I have had an idea to enhance this journal layout for a very long time, but haven't ever sat down to actually do it. This is totally in progress and not my final but I'm putting in an interative approach and adjusting bit by bit, rather than waiting until I have the time, energy, and motivation to do it all at once.

This post will be updated as I go and serve as the changelog for this design, including the changes I'm making to some of my journals across the site. I have so many ideas!

Layout credits

Credit list updated: 11/27/25

Changes

Since I'm approaching this bit by bit I'm going to log changes as I go.

Nov 22, 2025

First effort: Create the notebook paper layout, ensure basic accessibility of the core layout code. Update all pages across the site to match and hope (fingers crossed) I don't have to do it again and can make all major changes via CSS.

Maintenance approach: I'm hoping major changes can be done via stylesheets, but I am also not going to go back and recode old posts (maybe). For example, updates to photo styles will be completed on posts going forward. Maybe after I finish everything I will revisit and decide if I want to go back!

screencap of the current website

Nov 27, 2025

I plan to continue the theme from the homepage, this idea you're visiting my site at your desk and reading the paper/looking through my journal. I added the desk background and updated navigation so it's on a sticky note.

I also started to play with image styling which you can see in this post. I gotta go to Thanksgiving so I'll check these updates for accessibility changes tomorrow.

screencap of the current website

Checking for accessibility

I'm trying to be more mindful about accessible design. I'll write about this in more detail later, but for now I'll go over my first steps.

My next big web project (besides a few redesigns) is to audit my sites for accessibility and update them to the best of my ability. I'm using the following browser extensions to help with that:

I think some functionality might overlap but I'm trying different things to see what I'm most comfortable using.

New Layout Process: Make the site, upload it, run the extension on it. Use search engines to look up the flags and warnings to figure out what to do about them.

Existing Layout Process: Visit it, run the extension on it. Use search engines to look up the flags and warnings to figure out what to do about them.

So far the WAVE plugin is the most helpful for updating code, but I don't think I understand what to do with the results of the other two plugins. It's very enlightening to be able to experience the way other people browse sites, but I don't know what to do about it yet.