With November (and NaNoWriMo) finished it’s time for the final update.

Day 25

Blogs: 397
Fiction: 778
Total: 31,646 (1175)

Day 26

Blogs: 608
Fiction: 473
Total: 32,727 (1081)

Day 27
Fiction: 515
Total: 33,242 (515)

Day 28
Fiction: 1195
Total: 34,437 (1195)

Day 29
Total: 34,437

Day 30
Blogs: 1394
Total: 35,831 (1394)

As you can see from the final day entry I ended up coming up short of my 50k target. I did want to catch-up more, but unfortunately client work has pretty much taken over my life. However this will make for an interesting comparison point for this month.

Take aways from this month’s experiment:

It’s interesting to track all sorts of writing. I never realised how many words I’m “losing” on forums, blogs, emails, etc. Turns out it’s not just time spent reading what others have to say on writing that takes my time away from writing, but also my own replies too. Next step would be to try and time these longer replies – might turn out I get a better typing speed there.

Despite planning to devote two hours a day to writing, that’s been rarely met, especially in the later part of the month. I’m still unsure of how to qualify the time spent writing for clients. Should that go under the “client work” or “writing” block of time? With more editing work coming my way that is another problematic task, when it comes to classification.

Regardless of typing speed I noticed my mind gets tired and starts taking shortcuts around the 1k words mark. Seems like I need a break or I naturally drift towards ending the scene. Would be interesting to see if it’s more to do with the time it takes me to write this amount or the word count itself.

Another one of those, everyone is doing it, so should you things – the revision of the year behind us and the planning (including the obligatory New Year’s resolutions) for the year ahead. Ah, what the hell, I’ll bite.

The Dreaded 13

I’m not superstitious. I’m really not. But after 2013 I just, maybe just, have started to believe those suffering from Triskaidekaphobia are on to something. In many ways this year has been terrible – business wise, and with disaster after disaster coming left and right. Want some examples? My place in Poland got flooded twice in the same month.

But I’m not one to wallow in self-pity. So just to be contrary I will ignore all the negative things and focus on all the awesome stuff that happened last year. There had to be something, right?

The Engagement

Also since the ring was a tad too big, I’ve learned that adjusting the size takes a whole three weeks. I have a feeling they needed to melt the thing down and forge it all over given how long that takes… Though it was worth the wait.

Oh, and the holiday was lovely too. ;)

Although I started several projects not all of them have seen their deadlines met in 2013. Still, I published 3 books this year, including my longest published work: A Fool’s Embrace (Vampire Bytes) and two titles under a “special” pen name (yeah, naughty books are fun to write too…). Those three titles come to 38.5k words in total. Unfortunately I haven’t been running a writing total from the beginning of the year so not sure how much I actually wrote since the former number is what has been published.

I have a rough estimate for December 2013 – about 16k words of fiction and November 2013 – about 20k. Just need to get these things finished and published. I did complete a sci-fi short story for an anthology but since that won’t be released till a bit later this month (?) it will count for 2014 stats (I’ll publish it as standalone a bit after the anthology is out).

A Proper Grownup

Not sure if this should qualify as a pro or a con of this year, but I’ve moved from the young and spritely category to the old and boring over-thirty. Nah, life hasn’t really changed much. The big three zero hasn’t brought any life shattering revelations with it – mentally I’m still about fifteen…

Mastering Photoshop

This is one area I definitely made a lot of progress in. And not in the “yucky” use for web design. Still think those peeps are crazy and Fireworks is the best tool for that. Nope, I’ve been editing photos, mostly designing book covers. I’m quite proud of the things I’ve learned and how I went from mainly a single photo with minimal tweaks plus good typography, to more advanced photo manipulation. My portfolio has definitely grown a lot during 2013.

Resolution Time!

I still haven’t sat down to do an action plan for my business (and it desperately needs some focus). Want to have that done by the end of next week. Though that isn’t much of a resolution.

Have a game night once a week. It’s way to easy to just spend our free time watching stuff on tv and browsing articles on the web in the evening. Both my finace and I love board games, but seem to never have time to play these days. Will be working on that.

Write a blog post once a week. I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry seeing that the updates on this blog have been: 01/2013, a few sporadic ones and then 11/2013. It’s almost like I should move to Tumblr or something. I think part of the problem is the pressure of preferring one blog over another (I run several sites for different purposes). So the rule will be at least one either for DD or that I can link to from DD. That way I won’t feel guilty for posting on my author site (like this post about the Photoshoot).

