2021 in Review
Published
In General
2021 was a difficult year, but I’m so grateful I was able to end it with a new job on a healthy team and a lot of space away from projects and social media to reflect. I’m looking forward to approaching 2022 and my projects in healthier ways.
Posts Published
I didn’t get to publish as many posts as I wanted to, but I still published 10 different posts and I’m very proud of all of them.
- “Build a Blog Site with Next.js and Firebase” (now archived)
- My Writing and Planning Process
- How to Create Your Own Next.js RSS Reader App
- How I Added an RSS Feed to My Next.js Site
- What the heck is “web a11y”?
- Speaking My Truth—I Did Not Leave for Personal Reasons
Speaking Events
I was hoping to do more speaking events this year, but a few were canceled or postponed due to the pandemic. Here is a list of the speaking events I did get to do, three of which were live streams on Twitch! I had so much fun on the streams and it’s interesting to see how far I’ve come in public speaking. I hated it in high school and most of college and used to be terrified to speak in front of groups of people.
- “Getting started with accessibility” interview with Kevin Powell
- “Debugging Semantic HTML Elements for Accessibility” SomeAnticsDev Twitch stream
- “Accessibility August 2021 on Dev Roulette LIVE” with Stephanie Myers
- “Build a Dark & Light Mode Switcher in React using Context”, React.Indy meetup
- Note: I’m realizing I still have to upload the finished code from this event! I’ll try to do that as soon as I can.
Books
I am really good at starting new things, especially books. Part of my difficulty with finishing books is ADHD. It takes me a long time to get into a reading focus if I’m only reading. If I use an audiobook or speech-to-text in addition to reading, however, I have a much easier time. What’s difficult about that is being deaf. If I don’t have headphones to listen while I read, then I can’t really listen. I’ve found that I can also read/listen better when I have a simple knitting project. I didn’t finish a ton of books this year, but what’s great is I’m learning all of these things about myself and working on carving out the right space for myself to read more.
Books Started
This list is currently all the books I could find with my Goodreads account (I read on a Kindle). I’m 100% sure there are more books that belong here because I purchased multiple from people that self published. When I find them, I’ll add them to the list.
- It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage
- Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
- Real Life
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
- How to Live With the Internet and Not Let It Run Your Life
- Conflict Resolution Playbook: Practical Communication Skills for Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict
- In the Land of Men: A Memoir
- Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion
- Sorry I Missed You
- Women in Tech: Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories from Successful Women in Tech to Take Your Career to the Next Level
- The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity
Books Finished
- Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution
- Such a Fun Age
- Help for Women with ADHD: My Simple Strategies for Conquering Chaos
- Weird in a World That’s Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures
Projects
Like I mentioned already, I didn’t get to finish as many projects as I wanted, but I’m really looking forward to getting back to all of these!
Note: I can’t remember all my projects right now so I’ll have to update this post as I remember them.
Projects Started
Knitting Projects
- Socks in (yarn I can’t remember the name of, I’ll update ASAP)
- Triangle shawl in Cascade 220 Superwash Merino, color number 86
Coding Projects
- StaySemantic.com, a web accessibility resource that will have demos and explorations of various components, their properties, and how they sound with screen readers. Check out a preview of the Disabled Button Demo.
- “Build an Accessible Blog with Next.js and Semantic HTML” course for egghead.io, which will get into the importance of semantic HTML in regards to accessibility, how to navigate documentation, and how to identify accessibility issues. I have a GitHub repository that will get updates as I work on the course.
Projects Finished/Shipped
General
- 25-cube IKEA KALLAX shelf
- IKEA BEKANT standing desk
Knitting Projects
- Plain hat in Boss Kitty Hand Dyed DK Weight, Rock-A-Doodle-Doo colorway
Coding Projects
- What Can I Plant? For determining what you can plant in Stardew Valley and make the most money off of. Last updated January 2021.
- The Golden Girls Quotes API. Just for getting random quotes from The Golden Girls. Last updated October 2021.
- React, TypeScript, Less/CSS modules, Jest, and Enzyme boilerplate. I did this for the learning experience and don’t use it as a boilerplate. I mainly use Next.js for everything these days. Last updated May 2021.
- Discord bot for eventually doing cool things in Discord! I like the idea of having a cool Discord server for engaging with folks. Maybe it’ll happen this year? Last updated August 2021.
- Discord bot API for custom webhooks. It currently sends various notification message in channels only I can see about my new newsletter service and subscribers. I’m hoping to have that newsletter live soon!