A belated HAPPY NEW YEAR! I won’t post a huge review of 2016. And though I have been jotting down some goals for 2017 they are a mix of public and private, so I won’t share all of those with you either. But there are a few thoughts to share.
2016 was very much a year of transition. A new Wintle made her way into the world, the existing little Wintle went to school. New routines were built up and then torn down to make way for others. We made new friends. We failed to spend much time with old friends (or anyone, really). My life, my work, my faith all evolved in ways. Sometimes dramatically. Sometimes subtly.
Amidst political turmoil and some amount of life change and upheaval there was much to celebrate: Ada; public speaking; becoming proficient with Laravel; graduation from pre-school; our first child turning five, Oikos turning five and so on. It’s been tricky, but good.
It’s felt like a year of transition and preparation. 2016 had a definite end to it. And 2017 has felt like the start of something. I mean, new year always does, but this new year had a more definite line drawn under it for us than other years have.
2017 then? Well, it’s started out with acceptance of things that must be. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s just time to go with the flow a little. ?
Technically I’ve been learning something that I’ve been putting off learning because I don’t like it. But not liking is no longer a reason any more. It needs to be a bigger part of my toolset. Yes: I’ve accepted that I need to be a proper JavaScript developer.
So with the help of Wes Bos’s excellent (free, fun) JavaScript30 course and (great value) ES6 course and Kyle Simpson’s excellent You Don’t Know JS books (<- Note: this is an affiliate link) (also note: Kyle is a pragmatic developer – I like him a LOT), I’ve been really getting stuck in and adding JS as a top-level skill alongside PHP, WordPress and Laravel.
And personally…I don’t know why, but I’ve been embracing emoji. ? It’s the new text.
I turn 40 this year. Mid-life crisis?