Hi 👋🏼 I'm Rach. A developer building software for CodePen, wife, mother of two, productivity nerd and recovering screen addict. This is my digital garden.
A friend asked me if I could build him a simple website for his new Mechanical Engineering business: just a few pages showing off what they’re about and what they can do. This is the sort of work I did when I was just starting out with web dev - marketing sites. It’s been 14 years since I worked a gig like this, and I was so struck by how much easier everything is now. First of all, the…
When you put something in the oven and need to remember to take it out, or put washing in the machine and need to remember to hang it out, or need to do anything else time-sensitive like take medication, set a reminder for it. And not just any alarm or reminder, the kind that bugs you over and over until you do it. When packing for family trips, use your lists. Keep the lists updated. Refer back…
I was a very happy Arc user for a couple of years, but after The Browser Company announced they would no longer be working on it , I started to assess alternatives. Now I've ended up with a stack of browsers, instead of reaching for a single browser to do all the things. Polypane For dev work involving designing, layout and styling. Chrome For all other dev work. Horse For general internet usage.…
Recently I've been experimenting with adding title-less notes to this site, for thoughts the length of a microblog or social post. Around the same time, I saw Pages CMS popping up in my communities. I decided to give it a try, for adding these micro posts (I call them nuggets) to my Astro content. I didn't want to replace the authoring flow for my regular notes with Pages, because I quite like the…
The whole “vibe coding” thing is another reminder that quite a lot of people working in tech don’t understand the difference between programs and products -- Dylan Beattie in The Problem with “Vibe Coding” Love the distinction made by Dylan in this post. I am still as in love with programming as I was 15 years ago. Product development, on the other hand, brings me to tears on a weekly basis.…
I have this story in my head, that the longer I go without writing a note here, the better that note has to be when I do eventually come back and post again. I was looking on the internet to see if this is a common thought pattern - that if something is infrequent, it must be excellent. I couldn't find anything like that on the psych blogs, so I have to assume that I've taken the phrases "quality…
I was texting with my best friend. Her mum has cancer, and my friend is going through the brutality of watching it take her piece by piece, just as I did with my own mum 13 years ago. I was thinking about how to respond to the latest message, too personal to relay here, when a suggested reply, animated in glowing colours to let me know it was "intelligent" popped up: Hang in there! My thought…
This year I set a goal to journal every day in the hope I can write one of these 2024 year-in-review notes for my site. I didn't get to it every single day but I did it enough that I can look back and remember the year that was! There was a lot that happened this year so I've tried to pull out some threads/themes that particularly stood out or came up over and over again. Most of my focus…
Last I had a Hobonichi Techo Cousin and I loved so many things about it: the paper, the layout, how flat it lays on the desk. The one thing that bothered me was just how big the pages were. I struggled to fill them and it just felt like a waste having so many half-blank pages. So this year I'm going to do my daily journaling in the A6 size. I bought a HON because I loved the rainbow cover. It is…
A conversation about the day's playground shenanigans with one of my kids had me asking him: "do you know what social skills are?". He replied "no, what's that?". After I explained, he was keen to tell me which skills he thinks he is good at (being kind and respectful, communicating with friends, being able to compromise within a group with different needs). He then said "the skill I don't have,…
Sometimes I've just gotta clear the house of extra stuff. When the energy hits I go through every area in the house and bin, give away or sell anything we're not using anymore. I think that compared to the average household my propensity for accumulation things is lower than average, but my tolerance for cluttered spaces is also low, so the big black trash bag energy hits like once a year. Doing…
Recently, my attention has been focused on building web apps to suit my very specific needs. The first one was a financial dashboard of sorts, where I took the data from my YNAB account and built out custom reports so help me make sure we're hitting our investment goal and spending according to our values. The second one (I just finished) was a digital recreation of the weekly layout from my…
I had a journal entry in my Hobonichi Techo Cousin for every day this year until July, where I have a string of blank pages. I was doing so well, and I was really in to the swing of journaling every day... until I wasn't. The cause? Doing a little too well at journaling, actually. I got inspired by the fancy spreads of other Hobonichi enthusiasts on Instagram, and started making my own pretty…
Sometimes I get asked by newcomers how one can become a developer like me - specifically, with a job and career like mine . I find this sort of question impossible to answer. My personal situation is the result of the time I started, local and international economic forces, politics , and happenstance. I can't tell you how to recreate it from scratch in 2024! It does create a little thought…
I was starting to get over the lettering practice by this week, as I had run out of ideas and felt like it was getting repetitive. I definitely feel like having to "finish" something every day is preventing my ability to focus on quality and perhaps improve my skill. So for July's challenge I'm going to dedicate 20 minutes a day to creative practice and post the WIP on Mastodon. I ended up with 27…
Three-quarters of the way through this month's creative challenge! I feel like I'm genuinely getting better from all the practice, especially with my control over the Apple Pencil in Procreate. Thanks for reading this post via RSS! Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on the original post or send me an email .
I've been trying out a new thing lately - carrying a pocket notebook around with me and using it to capture diary entries, thoughts and tasks instead of my phone. This change has largely been inspired by that moment when I reach the end of a long day, and I'm staring at my Hobonichi daily page, finding it all too hard to remember and record events of the day. I figured, if I jot them down as I go,…
Another week of lettering pieces. One thing I've noticed is that the need to publish something every day means they often feel quite rushed and I find myself wishing I could spend a little more time on them, and do a better job. The pressure is more positive than negative, because it is helping me get past my tendency towards perfectionism. But I think for next month's challenge (whatever that is,…
I've enjoyed my daily lettering challenge for the month of June so far! I've been having fun with trying different styles and brushes. is not a button" /> Thanks for reading this post via RSS! Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on the original post or send me an email .
I love a good comedy series. It's my comfort television. These are my favourites over the years. 90s We only had free-to-air TV at our house, so it was slim pickings from the four channels available to us. I was always happy to watch a re-run of these shows though. The Simpsons The Nanny Keeping Up Appearances Fawlty Towers (my dad owned the VHS tapes) 2000s I was watching more Reality TV and…