The Weekly Wrap: November 28, 2021

This week, I submitted the final draft of our new library website for review and testing to our team. I have been working on this project for six months - hand-coding almost all of the HTML and CSS, writing and editing the content, and testing out various visual images.

This project was the bane of my existence.

I hate coding HTML and CSS. I hate how much detail there is. I hate how one little thing can cascade and destroy other work that took me hours to finish. My loathing comes from the fact that I am not a trained coder and have to learn as I go. I never designed a persistent nav bar before... or a custom footer... or proactive chat. All of this was complicated by the fact that the base program we use complicates things and all this coding happens in two separate windows on top of base  system coding I can't touch. So, there's just a lot a testing... and sometimes the breaking of the existing webpage. (Whoops!)

But I kept at it and I am really happy with the results. Depending on what the team says, it should just be tweaking and written content changes left. Then we can go live and, hopefully, provide a much better user experience.

I'm so proud of myself for pushing through on this project. In fact, I was so proud of myself I threw a solo dance party in my office after I sent out the announcement email. I'm proud that I didn't give up. I'm proud that I followed my gut on design ideas. I'm proud that this will make a huge difference for our library and users. I'm just so friggin proud that I am done and this can be checked off my to do list.

What are you proud of?

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• This article advocates for a reading audit because we only get to read about 2500 books in life.  I'm sitting around 1,000 books now and I am just going to ignore that stat because it makes me uncomfortable. [Book Riot]
• A syllabus on hoaxes. [Syllabus Project]
• Art from a single sheet of paper. [Colossal]

• Machiavelli for women. Cause gender disparity is still a thing. [Wisdom from the Top]
• We need to stop mythologizing home ownership as a sign of success. [Money Confidential]
• Unmaking meat. [Gastropod]

• Making bowling balls is a mix of industrial machinery and basic office supplies. [All Process of World]
• It starts with a thirsty cat... [@TheDebbieMia]
• The husband found a movie to stream that we assumed would be a complete disaster. It was called Knights of Badassdom and followed a group of LARPers during a weekend where they accidentally awaken a demon. It was billed as a comedy horror. It was utterly fantastic because it did not take itself seriously. Also, an amazing cast! Joshua Malina! Summer Glau!! Peter Dinklage!!! [Amazon Prime]

• Now that we're having colder weather, I broke out the recipe for vegetable pot pie skillet for our meatless Monday. I've made it with the cheddar biscuits in the recipe, but I always seem to underbake them. This time, I made things super easy and just baked some Pillsbury biscuits on a sheet pan to serve on the side. Not as good as the cheddar biscuits, but still tasty. [Budget Bytes]
• For Thanksgiving, we opted to sous vide our turkey breast. Not only does it mean a reasonable amount of meat (we are two adults and one toddler) but it freed up our oven. Bonus action, the recipe has a great method for getting crispy skin. Unlike last year, I baked it the perfect amount of time. So good! [Serious Eats]

• I can now officially proclaimed it All Hallmark Movies All the Time season in our household. I know these are cheesy, low budget films but I love them. And, once a season, I'm guaranteed to watch one that is a legitimately good movie.