Since my last major website redesign in 2018, it seems like I have been in a constant “tweaking” mode. Part of it was learning two new platforms (Divi and NextGen Gallery) to build it with, combined with building from scratch in WordPress, combined with my own character trait of always wanting to tweak things as new ideas pop into my head. Just little things here and there. I doubt anyone noticed except for me. Once something starts to bug me, it is hard to get it out of my head until I change it.

Granted, I am a bit of a trial and error type learner. I don’t always know HOW to change the things that bug me. So then it takes a while to learn how to do this or that. I consider myself at an intermediate level when it comes to using Divi and NextGen Gallery now. Recently in doing a little “self-audit” – I was poking around my site and noticing a lot of inconsistencies. I was changing things in some places to see if they would grow on me, letting them settle. It would be a lot of work to implement site-wide. But then I’d move on to something else. Eventually, I started ending up with a bit of a mess. And that little “website devil” on my shoulder was poking me in the ear quite a lot. Things I put off until “a convenient time” were nagging me pretty good now.

One aspect I wanted to change was some of the color schemes. I wanted darker. Not black, not grey – keeping the same warm tone but just — darker. Oh, Color #3c3c34 – you are so yesterday! This is the “darkest” version of the site yet.

Then I needed to fix some inconsistencies on my gallery pages. That led to trying to harmonize with some other pages, and the snowball grew. Then I started catching errors my previous noob self carried across multiple pages. What a hack job that guy did. So I had to fix all of that.

Normally this is where someone may ask to kick the tires a bit, but I am not going to do that. You certainly have much better use of your time. And because – that’s my job as chief web designer around here. I should be able to design, implement, test and catch my screwups – even if years later. Unless it is for Internet Explorer, which I don’t test for, and neither does Microsoft, so if that’s you – as gently as I can say – update your damn browser. Honestly, I don’t test on whatever new browser Microsoft has either (Edge?). Maybe that is a cardinal web sin on my part, so be it. I am working on a 13-year-old Mac – what do you want from me? Most of my visitors are bots, and they don’t complain much. 🙂

So why even post about this? I am not sure. Maybe just to formalize the changes for posterity’s sake. Maybe to join hands in solidarity with all of those that are also in this forever tweak mode. Perhaps you understand this disease more than most.