It has been several years since I have written so few posts in a year. 2022 was such a year where my priorities changed. Some parts of the year were expected, but a lot was unexpected and much of it was unfortunately not pleasant. However, keeping with tradition here is my year in review.
Life
Earlier this year, I proudly announced the birth of our daughter. Little doubt that when I look at my photos this year, it’s full of photos of our little one who has been growing fabulously. Being a parent has taught us patience and I’ve surprisingly learned that my sensitivity to smells has an exception. Who would have known? I’ve also become the typical proud parent showing off his precious one to everyone he can! We also celebrated her baptism at Westminster Cathedral joined by close family and a few friends. Fr. Michael was kind enough to fly down for this and made all the arrangements for the greatest gift we could give our daughter.
Having a newborn also meant that our typical holidays didn’t happen this year as we focussed our attention on being parents first.
Another reason for the lack of holidays was also an unfortunate set of incidents with my health. I had mentioned that in February, I had to spend a few nights in the hospital with appendicitis. In July, I went under the surgeon’s knife to remove the said appendix. Unfortunately, in early August I developed sepsis and had to be rushed back into emergency surgery and then spent several days in the hospital and then in recovery at home. I can only thank God for my recovery, for getting me the right help when needed and for giving Ashwina the tremendous strength she needed to get through this all.
Work
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, work has continued to be busy. Different busy as global volumes are down after two good years which has meant a lot more pitching. Can’t say that 2022 was a great year but I’m hoping that 2023 is a lot better.
I also started travelling after nearly 2.5 years of being in the UK and also managed to pick up some bugs and bring them back home!
WordPress
Despite a very busy schedule, I’ve managed to push through multiple WordPress updates for most of my plugins. Several of these are major updates. In particular, I’ve developed blocks for most of my plugins and have a separate repo to maintain them.
I’m still trying to figure out if I want to push through a few large releases with multiple features or several smaller ones with a feature or two only. Any suggestions?
One piece of code that I have been working on is a wrapper for the WordPress settings API. I plan to gradually upgrade all my plugins to the settings API as it makes it easier to maintain.
I’ve also reduced the amount of time I spend supporting my plugins, primarily driven by my more important priorities like life and work.
Reading
I posted an update in August of the various books that I read this year. Since August, I finished another 15 books. I am also midway through a book set featuring Peyton Brooks by M. L. Hamilton (aff.).
2023?
I was hoping that 2022 would be a great year, which I cannot say has been the case. The only exception has been our beloved daughter who has brought us immeasurable happiness far outweighing everything else. So, as we end 2022, I can only pray that 2023 will be a much better year.
Let me close this post by wishing you a Happy New Year 2023! May the year bring peace and happiness to your lives and to the lives of everyone you care about.
