If you’ve been on the website at all lately, you may have noticed that I got a new WordPress theme. The old one wasn’t working the way that I wanted it to anymore, and it was looking a bit dated, so it was time for a change. I don’t have it 100% finished quite yet, so things will still continue to change here and there, but all the big stuff is done.

Changing this made me realize that I didn’t really understand how WordPress themes worked. This is my first theme change, and I was under the impression that if you want to change a theme, all you have to do is buy a new one and switch over to it. I didn’t realize that things are set up completely differently by different people, and it’s not necessarily that simple. It probably would have been easy if I bought a theme created by the same person, but since I didn’t, there was a lot more tweaking that had to happen than what I had expected. And since I didn’t realize this, I was working on everything directly on the website. I really should have had a dummy site set up to make all the changes on and then gone live when things were finished. Well, now I know, right?

I do really like this new theme though. It’s so clean and modern. And a lot of the back-end (or actually, the front-end of the back-end?) is really easy to use. There is a page builder that lets you quickly add parts to the site without having to code. And, since things like this don’t always work in the way you would like them to, it’s really easy to turn the page builder off to tweak some code. Turning it back on is also easy. I was really excited to realize this, since I had multiple portfolio pages that needed to be formatted in the same way, and it was 100 times faster to just copy and paste the code from page to page.

In case you are interested, the new theme is Yaga. The simplicity is what drew me to the theme, but I also liked all of the options that it offered. My favorite feature is that I can put text within my portfolio, along with multiple images. My previous theme just had a light box setup for the portfolio, and without text or multiple views, I don’t feel that some of my portfolio pieces worked well. There are pieces that I choose that are not my favorite, but they really showcase a specific skill. Without text to explain it, it just looks like a poor choice.

One thing that I’m still struggling with in this theme is my logo. My most recent logo is a square shape, and this theme really works better with a horizontal rectangle. I’ve been trying to redo it using calligraphy, instead of the font that I was previously using. But it looks so much better to me as a square. But I’ll figure something out eventually. In the meantime, at least my name is on there, right?

Looking back through the blog, 2016 was a pretty eventful year. I got to experience being an exhibitor at two different events, helped create and complete a successful Kickstarter campaign, went to Jamaica with a group of great friends, created some artwork, took some classes, started a monthly photo outing with my friend, acted as a wedding photographer for a day, and have a printed board game with my name on it as the Graphic Designer. That’s a lot of stuff! Now how will I top that for 2017?…

This year so far has been chaotic! I always feel like things slow down in the winter, and I just hibernate in the house, but I don’t think that’s true, since my blog post from January of last year sounds like I was pretty busy as well. Maybe that’s just what I wish I was doing, since it’s been cold and I don’t want to go outside! On the good side, the chaos has been good chaos. A lot of time has been spent with good friends, having fun.

Our friend, Mindy Mejia, recently published her second book, Everything You Want Me To Be. Nick and I have gone to some of her signing events, and it’s been so fun to hear her speak about the book and hear about her inspiration for writing it. And it was also fun to read! I think she is an excellent writer (seriously, not only because she’s my friend), and she kept me guessing until the very end who the killer was. I had my ideas, but I kept changing them as I learned more. And at the end, I was surprised. I would like to say more, but I won’t, since I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else. If you are looking for a book, and you like mysteries, I would definitely recommend this one. I like her writing style so much, that I’m having a really difficult time getting into my next book.

Nick, myself, and two of our friends, have started playing Mechs vs. Minions. It’s a cooperative programming board game that has multiple missions to complete, so you move through it in a story-like fashion. It’s been really good so far. And the game is amazing! There are a ton of miniatures, boards, and even a voice component you can use if you choose to do so. After being a part of creating a game, it’s so crazy how much is crammed into the giant box, and how inexpensive the game is for everything you get. I would definitely recommend it, if you like cooperative board games that are legacy-like. If you don’t, it’s all good. You can just admire it online and marvel at the expansive amount of miniatures!

So what are my plans for 2017? Definitely blog more. Looking back at last year, there was a stint where there weren’t any posts for a few months. And then when I did post, I just crammed everything into one post. No good. (Although this post has taken me over a week to write…) I’m also planning to do more artwork. I have an idea for 2018. But to be able to pull it off, requires more artwork in 2017. You’ll have to wait a year to hear about the plan, but in the meantime, I’ll post what I’m working on, and I’ll try to remember to get concept and in-progress shots. There will also be a few sewing and around-the-house improvement plans. And a few things that I haven’t talked about on the blog are that I’ve been learning Japanese and JavaScript (apparently I wanted to learn languages that start with a J). And in case you were wondering…yes! They are difficult. But I am retaining at least some of it, so that’s a good sign. So it should be a busy year, which will hopefully equal a good year. Yea!

Last week, we were in Jamaica! It was such a great vacation. The past few times that we went, it was just me and Nick. This time, we talked four other couples into joining us. It was such a different vacation from our past visits. This time, we stayed up way later, and went to many events that we normally would have skipped. We logged a lot of hours in the ocean and then moved to the hot tub when it got too cold. I got to go snorkeling, sailing, and tried paddle boarding. So much fun!

Since we’ve been to this resort twice before, I ended up only bringing my new prime lens. Which saved my shoulder when we were traveling, since the camera bag gets to be really heavy with all of the lenses and all my travel stuff for the plane. The new lens was more of a challenge, because I can’t just zoom in to get the shot that I may have wanted. I had to be more creative! Yea! It was also good because I only took my camera out one day. One of my friends and I wandered around the resort snapping shots, and I didn’t have to drag poor Nick around the resort…again. (I think he really appreciated that.)

The photos below are just a few of my favorites. The rest can be seen here.

Such an exciting last couple of weeks! First off, I went to my first board gaming convention, Con of the North. I’ve been to Photoshop conferences and other day conferences, but never a convention. And never as a vendor. I was surprised to find out how tiring it was! I appreciate Seppy so much more now for his busy convention schedule, and the fact that he is usually running conventions on his own. So crazy! I’m not sure if I’d be able to do it.

I taught a lot of Squirrel or Die demos (a tile based memory game) and one End of the Line (a worker replacement game) demo. I messed up the rules a bit on End of the Line, but I think the people playing still had fun, so that’s good. For Squirrel or Die, I started out shaky, got much better, then got worse by Sunday, the more tired I got. It was nice to watch different people teach the game, so I could take bits and pieces of what they taught and make it my own. Definitely much better than the test teaching that Nick was so graciuos to set up for me. My Squirrel or Die demos went from a half an hour of teaching, down to around seven minutes, which is good, since the game is really only about seven minutes long.

Chris Lyons, who is working with Seppy to develop our new game, Conquest Princess Pew! Pew! Pew!, was at the convention for a bit with his wares. (You can find him on Etsy here.) The picture you see is a pair of earrings and a necklace that he made. So fun! He also makes signs, cross-stitch, and othe creative things. It’s always so much fun to hang out with him and see what he’s been up to creatively.

The next exciting thing is that the End of the Line Kickstarter has launched! Hooray! As I’m writing this, it’s half-funded, which I think is pretty amazing for only being up for a few days, and for our company being pretty much unknown. It seems plausible that it could fund! I was excited, but nervous for it to go live. I was also surprised to see how addictive it is to watch the Kickstarter numbers rise. The first day, I was checking it often, and was so excited when the numbers jumped up in the amount of time it took me to scroll down the screen and back up again. How amazing would it be if it funded?! (So amazing! in case you were wondering…)