Coding v. Gardening

Coding wins.  Coding always wins.  

My big summer project has been writing curriculum for a web development course (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) for a high school.  I really enjoy writing curriculum, but have never done so for anything lower than college level. Additionally, I had some constraints--no textbook and any required software has to be free.  Not have a textbook is a pretty big challenge.  There is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed before one can start developing web pages.

I spent the first month gathering materials and resources.  I chose the topics that need to be covered over the course of the semester and grouped simialar/compatible topics into units. The Web is full of tutorials on these topics, and many of them are excellent, but they all seem to have a major flaw.  The tutorials are topical, all topics are covered, but there is no over-arching methodology for how to put all of the pieces together.  A novice could whiz through the W3Schools' outstanding tutorials on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but once they leave the tutorial environment and want to start creating a website, they are lost.  I decided that the best approach would be to use these tutorials as a textbook--assigning specific topics for each unit, and then integrate them into my curriculum that ties everything together.  I didn't love that part of the development process, so I was able to squeeze the work in while still keeping up with my other tasks and responsibilities.

This month I've spent creating content, writing examples for each unit, and creating and writing the assignments for each unit.  I've completed the HTML and CSS portions of the class and am currently working on the JavaScript.  I really liked the HTML and CSS curriculum development--writing example code and assignments, especially, so this is the point at which it started to consume me.  I took a break between CSS and JavaScript to write the website for the class.  I needed a (free) site from which the class and all it's materials could be accessed by the students, so I developed the website and uploaded the content.  That portion is technically done, except that I keep waking up in the middle of the night with ideas that necessitate me getting up, logging in, and adding to the site.


That, combined with the JavaScript stuff I'm working on, is now impeding my sleep and taking over my life. Cooking, gardening, blogging, sleeping--none of that compares to the glory of writing code, so I struggle to keep up.  I find myself realizing that it's 5:30 (I know that, because the dogs start nagging me at 5:15 or so for their 5:45-6:00 dinner), I have no dinner plan, and the people in the house need food (and given that I make everything from scratch, the earliest they can hope for dinner is 7-ish, if I start immediately).  I would love a life where I could spend 12 hours a day coding and didn't have to be bothered with crap like cooking (or eating/sleeping), but my family doesn't appreciate that approach to life.


I'm forcing myself to do other things today.  I got up this morning at 4 and worked until 9:30.  I'm getting my blog done, cleaning the herbivore room, then heading out to catch up on my neglected garden.  At some point while I'm gardening, I will have to come up with an idea for dinner tonight (I've got nothing so far), and then make sure I stop gardening and come in in time to make dinner. I have issues with gardening, too.  Once I get started, I prefer to work until I lose light. I generally have to be reminded to stop to eat or feed the family.  Rest assured, though, my brain will be JavaScripting away the whole time.  When I get into "development mode", even when I'm not coding, that's all I can think about, and I'm slightly crabby until I can get back to it.

 I am looking for course testers/proofreaders.  I haven't gotten much sleep over the past few weeks (development mode--my brain would rather create than rest, I guess), and I'm far too close to my work to catch errors and oversights.  If you've ever wondered about how the World Wide Web works and would like to try your hand and creating web pages, I have a free course for you. :)  You can take it in its completion, just dabble with pieces, or even just read through the materials, and I would welcome any feedback for potential improvements and especially catching errors.  If you're interested, let me know, and I will send you the link to the course site.

I'm a little paranoid, because launching a website is a big deal.  When I do this professionally, I have a team--other people to test the site, proof the content, and check accessibility, a test server where people from different locations can access the site using different browsers (web pages render/function differently based on the browser and version), access to the dedicated web server on which the site will reside, and some fancy tools that give me metrics about the site/peformance.  I have none of this for this site.  It looks good on the three browsers I tested it on, on the machines that are in our home, but that's not really an adequate basis for going live.  I know that it's not a "business/professional" site, and it's hosted via a free (non-dedicated) host, so I feel pretty powerless and "ass out" with this scenario.

The garden needs some serious weeding, which I will work on today, but that won't even scratch the surface of what has grown in the last week with all the rain and hot temps.  I have a garden assistant (a lovely former student) who is going to work four hours a day, every day this week, and between the two of us, I hope to have it whipped back into shape by the weekend.

I attended Rotary Gardens' Garden Walk a couple of weeks ago, and this was one of the better years.  I really enjoy seeing "real" gardens on the walk.  I have no interest in seeing what some money-hoarding asshole can purchase and pay people to maintain.  I am not remotely inspired by a pool (in WI, really?  What a waste of garden space/habitat!) surrounded by $30,000 of stone work.  This year's walk didn't have the big vanity "gardens" that are on the walk some years, so it was really enjoyable and inspirational.  I will say hands down that the absolute best houses on the walk were the RBG hort. staff members'.  Four of M's staff volunteered this year (or were roped in/peer pressured into it).  These people are gardeners, and it showed in their beautiful, unique, and creative gardens.  I was so inspired that if not for my current coding obsession,  I would be gardening full time.

Check out the green visitor

Once I get the curriculum totally done and loaded, I have to start prepping for my four fall classes.  That's right. I have not even started my own prep yet.  Normally I do that much earlier in the summer. THEN I can transfer all of my energy to the garden.

Below is a "dump" of lily (asiatic and daylilies) shots.