Mary Seph's Digital Garden

September 2026 Review

Last updated: 3 minutes ago

This month I did a lot of things that I would like to keep track of, so I'm trying this new monthly review types of posts.

Reading

This month I kept tackling How to ADHD by Jessica Gabbler. It's always an emotional experience but I'm making good progress.

Yesterday, I began Chapter 12, How to Change the World. I think it's the second to last.

I've been meaning to take some notes while reading but it's emotionally taxing and the next day I'm doing something different. These notes wouldn't be short.

Watching

This month I finished my rewatch of Friends, yes the popular sitcom. Last time I watched this was probably about fifteen years ago. I've been in the habit of rediscovering old shows and Friends was at the corner of my mind from how accessible it is.

I have a lot to say about the series. As I mentioned in a previous post about a media journal, I would like to make a page dedicated to Friends.

I was surprised at how many scenes I recalled as my memory is pretty bad. But seeing as how I was fixated on it when I was a kid, it makes sense my brain found this important to save.

Testing

This month I focused a lot on my Dreamwidth journal, digital garden, and joined a new community. On the journal, I drafted a few posts that I'm the process of adding to the blog as well as some media notes I don't know where to add yet. I really enjoy microposting silly reminder and short entries on mundane things.

On my digital garden, I redesigned the website into a weblog type based on a wireframe I designed and reflected on. I ended up lot liking the look and feeling too constricted from bearblog's limitation so I'm blogging about the website I really want to make before considering technical limitations. With that said, I think I'll have to design that site outside of Bearblog due to said limitations. I also created a Markdown version of it based on Bearblog's export. This was a important part of the redesign process because the site was messy. I needed to fix the syntax and have a bird's eyes view of the "back" of the site (metadata, categories) and I could only do this if I have a local version.

Last but not least, I have been an active member of Ctrl + Shift + 3, a text-based community for the past few weeks. Naturally, it's not as active as a social media feed but having a small community of like thirty people and a small active user base means I can get a decent amount of socialization and catch up with new and old posts. Can you believe this site was founded three months ago?! There are new users signing up every other week. I would like to recommend it but I'm not quite convinced as it's pretty young. In these times I just need solid blocking features (it's one way so far) and a statement supporting LBGT+ people over absolute freedom of speech to feel safe online. Only time will tell if I remain here.

Fixing

This month I finally got to fix the pesky issue on my laptop that's been bugging me for months. Well, one of several. I'm not sure I needed a technician for this one but that's life.

So it seems for each thing I got fixed, two other things broke. First the right Bluetooth earphone stopped working. That's two out of two. Then the power button from the phone I used to listen to music got stuck. I think this is repairable at least.

At least if I can get the Chromebook with a new OS, that would be a pretty big win. I wonder what I can do with it after putting all the updates. I'm keeping tech close now contrary to brutal minimalism from before because tech is getting expensive and stuffed with AI.

Wait, do Chromebooks have Google Gemini in them?! Guess I'll just have to see how that goes.

Learning

After many months, I finished Intermediate CSS course from Code Academy! I still have to take notes on the rest of the lessons but it's done now! I just can't find the notebook...

These bite sized lessons are nice. I don't have the apps or anything fancy. I go through the lessons, reading and doing the exercise, take notes, review those notes by creating HTML versions of them. And practice concepts on codepen.io.

I really enjoy learning in public so I would like to have a section on my website with all these notes. I've take a few courses on web dev and they're just gathering dust on my drive. This is why I want a digital garden!!! Digital garden NOW!!!!

Writing

Not an exhaustive list of things I have written this month. Only blog posts.

Next

Now here's the hard part, what comes next? Short-term goals. I can do those. Sure (sarcasm).

This feels more like a prediction than goal setting tbh.

I would like to? I want to? I will keep working on this "dream" website and write every other step. It's really annoying to have TWO websites that I don't find joy in. It feels like I'm just running away from what I truly want to make by making these "professional" vs. "personal" websites. It feels like masking, like personal violence. I'm so tired of how miserable this makes me. I just want a place that says "me," quirks and grammar mistakes and all.

I don't know if this website will be blue or green, perhaps I'll just merge both, ocean themed.

Honestly, this is my only goal. It's the most meaningful project I'm thinking of from the moment I wake up to when I go to sleep. I wish this was an exaggeration. Such is the neurodivergent life.

I wonder how next month's review will look like.

#blog