A wonderful July.
Main highlights
- โ๏ธ We have had amazing weather in England, but it’s raining again
๐ฆ We fully moved into our new apartment
๐ฟ Became a full-time plant mom - ๐ Had a health check this month with glowing results
- ๐ Met up with so many of my friends from the online world this month – Holly, Amy and Ella.
- ๐ Met up with some fantastic folks from the Leeds community, exciting things coming up!
- ๐ป Began teaching a summer intensive Code First: Girls course again with some incredible Women in Tech
- ๐ I spoke about Imposter Syndrome on BBC Radio Sheffield
- ๐ฑ 5 months into my dev rotation… only 1 month left!
- ๐ฌ Worked on some fun projects including creating an interactive video website/documentary
- โจ Went to Southampton for a training week as part of my graduate scheme
- ๐ฅ Been working on Pawlean 2.0 with Matt
3 Things I’m Happy About
1๏ธโฃ New flat
Matt and I successfully moved to our new apartment this month! Although it was quite a stressful day (on one of the hottest days of the year), it was all worth it once everything was moved and unpacked.
Our new apartment has floor to ceiling windows which allows a lot of natural light to come through. This was something we had missed in our first apartment which had little to no sunlight. We can now have indoor plants too which is a plus – especially since I recently became an official plant mom. ๐
It has also been a whole year since we first made our move from Sheffield to Leeds! I wrote a reflective post on what life has been like in the last 12 months.
2๏ธโฃ Growth Opportunities
Although I could happily write about plants in this section, I am actually referring to recent professional and personal development opportunities.
Earlier in the month, I had the chance to do some serious self-reflection at a training week in Southampton. It was a fantastic week and I left with loads of things to think about around leadership qualities, self-perception and more!
It is also the end of my fifth month of my second rotation at work. As I’m getting closer to the end of my time with this team, I’ve been reflecting on everything I’ve learnt in the last 5 months and when I think about it all – I have taken away a lot (and applied elsewhere) which I am sincerely thankful for. More on this in a future post~
And finally, I’ve been teaching a summer intensive Code First: Girls course and have had the opportunity to teach another group of talented women how to code. It’s been a while since I had been a part of a CF:G course (the last time was November) so this was refreshing! I initially found speaking to a group of students and communicating technical concepts simply difficult (I was definitely rusty!) but eventually I got back into the swing of things. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this course and hope to continue working with CF:G moving forwards!
3๏ธโฃ Rebuilding Pawlean with Matt
Matt and I have been working on rebuilding my blog from scratch this month.
I’ll be writing more about why and what we’ve done, but essentially, we found that my current site was so clunky and slow (because of all the added stuff WordPress does) And so opted in for a cleaner, faster solution! It was also about time that I do a total re-write of my theme which I initially developed at the end of 2016. Throughout this process, I realised that I’ve definitely grown as a developer. ๐
Quick shoutout to my dream partner, Matt, for working with me on this project. It has been so much fun โจ
July in Photos
Favourites this Month
๐ฌ Watching
I can’t stop talking about the Book of Life. If you loved Coco, you would love this! I recently watched it after reading that Coco was heavily inspired by it.
I also enjoyed Spiderman: Far From Home and The Lion King this month, recommend them both!
๐ง Listening
…When a film has an amazing soundtrack as well, you know that I will be overplaying it for weeks. ๐
๐ Reading
This month I read The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan which motivated me to continue prioritising putting a bit of my monthly pay check away into a pot I’ve called “PAY YO SELF, YO” Form of self-love, y’all. I have also been dipping in and out of The Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris for a daily dose of inspiration from some fantastic people all over the world!
This is technically an audiobook, but I’ve also been listening to Happiness by Matthieu Ricard. It’s a book about… you guessed it! Happiness. โจ
Thought of the month
Totally inspired by my chat with Ella.
Next month
- Matt and I will be taking two trips next month – one to Blackpool for a weekend (a little random but there you go ๐) and one to Oslo in Norway. We’ve tried to squeeze as much trips in as possible this year!
- It will be my final month in my dev rotation, I’m going to make sure that I make the most out of it. ๐
- Speaking about my learnings as a (junior) developer at Leeds Front End Meet-up ๐
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