Another solid year is behind me. I've been working for a long-term client all year, although that might come to an end soon. I guess we'll see.
At least one other exciting project emerged this year: a WordPress project for an alliance of European universities, the Colours Alliance. I haven't worked with WordPress for ages, but with the assistance of an AI companion, I managed to build a custom plugin that was published on the Plugin Directory. I built a brand new WordPress theme around this plugin.
I also completed a few smaller projects this year. I built a website for Approximately Blue, which featured an interesting design choice. I built HTML templates for a client who integrated them into their web shop platform. I built another WordPress theme that hasn't been launched yet, but is ready to go. Overall, I'm satisfied with the amount and quality of the work.
However, I noticed an occasional lack of motivation. These “smaller” gigs always reignite my web dev spark and help me regain that motivation. That is why I'm still enjoying my freelance journey.
This year, I used Eleventy and WordPress the most. I thought working with WordPress more frequently would be a pain, but it was fine. Eleventy is still very enjoyable to use, which is why I send them a bit of money here and there. It's such a great framework, and I hope more clients and developers decide to use it.
I went to the Smashing Conference in September with a friend, and it was great (for me, at least, not so much for my friend)! We met Vitaly Friedman, Manuel Matuzović, Brad Frost, Oliver Reichenstein, Matthias Ott, Marc Thiele, Tobias the DJ, and many other great attendees. I was very excited, and I couldn't have been happier to talk to all these “dev celebrities.”
I didn't blog much last year. Out of seven total articles, only one was published on CSS-Tricks: Pure CSS tabs with details, grid, and subgrid. I'd like to change that this year. I love to blog, but I just didn't feel like it last year.
I've been pretty quiet on social networks, too. I'd like to change that as well, especially because I have some new ideas on how to expand my business. I guess I'll have to be more active.
My newsletter is on pause again, and it's another thing I'd like to change this year.
This year I'm turning 40, and I decided to quit smoking and start jogging more. Wish me luck!