Write 500k words of fiction. Well at least one of these goals has to be ambitious…  Then again if I wrote five days a week it’s just under 2k per those writing days, so not unachievable if I’m disciplined about it. I love what DWS wrote about this specific topic in his recent post. I have to agree, that we should learn to take away what we can from failure and move on, rather than dwell on it.

Read 50 books. Nuff’ said. And I mean other than the ones I’ve written myself.

Finish this website. Erm, yeah, that’s long overdue…

I have quite a few things I’d like to achieve this year, but I think these are more goals and ongoing challenges. So I’m not going to vow to eat healthy or exercise just to fail by the time next holiday comes around. I’ve been working on that for a while, and however flawed my efforts have been they need to be more than a resolution. Besides in my case it’s starting to be a matter of not crashing after a high carb/sugar meal rather than dropping a dress size or two. Oh, all right, yeah that would be nice, too.

While trying to setup a starter project I hit a bit of a snag. Turns out the latest less files don’t want to play nice with the grunt-contrib-less (0.5.2) that comes with SailsJS (0.9.8).

parse error: failed at &:extend(.clearfix all);  

Since the required version is written explicitly in SailsJS package.json it’s not enough to just update your own project dependencies to the newer grunt/less versions (duh! took me a while before I realized that).

This wasn’t what I planned on writing about today… But since I’ve updated my gaming machine the other day (Goodbye Vista!  – yeah, I was surprised too, to see it was still running that…) I’ve been doing a little bit of clean up on it. The usual, tune settings, update drivers, remove unused or broken programs… That’s when I spotted something I haven’t used for a very long while.

Winamp!

Oh, my. Now that’s a blast from the past. I felt a bit sentimental when removing it. But these days I’m addicted to Spotify. It’s funny how things evolve. I don’t have many paid subscriptions, especially for things that aren’t related to running my business. Spotify is one of the few exceptions.

As a kid I started out with cassette tapes, but during my teens we quickly moved on to CDs. And then there were mp3s. I used to hoard those. Although I didn’t have a portable player for a long while. Though, funny enough I can’t quite remember what I used for on the go music in the period between tapes and an mp3 player – since I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a portable CD player… But back to my hoarding habits. Although mp3 players and then phones allowed me to take a selection of my files with me it wasn’t quite the same as having access to everything. And then I lost it all. Or almost all in a hard drive disaster. My fault really since I didn’t have a backup.

I tried restoring that collection and overtime grew my hoard a bit again. But before I had a chance to go on a proper shopping spree I found Spotify. At first I was a bit doubtful if it could replace “owned” music for me.  But as time went by I found, that pretty much anything I wanted to listen to was on there. Almost everything… and on that in a moment.

Funny enough I didn’t start paying for Spotify for it’s mobile use or to get rid of the ads. I actually enjoyed the ads. Most of them were funny, at least back when I was on free. No, what got me to pay were my bad listening habits. Yes, I’m one of those annoying people who listen to something over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and… you get the point. Playlists, sometimes an individual song. So when they introduced a play limit on the free option that was it. I had to become a subscriber.

So, you might wonder what  is it that I’m missing with Spotify. Well. The one thing that still isn’t there is non-English music. That’s something I lost when my hard drive died – a whole lot of Polish music. Some of it I could in theory recreate from the CDs I owned (or tapes??? As if anyone still had something that plays those…), but there were a few random indie/local bands I just had a song or two of. But in the end you just move on.  On a positive note, I’m actually seeing more and more Polish artists on Spotify too. It’s frustrating that sometimes they’ll just have one, latest album on there, when I’m looking for the classics I know.

I remember the awe and excitement when instead of a single album or a handful of pre-selected songs I moved to my extensive playlist on an mp3 player. I get the same awe now when I stop to think about the music I have at my fingertips through my phone. Everything available anywhere you are (OK, abroad trips can still be a challenge).

Just as I never though I’d move on from mp3s stored on my drive, I can’t imagine moving to some other way of consuming music over Spotify now. But maybe the successor is already out there. Anyone know of a revolution going on?

When deploying my meteor app to a new server I ran into a weird issue that didn’t seem to come back with any helpful errors.

Running:

``

meteor

would get stuck on Download meteor-tool@3.0.38 which would eventually exit with a “killednloading” message.

For anyone else stuck scratching their heads, it seem to be an out of memory issue.

Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two forward. Or in other words, never say never. Or to put it in simple terms – I’ve gone perm again…

I’ve been pretty happy with the contracting work I’ve done over the last year and a bit. After being preoccupied almost exclusively with the publishing work before that, it’s been a nice change to be coding full-time again (occasional side projects here and there don’t really count in my book). I’ve also been lucky enough to meet some great people along the way.

