Here’s my belated review of last year, 2019. A one sentence summary is “had a baby”: everything else personally or professionally paled into insignificance next to this event! It has been a very challenging year but also incredibly rewarding.

Highs and lows

• I was pregnant for 50% of 2019, and gave birth on the 1st July to my son
• I got made redundant 1 month later on 1st August when my employer, Laterooms.com, went into administration
• I spent the remaining part of the year unemployed/on maternity leave.

## Stats

• Blog posts published: 17

Pretty good considering I barely wrote any in the second half of the year. I tried to do Blogtober again, where I’d write a post for each day in October, but I just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm.

• Dev Diary posts published: 29

I really like posting a weekly summary containing some links I’ve enjoyed reading and describing what I’ve been up to. I have no idea if anyone reads these but it’s a nice reminder for me.

• Instagram posts published: 111

The Instagram Algorithm dislikes me and I don’t get much new engagement nowadays, but I still enjoy interacting with my digital friends and connecting with other fellow devs on the platform. I had a couple of long breaks from this during maternity leave because I had no energy for social media for a few months.

• Conferences attended: 1

UpFront conference in Manchester. Hoping to attend a couple more this year.

• Meetups attended: 0

All I wanted to do after work was go home and sleep while I was pregnant.

• Countries visited: 2

Dubai, UAE in February, and Palma, Majorca in December. More holidays in 2020 please!

• Seasons of Gilmore Girls watched: 7 plus the awful Netflix special

Looking after a young baby = lots of time to watch TV. I would hate to know how many hours of YouTube and Netflix I watched this year.

2020

The word of the year for me is “balance”: finding a balance between being Mummy and being Claire. Becoming a parent has completely changed my life and there is a lot of discovery to do over the next few months.

I can’t wait to watch my son grow up this year but also I’m looking forward to getting back to work. I want to continue blogging and posting to Instagram, but I’d also like to participate in the tech community more in person, hopefully by volunteering at events, courses or meetups.

I won’t make any concrete goals because I will never follow them and I don’t feel I can possibly plan anything at this point! I can’t imagine what life will be like in 12 months time!!