold out trying to sell you credit cards. It’s also a Jamstack app.

Heading into next month, I’m thinking about relaxation and my personal fitness goals. February and March have worn me down.