Despite being a loner at heart I had to admit I did miss the office banter a bit. So when I ended up contracting at an exciting company with a great team, the year had flown by fast. And while I was adamant I wouldn’t be going back to full time employment, sometimes the stars align just right and an opportunity lands in your lap that you just can’t refuse.

With a slew of exciting projects ahead I’m thrilled to join Castle Trust this month as their Lead Developer. Yay! :)

At the same time, this does not mean I’m saying goodbye to my publishing dreams. On the contrary – “Feral: The Dragon Within” has just been release (expect a longer post soon about the 2+ years of work I put into that book), and while I’m working on Feral part 2 and Hellena’s story, there’s some exciting things I’d like to try with the Wing & Fang brand soon too.

Inspired by the Tim Ferris’ 5-Bullet Friday emails, and the fact that not all my friends are on social media, and that sometimes interesting things just get lost in the noise (even when it’s you looking for something you yourself posted earlier…) I’ve decided to do a weekly recap of all the interesting stuff I’ve read or seen. It’s also a way to ease myself into blogging again, but don’t expect too much elaborate content, since most of the time I find other people put the interesting fact more eloquently than I could. :)

Not Just Black Slavery

Hidden away as a photo comment I found this piece about Irish history quite a fascinating read.

(Available on Facebook)

Solar Powered Floating Farm

The article doesn’t offer that many details, but the concept is absolutely fascinating. It also seems to be a bit more than just a pretty drawing, like we sometimes see in case of these futuristic self-sustainable city/boat ideas.

Codegirl the Movie

I watched the movie while it was available for free on YouTube and have to agree with the review. Interesting to watch for someone from the tech community, but a bit too much focused on the competition itself. Felt very rushed, and I wouldn’t really see anyone paying for the movie, so in all honesty it really should stay free. It’s good to see the topic being raised, but in the end the movie fell a bit flat for me at actually showing the way for those girls interested in exploring a tech career as an option.

The Witcher Movie

Yes, we did have a Polish Witcher movie years ago, but it was nothing to shout about (I did like the soundtrack though). With the games success one can hope that a big international production will actually do something good. Not much info yet though.

Brickwork Quality Change

An interesting essay about the difference in building standards and approach to brickwork over the last 100 years. Love the lamp evolution photo in the beginning of the article.

Here’s another (almost akhem) weekly update. Not much this week, since I didn’t read many long essays and I’m trying to keep the kitty videos contained to social media ;)

Beautiful photography

The article is a nice introduction with some descriptions of the photographs and the stories behind them. More photos on the artists site: http://uldus.com/

  Accents and prejudice

Turns out our brains are quite lazy. Or shockingly lazy, if you were to believe some of the experiments in this interesting article.

Well hello there... akward caugh Right, this blogging thing hasn't really been going well for quite a while. But it seems to be something I keep coming back to. A new year seems to be a good point to start over, so here we go. If all else fails at least I'll have a checklist for my 2017 goals to reference at the end of the year.

Fix my personal blog

Whoo hooo. One thing done almost straight out of the box... erm Okay, it did take me a few days to get this thing sorted. (And I'll still be fixing up the old posts in my spare time)

Part of the reason I haven't been posting is that I've been meaning to move from Wordpress to Ghost, and somehow it felt like such a daunting task whenever I started looking into it. But no more procrastination. 2017 is the year of action! (Also with a newborn baby to take care of I don't really have time to faff about with things - it's do or die in terms of time management)

At the end of the day the transition was quite smooth and with the help of Docker the setup was a breeze. While I still have some tweaking to do (will try and do one small change a week) I'd rather get writing again, and worry about the facelift and some broken links/images in old posts later.

Whole30 challange (January)

Come on, do not laugh. Everyone has to have an obligatory weight loss & fitness goal on their New Year's list... And no, this won't be abandoned by the end of January (partially because even though it's a 30 day challenge we're starting on the 9th of Jan).

I've been dabbling in various low carb options for a while and even though I didn't really have any weird pregnancy cravings, the biscuit train just did not stop, so some sort of healthy eating plan was a given once Zack was born. Then my sister suggested we do the Whole30 thing together (with a small group of friends) and I said why not.

Move all the sites to one hosting (January)

Another thing that's been left on the back burner for way too long - should have closed the old server months ago. But hey, better late then never. And with a firm deadline (sent my cancellation notice - meaning it's move it or lose it end of Jan) it's high on my priority list.

