of the year
2025

I once again participated in this month-long event, creating eight new webpages total. Learning how to access laptop/phone cameras was huge—I want to make a hundred little camera toys and filters now!

Part of the fun/challenge of WWO, for me, is making webpages that work on both desktop and mobile. This usually takes up a lot more time than anticipated, but it's worth the extra effort. Being able to move seamlessly from my laptop to my phone feels rewarding.

I'm glad WWO happened again this year! I love seeing everyone else's interpretations of prompts, and it was a nice, low-stakes creative outlet in a year where I marinated on longer, more extensive projects for the future.

It was already five days into December when I whipped this webpage up, and I'm happy I did! I had a handful of 88x31 buttons lying around since the summer, not knowing when or how I should publish them—seeing other advent calendars around the indie web gave me the idea. I'm more confident in pixel art now, and the size limitation was a neat, small canvas to work on.

The winters where I'm from—the Pacific Northwest—are a consistent gray, so moving to a place where winter days can be brilliantly sunny is a nice treat. The way sunlight bounces off of snow and patinaed brick is really lovely.

I've been frequenting more secondhand stores and found a few gems: a substantial dish and ovenware set for $10, various other kitchen basics, a little countertop shelf. Easily the best find was this glass block that I can use as a vase, or just as an object to admire. Maybe I'll try to make it into a lamp. Now I have my favorite architectural element in my apartment, yaaay

Experiencing one my favorite films of all time (and what I think is one of the greatest works of art cinema has to offer) on the big screen was transcendent. It had been over a decade since I first saw this, but a lot of the imagery and music was still burned into my memory. This is the only movie that's ever made me full-on sob, and how restorative it was to do so in a huge, dark room! Afterward as I logged this on Letterboxd I saw that I hadn't been the only one at that screening stuffing my face with tissues.

I don't usually make specific new year's resolutions, but in 2026 I want to catch more movies at the theater, maybe at least once a month. I've found that it does affect my experience of a film, overwhelmingly for the better.