what coding after bedtime actually looks like (a real log from last night, mom of 3 edition)
Jen Hayes@night_owl_jen
so people keep asking me how i "find time" to learn to code with 3 kids and a full time job and honestly i dont find it, i steal it. here is last night, exactly as it happened, becuase i wrote it down as a joke and then thought maybe someone else needs to see that its messy for everyone lol
- 8:52pm all three in bed. husband left for night shift at the plant at 9. dishes can wait. they always wait. they're very patient dishes
- 9:04pm laptop open, coffee reheated for the 2nd time ☕ open the flexbox lesson i was on
- 9:11pm middle one needs water
- 9:14pm where was i
- 9:40pm trying to center a card. justify-content: center does nothing. i stare at it. it stares back
- 9:58pm realize i put display: flex on the card and not the parent. teh card is not the boss of where the card goes. the parent is. this feels like a parenting lesson honestly
- 10:15pm it works!!! i do a little chair dance. nobody sees. the dog sees
- 10:16pm internet drops. rural ohio things. it comes back at 10:31
- 10:31pm youngest is up, bad dream about "the big fish". rocking chair for 20 min. i do flexbox in my head. not even joking
- 11:05pm back. start the javascript part. a button that changes the background color. my 9 year old picked the colors earlier, they are all pink
- 11:48pm it works but only once. click it again and nothing happens. i want to cry a little
- 12:10am find it. i was setting the color to the same pink every time. it was "working", it was just going pink to pink. the bug was me
- 12:12am make it cycle through an array of pinks. 5 pinks. she will be so happy
- 12:40am push to github. day 214 of 100 days of code. yes i know
- 12:41am post a question here about the button and then answer it myself 2 min later, sorry y'all
- 1:05am bed. alarm at 6:15. medical billing at 8
things that actually help me, if your nights look like this too:
- i keep a sticky note on the laptop that says what i was doing. "flexbox lesson 4, the card one". so when i come back from the water / the big fish / the internet i dont lose 15 minutes
- i stop when i'm tired instead of pushing. code i write after 1am i delete the next night every single time
- i stopped comparing myself to people on youtube who do "a day in my life" with a standing desk and a matcha. they are not getting up for the big fish
- this community. y'all answer my dumb questions at 1am without making me feel dumb. i dont know how to say how much that matters out here
the button is on our fridge now, kind of. i printed a screenshot. my daughter calls it "mommy's pink website". its not a website. i'm not correcting her 🦉
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Comments
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Sign in to commentLindiwe Mokoena@loadshedding_lindi
the dishes are very patient dishes 😂 mom of one here and I thought I had no time. you have three. respect, Jen. the pink to pink bug is a real bug class btw, "it works, it's just doing the same thing" has fooled seniors on my team
Renee Whitfield@renee_em
Jen, "the card is not the boss of where the card goes, the parent is" is genuinely one of the best explanations of flexbox I've read, and I've read a lot of them. You're going to be fine in this industry. Better than fine. Saving this one too.
Jen Hayes@night_owl_jen
RENEE. i'm screaming in the break room at work. thank you so much, you have no idea 😭🦉
Kuya Migs@kuya_migs_codes
Ito yung real "day in the life" guys 🔥 Jen, wala kang dapat i-sorry. Answering your own question 2 min later is how real devs learn. "The bug was me" is every senior's autobiography 💪
Siobhan O'Rourke@siobhan_tests
As a tester, the pink to pink bug is my favourite kind. Everything "works", nothing changes. You found it yourself at midnight, that's real debugging. Well done.
Imran Hussain@imran_builds
"they are not getting up for the big fish" made me laugh out loud and wake my own kid. the sticky note trick is exactly what I do with a comment in the code. fellow after-bedtime coder salute. also 5 pinks is correct, 4 would be lazy
Divya Ramanathan@divya_ramanathan
Jen, this is the most honest post about learning I have read here. The sticky note is better advice than most bootcamps give. Please keep the log going, and please sleep.
Oluwatobi Adeyemi@tobi_freelance
Jen my sister you will make it. And when you get the remote job, come to Freelance Files, we will teach you to charge properly
Grace Wanjiru@grace_wanjiru
Jen, I mentor career changers in Nairobi and I am sending this to all of them. The line about stopping when tired is the one most people learn the hard way. You are doing beautifully.
Ray Alvarez@ruck_n_code
Study buddy checking in. Saw this pinned in our course group. Roger on the sticky note, adopting it. Good to go, Jen. Proud of you.
Meenal Deshpande@meenal_restarts
I do the 5.30 am version of this, you do the 11 pm version. Between us we have covered the whole night 😄 Thank you Jen, I needed to read "it is messy for everyone" today.