Release the backlog of romance stories

The back catalogue of books that need editing and publishing has grown slightly out of proportion, so I'll be making that a priority before getting any more stories written under the romance pen name.

Publish Feral part 2

Yep, my official pen name (J.C. Harker) is officially worse than traditional publishing. Just can't seem to get out of the one-book-a-year or less slump. But a big chunk of the second part has been already written so there is hope I can get it one done this year.

Publish second edition of A Dragon Scorned

Another thing I've been, likely unnecessarily, delaying. My first ever published fiction is still in the middle of a desperately needed re-write. No pressure... In a way it has become my excuse for J.C. Harker procrastination. Since I didn't want to publish any new stories in that universe before A Dragon Scorned is finished.

Launch PIM beta

I'm not even going to check when I registered the plotinmotion.com domain. No need to be embarrassed about the amount of procrastination and false starts I have done on that project. But no more.

This year I will focus on the few most crucial modules to my own publishing work and have these opened up for a beta. Affiliate link and book info management are first up. Hopefully I'll have something up and running by summer (not trying to be overly ambitious here with a young baby and all...).

Read more

This has been a constant struggle for a while now. I will try and do more audiobooks this year - especially for non-fiction - given it's a nice, hands-free option.

Publish first Dragons vs Zombies books

Ah, my secret pet project. I've already been doing some research and world building with a co-author, but we haven't set any deadlines or even done any outlines for the first set of books, yet. However I'm very excited about this one and hope we can get the series off the ground soon.

And finally...

Avoid the daily grind

Even without a young baby it's easy for the days to start blending together if we don't do something special to distract our brains (Seriously, it's science people!). Sure I'll now need routine in my life more than ever (Nooooooooo! - she screams in horror), but that doesn't mean that routine has to be dull or that I can't fit in some fun, memorable stuff in there.

Like any new mother I've been hoarding baby pictures like crazy. While I've been restrained in posting them online (both for privacy reasons, and not to annoy the hell out of my baby-free friends - hey I've been there and get that maybe the 123rd picture of my son is not of interest to you...) I do have quite a collection that's quickly becoming unwieldy.

So that they don't turn into just a big, unbrowsable pile over time I'm hoping to do a few mini projects/challenges this year with a different theme / focus for each one.

Is that a lot? In some ways yes (I can't wait for my baby to walk & talk, but that will mean less time for all the above), but at the same time, I've actually got a few more things on the back burner not mentioned here if there is time to spare, so we'll just have to wait and see.

What about your New Year's resolutions? Share your goals (or a link to your post!) in the comments below :)

I've got the extraction options for tgz files pretty well ingrained in my brain, but whenever I had to create an archive I always had to go back to the manual.

Not any more! Annoyed at my terrible memory I created a little mnemonic for myself. Here's the command in question:

tar -czvf FILENAME.tgz FOLDER

And to remember the params I've got this nifty sentence:

Tar Can Zip Very Fast

I guess it should be gZip for accuracy, but hey it works for me ;)

I should probably start by admitting that I haven't played the game itself. But like must gamers (unless they've been living under a rock) I had an idea about what Assassin's Creed is about. I knew about the praise it got and about the interesting "time travel" bit, However it being a bit too action oriented for my taste one never actually played it. The premise intrigued me, but there always were enough actual rpgs to keep me occupied.

Cue the movie. Right from the trailers it looked great. And after seeing it, Assassin's Creed the movie is definitely worth the big screen. It unapologetically mimics game aesthetics and maybe it says a lot about games too, but some scenes felt exactly like something that would be part of gameplay.

I haven't read any reviews (I find too many film critics are just cinema snobs who don't understand the movie genre nor the target audience if the movie isn't some sort of deep drama...) beforehand as I like to go in unbiased. It's often hard to stop thinking about something that a person mentioned as a flaw and that then ruins my enjoyment.

The movie was cool. Not groundbreaking, not complex, not full of Oscar winning performances. But it was a fun romp with great score over dynamic chases and some great parkour sequences. I enjoyed the special effects, and so what that there were plenty of plot holes. Sometimes you just go with it and enjoy the ride.

I used to keep a journal. Or a diary. I guess it depended on the day - sometimes it would be the former with a more matter-of-factly recollection of events, and on other days it was more the emo-teenager sort of stuff. That was back in the good old pen&paper days too, so weird doodles across the pages were the norm.

Then for a while I ran an anonymous blog which again was a mix of the two. But I don't really have enough inspirational words/funny stories/educational content to fill a daily blog these days be it anonymous or not.

