The Unseen Struggle of Building a 'Simple' Blog

Today has been another rollercoaster. I haven’t managed to leave the house yet. Again. And I woke up at 2 a.m.—again.

The sun is shining, and I was about to head out for a little walk, but something stopped me. Here I am, trying to get that tiny picture to sit on the left while the two text elements sit on the right, each taking up 50% of the screen width. (I'm focusing on tablet size and above right now—mobile is all set!)

But it just won’t cooperate.

I've got three columns, and they’re not even in the right order. It’s a bit maddening, honestly. And that’s what’s holding me back right now. I have so much to share, so much to write about, yet I feel like I can’t move forward until I figure out this boilerplate template and fix that stubborn dropdown menu.

I feel like I can’t write any posts until I’ve got the main blog styling sorted.

And then it hit me… like a brick in the face...

This is a bit harder than I thought...

My "simple" blog, where I hoped to tell my story as I go, is turning into an absolute monster.

I knew this might happen. I felt it coming this morning as I thought, “I just don’t know how to do this!” I’m supposed to be working on JavaScript now, with my first personal project starting at the end of the week (it’s Sunday), and here I am, stuck on layout issues that feel endless.

Determined not to give up, I realized I’d forgotten all about the “mobile-first” design approach. I’ve been happily working on this site from my TV (since I’ve kind of ruined my eyes and can’t see my laptop screen right now), only to realize that mobile had taken a back seat.

So, I reverse-engineered it, and thankfully, mobile is looking okay now. I’m trying very hard to keep my CSS logical and neat—it’s getting tricky! (And yes, if you peeked, you’ll know I’m struggling here.)

Despite it all, I was proud for sticking with it, determined to get these layout issues corrected so I could dive into JavaScript. I solved a lot of problems. It turns out I hadn’t hit the wall after all… at least not completely.

I even asked ChatGPT for help—there’s no one else here, after all. I know he can be a bit of a people-pleaser and doesn’t always give me the perfect answer, but he often opens my eyes to things I didn’t know existed.

I have a sneaky suspicion, though, that this mammoth task might actually be easier if I knew some JavaScript...

Maybe I’ll go for that walk after all.

I’ve broken, fixed, broken again, and fixed my website several times. And it’s only just past noon.