Hopefully, you’ll be able to come see me speak at Future of Web Design (FOWD) this fall instead. I don’t have many details right now, but the plan is to give the same presentation on “The Future of CSS Layout” at FOWD, since the Carsonified folks graciously agreed to let me switch from FILive to FOWD. I’ll share more details when I have them!

In the meantime, I’ll be speaking in just a couple weeks (May 23, to be exact) at the Society for Technical Communication Summit in my home city of Chicago. The presentation is on one of my favorite topics: media queries and responsive design.

Related Posts:

• Media queries presentation at indieconf
• CSS3 book launch event
• Adobe MAX slides and resources
• Web Directions USA slides and resources
• Highly Maintainable, Efficient, and Optimized CSS

1. If something electrical isn’t working, turning it off then on again is a good way to fix it.
2. Pregnancy affects every piece and function of your body, not just the parts you would expect.
3. People don’t wear silver clothes and use jetpacks in the future (which is now, of course), sadly.
4. Having someone sincerely compliment your child feels even better than a compliment to yourself, surprisingly.
5. It feels immensely satisfying to peel sunburned skin.
6. When I say my name on the phone (ZO-ee), people often think I’m saying Ellie.
7. When you get an unexpected sum of money, you will usually get an unexpected car or home repair right afterwards, which seems like a bummer, until you realize you’ve been blessed to have that money to take care of it in the first place.
8. It doesn’t feel good to over-eat.
9. People often don’t do what’s in their best interest (see above).
10. I hate yoga and yoga hates me.
11. Cheese is not overrated.
12. Chocolate chip cookies are extremely common, yet it’s sadly very difficult to find excellent ones.
13. When excellent chocolate chip cookies cannot be had, mediocre chocolate chip cookies are still hard to resist.
14. People follow the rules, even when it would be more fun or beneficial not to, an impressive amount of the time.
15. Time flies when you’re having fun.
16. It’s OK to kill thousands of people in a movie, but don’t you dare kill the dog. (Unless the whole point of the movie is killing the dog, aka Old Yeller.)
17. The zombie apocalypse is inevitable.
18. When you call a customer service phone number, the automated phone recording will make you input your member number. But when you finally get to a real person, they’ll ask you for it again.
19. Do a job that you love.
20. A less-nice house is worth the shorter commute.
21. You can do it yourself, but paying someone else to do it is more enjoyable.
22. The tiniest amount of mustard can be detected, and it ruins an entire dish.
23. Harry Conick Jr is a serial killer. Just wait. It’ll come out. You’ll see.
24. When you have extra money, spend it on trips and activities, not stuff. When you’re an old lady, you won’t reminisce about the beautiful couch you once had, but you will think about how much fun you had at Yellowstone. (I learned this one from my paternal grandma, through my mom.)
25. You could be angry, but wouldn’t it be more pleasant to be happy?
26. Everything at Kohl’s is always on sale, regardless of whether it’s marked on sale or not.
27. I’ll eat anything once. Almost anything.
28. When coming up with a time estimate for a project, figure out what it would take, then double it. Or triple it.
29. Some people are reliably unreliable.
30. It sounds so trite, but it really is all about love.

Related Posts:

• Where I’ve been, where I’m going
• I’m on Twitter now. Yes, finally.
• A new addition

I’m not an early adopter of technology unless it is really going to make my life easier or happier. I’m also not one to give up on something old, if it’s working for me, just because there is something newer and trendier out there. And, I’m not a fan of clutter—virtual kinds as well as physical. I have ADD tendencies, so I have to be careful to not overwhelm myself with too much “stuff.”

I started hearing about Twitter in 2007. At the time, I didn’t see any need to be on there. There weren’t that many people on there that I would have wanted to keep up with. I didn’t and don’t have the time to get caught up in people’s personal, day-to-day lives—just give me my practical articles and tutorials and I’ll be on my way. Blogs could do this for me (and still can), and they kept me plenty busy/overwhelmed as it was. Also, I was working as an in-house designer, so I didn’t need to be marketing myself very heavily either. (Plus, Twitter wasn’t this totally essential marketing tool back then.)

Now, 2008 would have been a good time for me to get on Twitter and network, since I was working on Flexible Web Design and needed to get my name out there more. But, 2008 was seriously the busiest year of my life. I was working a full-time job, writing a book, renovating my kitchen, setting up a nursery, moving/re-setting up my home office, preparing to become a first-time mom, and being pregnant and tired. Twitter would not have helped me accomplish any of these important tasks I had going on last year. So I didn’t do it. It’s as simple as that.

Now that the book is done and I’m working freelance, I have more time for Twitter as well as more need to use it. I’m going to keep my tweets mainly focused on professional things, stuff related to design, as a supplement to this blog. So I hope you’ll follow me. And I hope you’ll forgive me for taking so long to jump on the bandwagon.

Related Posts:

• Where I’ve been, where I’m going
• 30 things I’ve learned in 30 years
• A new addition

Asha Mickley Gillenwater

Once we’re out of the newborn fog a little bit more, I hope to get this blog cranking again, and I’ll be posting much more frequently than ever. In the meantime, happy new year!

Related Posts:

• Where I’ve been, where I’m going
• 30 things I’ve learned in 30 years
• I’m on Twitter now. Yes, finally.