I seem to have this on-again-off-again kind of relationship with blogging/journaling. The pressure to produce regular content seems to only work for a while. And worse still the shame of falling behind makes me abandon a blog rather than face catching up. So in that spirit rather than have a daily entry I will try this year to do these weekly posts.

I want to try to find something meaningful to say about each day. Seeing a #dailyAchievement or knowing I've done something specific that makes that day different from the one before or after has always been helpful for me. It's a great way to avoid the feeling of time/days slipping through your finger and a week/month/year passing by you without you having much to show for it.

As at the moment I'm doing a daily baby photo so you can expect those to pop up in here (picking just one does minimise your exposure to baby photo spam as I like to call it ;) ). I'll also try and include interesting articles and things found on the Internet (there's a few stubborn friends not on facebook and I'm too lazy to be efficient I'll have one link to send to all of them at the end of the week).

So without further ado, here is the overview of the first week of this year.

Monday

2nd January 2017

Finished moving this blog from WP to Ghost (and from old server to the new one). Surprisingly I'm still enjoying learning Docker.

Tuesday

3rd January 2017

Wrote the New Year's Resolutions blog post.

Some amazing buildings that really do look like villain's HQ

Wednesday

4th January 2017

Finally moved out the spare bed from the nursery and replaced it with a lovely beanbag. The bed's better suited for the summer house (aka junkyard) anyway ;-)

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 5, 2017 at 10:47am PST

Daily Baby

We've temporarily turned our car seat into a baby bouncer. Someone was definitely happy about the idea ;) #babySmiles #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 5, 2017 at 3:17am PST

Thursday

5th January 2017

Met up with the NCT ladies.

Wrote a quick post about tar param mnemonics.

Daily Baby

No one's taking away my bunny! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby #overlord #wrath

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 6, 2017 at 5:02am PST

Friday

6th January 2017

Amazing fairy tale inspired photos - the Grimm kind.

Dancing guy on a treadmil - this put a smile on my face :)

Daily Baby

I'm going for a walk even if it rains! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 7, 2017 at 10:40am PST

Saturday

7th January 2017

Went to see Assassin's Creed (see my review) at the cinema.

Daily Baby

Morning smiles :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 8, 2017 at 8:36am PST

Sunday

8th January 2017

Fun game night with friends.

Put up shelves in the spare bedroom (with the help of said friends).

Daily Baby

All this sleeping is hard work! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 9, 2017 at 4:46am PST

As you can see this week hasn't been very productive. While in the middle of the server move I mainly focused on the diet that I had started on Monday. Unfortunately due to time constraints I still haven’t had a chance to write a proper post about it. However all in all I’m actually quite impressed with my progress so far – my only sin has been a pack of sugar-free banana crisps at the cinema.

Then again it is quite easy when you have an amazing cook living with you. I have been taking advantage of the fact that my mum is still staying with me. Unfortunately she will be going back to Poland on Thursday. That’s when the real challenge will start. While I picked up a few good ideas and quick and easy recipes, trying to juggle baby responsibilities, work AND cooking will be quite a task.

I guess I’m gonna be back at the point were going shopping counts as a “daily achievement”.

Also, one thing I haven't been writing down, but that has been consistently happening for a whole week: Zack sleeps through the night (I guess only parents can appreciate what this truly means when it comes to a newborn...). It has made setting up a routine a lot easier, even if we're not quite there yet.

Monday

9th January 2017

Started the Whole30 challenge.

Daily Baby

Action time! #dailyBaby #babyVoiceover

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 10, 2017 at 7:54am PST

Tuesday

10th January 2017

Took Zack to his first class - baby signing and sensory activities.

Went to the sling library and brought one back to try out.

Daily Baby

All snug and ready to go! #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 11, 2017 at 9:08am PST

Wednesday

11th January 2017

Took Zack for a weight check.

Daily Baby

Raising head up high #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 12, 2017 at 5:19am PST

Thursday

12th January 2017

Did two print cover adjustments and listened to a business related webby from one of the publishing groups I'm in.

Daily Baby

Playtime. Serious business! #dailyBaby #babyVoiceover

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 13, 2017 at 3:08am PST

Friday

13th January 2017

Got up early (9am, ha ha ha) mostly because of the Health Visitor visit.

Sorted through some outstanding post - NHS survey, garden waste registration. Signed up for the first term of baby classes.

Finished copying another site from the old server to the new one. Trying out WP Multisite for the few Wordpress instances I have to keep.

Interesting article about rejuvenating abilities of young blood.

I'll avoid posting links to silly videos in these weekly recaps, but this one is a must see: Snow & Britain

Daily Baby

Those eyelashes! #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 14, 2017 at 1:42am PST

Saturday

14th January 2017

Learned to do fish in salt and stuffed peppers. Met up with a friend.

