Website updates - a continuous journey

Reading Time: 2 mins

I’ve learned a lot over the last 7+ months since starting my new job as a Senior Technical Writer. I’m fortunate enough that part of my role allows me to go down rabbit holes to try and either automate something or make it more efficient.

Firstly, I started learning Python. I can now confidently write scripts to retrieve my assigned Jira tickets, grab content from websites to parse into Markdown, and automate browser interaction.

What’s more, I became immersed in a world where information is readily available to me, I just needed to learn how to search for it. So I learned how to research. I started to use Slack search modifiers, I learned how to search more effectively in Google, and I learned how to ask the right questions.

Fast forward to now and my coding skills are now on a hole other level which is amazing to me.

All of that is to say, I’ve been re-examining all of my web projects. Looking at this website and my other web projects through a new lense has been a really enjoyable experience. Instead of seeing walls and roadblocks, I’m now seeing opportunity and possibility.

Some fun things I’ve been working on:

I rebuilt my gaming backlog site in 11ty. It now lives at games.heymichellemac.com.
I archived some older projects I don’t think are relevant any more.
I’ve tidied up this site with some subtle design changes and made some updates to the underlying templating code.
I’m working on a repo for my recipe collection.

In addition to all this, open source and the idea of niche creators that aren’t SEO and click-bait focused are things that are top of mind for me as I consume content and create web projects.

Mastodon for my social media fix, Omnivore for my read-it-later service, and I just discovered Feedle for discovering new creators.

A lot has changed but what will always stay the same is this: my website will continue to change and evolve and grow with me over time.