#gratitudeNow: The heights

So I’m a busy guy.

This morning I was cleaning the kitchen, as Missy tasked me to do before work. (Task is an interesting word in this case. She told me to do it, while asking, so even though it’s not really a portmanteau, I’m treating it that way.).

As someone who is very goal-driven, who loves serving his dominant wife, and who craves the simplicity of being tasked, this worked out well for me.

I did in fact, get the kitchen cleaned.

So I grabbed my phone, and I wrote it down in WeMinder, and even snapped a photo and texted it to her.

She was pleased.

I however, was not.

Because as I was entering the good behavior into WeMinder, I noticed something wasn’t right with the look and feel of the screen.

After a bit of thought, it came to me. The height of the card wasn’t right, when the “behavior chip” of my 1 new good behavior was showing on the card.

It pushed everything down, making my brand new bottom navigation icons push too far down.

So I sat and reasoned it out for a few minutes.

I realized that a good fix for this problem was to reduce the height of the behavior list from “40vh” down to 25, 30, or 35vh respectively depending on if I were showing 1, 2, or no chips whatsoever.

Without getting too deep into the weeds of technical details, I figured out exactly how to do that, and got a hot fix ready, tested it, and deployed it into production in WeMinder.

It’s out there now, working just fine. I know, I checked just before I started writing this post.

But this post isn’t really about viewport-height. It’s about the heights of owning my own business, while also having a full-time job, while also serving my wife, while also being polyamorous, while also… the many other things I do.

It’s often really challenging. I have a lot going on in my life.

But honestly, that’s a blessing. My mind is pretty sharp. As long as I take good care of myself, I can maintain and even increase that sharpness.

This means I need to get decent sleep, allow myself rest, maintain good boundaries by often saying no to the things I can’t do, and practice copious amounts of self-compassion.

By and large, I really do, do that.

I’m 50 years old, and while sometimes that seems like a lot, it really isn’t.

I feel wonderfully in touch with who and what and where I am. I like the me I am, and the way I’m stretching myself to be more.

It feels good.

#gratitudeNow: I'm on top of being overwhelmed

So there’s a feature in WeMinder called the Mood Thermometer. It’s a way for the two partners in the chart to convey to one another how they feel, and to know that the other person is aware of it.

I’m getting very, very close to being done with, and releasing the app. In one of my more recent updates I added A TON of new moods and icons to the software.

(The one for curious is so ridiculously adorable, it fills me with joy.)

Anyhow, the technique I use to get custom icons in, I have mastered it.

I was showing Missy the update a few days ago (because much like that bald guy with the hair club for men, I’m not just the developer of WeMinder, I’m one of its users) and she commented that there was one mood still missing, “overwhelmed.”

We picked an icon from the icon provider I use, and this morning, in about 10 minutes, I had transformed it from a pile of path objects and gibberish, into the lovely icon you see before you.

I have high hopes for WeMinder. I think people are going to really get a lot out of it, and that it’s going to be a hit. But even if it doesn’t, I’ve already experienced one of the key benefits of the whole endeavor. When I started, I wanted to get better at being a developer, to teach myself a bunch of things which would come in handy in my career.

And I have absolutely done that, and done it well.

#gratitudeNow: Support, I has it

I am so lucky.

I have a crew of people who have my back, in all sorts of ways.

First there’s my friend and co-worker T. who is incredibly knowledgeable and digs in to help me whenever I ask.

Then there’s my wife Missy, who is my biggest cheerleader, and who lifts me up when I’m blue. I’m in awe with how much she loves me a little bit more than the day before, and has been doing so for more than a decade.

My brother Spacey, from whom I have no secrets. We lean on each other for perspective, and help. He’s constantly there for me.

And then there are my WeMinder beta testers, who lovingly trade ideas with me, and spend time considering all sorts of possibilities.

#gratitudeNow: Staying in sync

This is my kitchen sink.

It’s clean. That’s because I cleaned the kitchen this morning.

This both is and is not a big deal. Keeping the kitchen clean is one of my chores. It’s one of the things mama wants me to do, every day.

That’s why it’s not a big deal.

Why it is a big deal is because of when, why and how I cleaned it. I came downstairs, made myself breakfast.

Which was a poached egg sandwich with gouda cheese on 21 grain bread, if it matters. Actually, it still was that, even if it does not matter.

But anyhow, I’m in the middle of poaching my egg and toasting my bread, and just standing there watching the cool egg-cooker toaster thing impatiently.

When it occurs to me that I could, and should be using that time productively to do a thing which mama wants and needs me to do.

So I did it. Afterward, I was feeling like a really good boy. I logged my good behavior in WeMinder, but felt so besides myself with my being-a-good-boy-ness that I rushed upstairs to ask for cuddles and snuggles because I felt so well behaved.

She praised me for my good behavior, and I indeed received quite the healthy dose of both cuddles and snuggles.

It feels really good to be actively working on being her good boy, and so wonderfully acknowledged for it.

#gratitudeNow: The Whirlwind

So yesterday, I did something amazing. After a pretty productive workday, I turned from the work computer to the personal one, and started tinkering with a pretty significant feature of my secret side project, Project Longbottom. It involved adding SMS based notifications to the app I’m building.

I started work around 3:30pm, and about maybe an hour in, I felt myself slip solidly into the zone. That’s this thing where my brain just flips all the way on and I’m able to see ahead of myself several steps, my thoughts feel fluid and easy, and it’s like I’m suddenly tapping into extra capability. It’s a profoundly powerful and somewhat painful feeling.

I feel like this urge has slipped over me, and this thing I’m trying to do, I have to do. It’s honestly sort of manic. My breath comes easier, my skin tingles, and I just feel this sense of urgent need to keep going. I’ve decided to call this phenomenon The Whirlwind.

I worked almost non-stop from 3:30 to 10:30 that night. And along the way did the following:

• Designed a UI on paper for an SMS number verification system.

• Implemented it in the system.

• Refactored it to make it better.

• Got it to actually generate verification codes and send them.

• Got it to change backend records after the code is sent.

• Got the page to live update based on these statuses.

• Got a core feature of the system to send out SMS messages when a particular kind of user does a particular thing, to another user only if they opt in to receive the message.

• Got the message to format based on user input.

• Figured out how to send a carriage return in an SMS.

Around 10:30 I finally felt the Whirlwind somewhat let go of me, and I was able to get up to bed. Until I lay in bed and checked my repo just to look at the many commits I had made that day. I didn’t see them because although I had committed, I hadn’t pushed. No big deal. I headed BACK downstairs, pushed the changes up to my repo, and then proceeded to chat animatedly with friends about my progress for another hour or so.

Today, I’m exhausted. But happily so. I love being a creative person, love that I can do this. And my wife Missy, she’s a huge cheerleader to me. When she saw I was mid-whirlwind, she told me I could stay up until midnight. As I made progress, I periodically stopped to demonstrate it to her. She very patiently indulged me each time. I would burst out of my office, to show her a demo video on my phone, or broadcast it onto the screen of our TV. Sometimes I’d excitedly call her in to peer over my shoulder at what I was doing. At a certain point, the sheer magnitude of what I was doing clicked for her, and her face split with this combined look of amazement and pride.

I could live off that expression on her face. It nourishes my soul.

I’m ever so grateful to have this profound joy as a part of my life, and to be able to share it with her.

Oh, and a side note. Sometime in the next few days, I’m going to stop calling it Project Longbottom and tell you what it’s really called, and what it is. I’m very, very close to being ready to do that.

Stay tuned.