Just the way Donald Trump speaks gets on my nerves... Interesting to see some insights as to what makes up that horrid speaking style. Wonder if my annoyance with it means I'm immune to sales people?

Daily Baby

I have hands? They taste nice! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 15, 2017 at 2:48am PST

Sunday

15th January 2017

Went to see Underworld: Blood Wars.

Daily Baby

Zack & donkey friend #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 16, 2017 at 4:44am PST

As part of cleanup and cost-cutting I had to recently moved my WordPress installations from one server to another. To make matters a bit more complicated the new server was not a cPanel based one. So, I had to move my WordPress instances, but not really the user accounts that held them as such.

After getting a bit frustrated with WordPress MU and going through several plug-ins for static sites (neither of which really worked…), I finally found something that did.

Enter: UpdraftPlus - Backup/Restore plug-in

The free version was enough to get the job I needed done. It’s quite a robust plugin that functions as a backup, but also works really well for migrating sites to a new server while maintaining the same domain name.

With docker on the other end the process ended up being quite simple:

1. Install Updraft on the old WordPress instance
2. Run the plugin and backup everything
3. Create a new docker instance (I've used the official Wordperss image)
4. Use /etc/hosts to access the new WordPress install under the old domain
5. Setup the new WordPress instance - doesn't matter really what details you use, as we'll override everything soon enough
6. Install the Updraft plugin
7. Upload the backup files downloaded earlier
8. Press restore and enjoy your new site!

So much easier than trying to deal with the native export tool WordPress provides that unfortunately doesn’t cover plugin or theme settings.

Third week of the year… Wow, time seems to fly by fast. Then again at the same time, it feels like I've been doing this for quite a while. As I mentioned in my New Year's resolutions post making sure each day is memorable and has something unique about it,really does help avoid time slipping through your fingers.

This week marked the big change — my mum went back to Poland (I miss her already), which meant I had to, for the first time, deal with everything on my own. It does mean less time for coding or writing as I pickup cooking duties.

Slowly a new rhythm is established. Mondays I still meet up with friends, Tuesdays we have baby class, Thursdays is the park meet up, etc. One thing I definitely need to start working on is getting my writing done. Finding a good rhythm with dictation will be key for that. Unfortunately I still struggle with the awkward feeling when doing that.

Monday

16th January 2017

Finished setting up another website on the new server. Did a few customisation to a Ghost theme. Actually enjoying the lack of clutter that blogging platform offers.

Met up with friends in the evening.

Daily Baby

Outgrowing the teddy #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 17, 2017 at 3:50pm PST

Tuesday

17th January 2017

Very busy day: went to baby class in the morning, dropped off the sling at the sling library mid day, sorted the name change at the bank, and finally had in-laws over for dinner. And also managed to do two quick training videos in-between all that.

Daily Baby

Quick snooze after an hour of activity #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 18, 2017 at 3:22am PST

Wednesday

18th January 2017

JABS! :(

Moved 2 more sites over to the new server.

Daily Baby

Had jabs, much sad. #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 19, 2017 at 5:17am PST

Thursday

19th January 2017

Took Zack for a walk and met up with the NCT group.

Migrated one site to the new server.

Interesting article about the links between Alzheimers and diabetes.

Daily Baby

Best buddies already :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 20, 2017 at 4:33am PST

Friday

20th January 2017

Arranged for a gas meter move. Sorted out utility bills.

Wrote a quick post about my WP migration process.

Great tip for all my glasses-wearing friends.

Daily Baby

I have a little secret... #dailyBaby #babyVoiceover

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 21, 2017 at 2:28am PST

Saturday

21st January 2017

NCT meetup followed by lunch out.

Cleaned up several accounts on the old server.

Super cute, home made fairy jars.

The fascinating truth behind blue eyes.

Daily Baby

Tummy time is hard! #dailyBaby #babyVoiceover

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 22, 2017 at 4:40am PST

Sunday

22nd January 2017

Went for a walk with OH and Zack.

Awesome collection of kitchen gadgets. What I really like about this one is that it actually comes with buy links. Haven't we all seen those cute gadget galleries and then wanted something from a picture and didn't know where to find it... not a problem here.

Daily Baby

New hat :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 23, 2017 at 10:05am PST

Monday

23rd January 2017

I picked up the sling from the post office and did a big shop. But after that everything went wrong... Game meeting didn't happen (so now I have a fridge full of chicken and carrots and way too many tangerines...). Also maybe better that it didn't happen as Zack got sick in the afternoon. That meant the evening was spent by both parents desperately trying to calm down a wailing baby.

Thanks to Calpol we prevailed. However it does make me appreciate even more how calm and unfussy he usually is.

Daily Baby

Serious baby is serious #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 24, 2017 at 4:51am PST

Tuesday

24th January 2017

Baby back to normal - happy times at the sensory class.

Sorted medicine for the kitties.

Started work on moving the rpg forum to the new server.

How people with different types of blindness see the world. I do love the pink one. Would like to think those people are constantly happy!

The true reason Microsoft added games to Windows :D

And finally, "The Netherlands welcomes Trump in his own words."

Daily Baby

Progressed from licking the hand to trying to eat it... #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 25, 2017 at 8:46am PST

Wednesday

25th January 2017

Trip through the park to ASDA.

Finished moving the rpg forum to the new server. One more site to go and I'm done. Yay!

Daily Baby

First bubble bath! #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 26, 2017 at 5:19am PST

Thursday

26th January 2017

Cried over spilt milk. Somehow the bloody stuff is more precious than gold...

NCT meetup.

Daily Baby

Starting to grasp things :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 27, 2017 at 2:04am PST

Friday

27th January 2017

Done the majority of the work for the last website that needed to be moved to the new server.

It looks awesome, but very slippery at the same time, and probably quite cold. But still, looks awesome ;)

Daily Baby

Happy mornings #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 28, 2017 at 3:43am PST

Saturday

28th January 2017

Had a family walk and did some shopping. Finished the server move.

Cool list of dystopian novels.

Now with all the horrible news in politics, about the environment, etc. it was nice to find something truly positive.

Daily Baby

Looking up into the stars... Or a lamp. #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 29, 2017 at 2:31am PST

Sunday

29th January 2017

Another walk around the park this time. Finally found the pond and the miniature railway tucked away in the park corner.

Decided to devote Sundays to leisurely activities only.

Cleaned up my author Pinterest account and will now be using a new personal one not to mix things together awkwardly. Having my personal one as a collaborator for the author one will mean I can post quickly whenever I find something cute or cool without having to switch between accounts. And at the same time I won't spam my SF author account with random recipes and kitty photos...

Daily Baby

Ready for a walk #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 30, 2017 at 3:30am PST

Monday

30th January 2017

First RPG session of the year :) Zack made a guest appearance:

Daily Baby

Mind control... #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Jan 31, 2017 at 8:03am PST

Tuesday

31st January 2017

Baby sensory class.

Wrote up the weekly updates.

Daily Baby

I tell you Mr. Bear, if you smile they'll do anything for you... #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 1, 2017 at 5:11am PST

Wednesday

1st February 2017

Created a few draft book covers for a client.

Put together the wooden baby gym toy (had to fetch a screwdriver for that one!).

Accounting for the authors who have published through my press.

Many traditional fairy tales are much darker in their original versions than what we are used to these days. Check out these Disney alternative story version images.

An interesting study on twins about how space travel affects us.

Daily Baby

I'll draw it better for you mommy... #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby #backtowork

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 2, 2017 at 4:13am PST

Thursday

2nd February 2017

NCT meetup.

Daily Baby

Night time smiles #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 3, 2017 at 3:28am PST

Friday

3rd February 2017

Finished the cover for a client.

Researched a topic for a new genre.

Amazing all black chicken!

Daily Baby

Have you seen my bottle? Have you seen it? It's gone! Gone forever! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 4, 2017 at 2:43am PST

Saturday

4th February 2017

Walk to town for a nice meal out and some shopping.

Setup docker container for a node project.

Daily Baby

King of head control :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 5, 2017 at 5:04am PST

Sunday

5th February 2017

Board games.

I try to remember about this, especially now that I have Zack - experiences are way more precious than any possessions. When I was a child we rarely spent money on things, but we had plenty of habits and rituals that we followed as a family, and these things have really stayed with me.

Fantastically creepy lava formation.

Daily Baby

Someone loves sitting up :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 6, 2017 at 2:27am PST

Monday

6th January 2017

Started on a cover for a client.

Shopping trip to the big Tesco.

Daily Baby

Weekly teddy :) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 7, 2017 at 1:13am PST

Tuesday

7th January 2017

Baby sensory class.

Took Zack for a weigh-in and a checkup by the health visitor.

Omg, this fish really is ridiculous.

Daily Baby

Out and about day... #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 8, 2017 at 2:38am PST

Wednesday

8th January 2017

Setup express for the new BCMC website.

I do love a good heist plot... Here's an interesting read about slot machine hacking.

Daily Baby

Jiggling socks :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 9, 2017 at 9:38am PST

Thursday

9th January 2017

Researched a historical figure for a new book.

On artists working for free...

And a bit of baby / parenting related fun.

Daily Baby

Hand-to-nose coordination mastered... #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 10, 2017 at 10:03am PST

Friday

10th January 2017

NCT ice-cream meet-up.

Continued research for a historical figure for a new book (13 pages).

Paid out author royalties.

Daily Baby

Tiny giant feet :-) #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 11, 2017 at 3:44am PST

Saturday

11th January 2017

Baby swimming class.

Edited 2 chapters from the romance genre book.

Great read from the Wool author on how we could better work together.

I try not to post too many of Trump related articles here, as there is a lot of stuff out there. But this was quite an interesting read: Trump talks like a woman.

Daily Baby

Playing it cool after the first dive #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 12, 2017 at 2:59am PST

Sunday

12th January 2017

Setup SASS for the Express based BCMC website.

Family walk for lunch.

Cooked my first roast.

Eclipse...

Bullet points and one page reports? Sheesh...

Daily Baby

Yummy hands #dailyBaby

A photo posted by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 13, 2017 at 1:40am PST

Monday

13th February

Gas meter moved out of the kitchen. Yay! One step closer to my new kitchen.

RPG evening - Warhammer tonight. The highlight of the game was an assassin killed by a pot thrown at him that made the guy (who was trying to kill/rob us in an inn while we were sleeping) fall out the window as he tried to flee. A drop three storeys down into a canal can do that to you... lol.

Sorted post redirection for another year.

Daily Baby

I ♥ milk! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 14, 2017 at 5:15am PST

Tuesday

14th February

Finished listening to Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina.

Daily Baby

Weekly teddy :) #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 15, 2017 at 3:04am PST

Wednesday

15th February

Took Zack to the second lot of jabs. He took it well, we didn't even need Calpol this time.

Edited 3 pages of the romance book.

A guide to successful relationships.

Never realised there was an option for part-time homeschooling.

And on a similar note - this is why I'm not a fan of standard education.

Daily Baby

Me and my dragon friends #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 16, 2017 at 2:58am PST

Thursday

16th February

Edited 9 pages of the romance book.

Obama's lost army. It's pretty sad how yet again a bunch of old cronies care more about their own interests than innovation. And that's why we can't have nice things...

Daily Baby

Happy tummy time #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 17, 2017 at 5:10am PST

Friday

17th February

Put together the baby book shelf.

Explanation of editing (cycling) from DWS.

Solar panel flower.

Daily Baby

Curious ball... #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 18, 2017 at 7:40am PST

Saturday

18th February

Walk in the park with grandparents.

Cover drafts for a client.

Curious material that defies physics.

The signs of a heart attack.

Daily Baby

Daddy's favourite vest #mariners #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 19, 2017 at 9:54am PST

Sunday

19th February

Lego Batman movie - great fun.

Daily Baby

Someone is refusing to smile when the camera is out... #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 20, 2017 at 4:24am PST

Monday

20th February

Warhammer - died before even the adventure started in a trap outside of a dungeon door...

Daily Baby

I'm watching you teddy! #babyVoiceover #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 21, 2017 at 8:34am PST

Tuesday

21st February

Posted weekly update.

Baby sensory class.

Pastor walks out from a Trump rally.

What makes city-dwellers liberals.

Daily Baby

#dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 22, 2017 at 5:47am PST

Wednesday

22nd February

Cover design for a client.

Cover design for new genre.

Finished listening to American Gods

Daily Baby

Morning smiles #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 23, 2017 at 9:10am PST

Thursday

23rd February

Long walk around town - super windy weather.

Webinar about the new genre.

Watched Parenting for Idiots - hilarious and honest.

Research reading.

Daily Baby

Falling down the rabbit hole... #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 24, 2017 at 5:04am PST

Friday

24th February

Met up with a friend and her little baby.

Edited 1 page.

Research reading.

Daily Baby

Little rock star 🌟 #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 25, 2017 at 2:32am PST

Saturday

25th February

Baby swimming class.

Edited 5 pages.

It is expensive to be poor.

Daily Baby

Grab & hold #dailyBaby

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 26, 2017 at 1:37am PST

Sunday

26th February

Draft covers for a client.

Daily Baby

Bath time is still the best, but I'm not so sure about the time after... #dailyBaby #babyVoiceover

A post shared by Joanna Walker (@yish83) on Feb 27, 2017 at 2:14am PST