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MAY 12 MON
月
 🌕︎

In which I celebrate my website's anniversary a month later

Hi everyone. I hope you’re all doing okay. April was such a busy month for me and it’s only this week that I begrudingly got up on my ass and force myself to do something instead of being paralyzed by doomscrolling. Anyway! I can’t believe real life got in the way of me celebrating this website’s anniversary on March 30! Well, better late than never; no one can stop me from celebrating it more than a month after. I’m advising you this early: there’s a high chance of a shower of sentimentality because that’s just who I am ok!

Sooo, my website is a year old now—what!!! It feels surreal typing that out but it’s true. When I first made this website, I was determined to maintain it on the long-term. I mean, I was really excited at the thought that I get to cultivate a personal space in the internet after, like most, escaping social media and its enshittification.

I started out ambitious, I wanted to do so much despite my beginner knowledge in cobbling code snippets in the editor. I knew what stuff I wanted in it and the possibilities were endless. I stayed up just browsing from one website to another. I wrote down a list of page ideas to make. It was the first time in a long time that I felt inspired to create something. Then, I committed to myself that I’ll update my website every day, if not every week. (To which 1-year-later-me says: good try.)

That determination carried on for about two months. Until real life threw me multiple curveballs in rapid succession that drained me, leaving no energy to work on stuff I planned here. Until the updates became sporadic. Until I found it tedious to simply open VS Code. I started to think maybe this is just going to be one of my fleeting hyperfixations that lasted longer than usual.

Sometimes, a feeling of unsatisfaction would plague my mind for a bit, like it still could be better but I’m just too dumb for advanced coding or like damn other people have better websites than me I can never be that good, but I’ve come to realize that’s just something that comes with creating something (like art! or writing!).

(For the record, most of the time, I’m highly inspired by other people’s websites; I have a long list of website inspirations with personal notes on what concepts/sections I liked :3c)

But surprise bitch; one year later. Sure, the updates weren’t as frequent as I wanted it to be ideally but I still find myself going back here every now and then, knowing that this rented 84-megabyte html-soup is mine and I can do whatever the hell I want with it.

migrating to 11ty

A few months after this site’s creation, each page was getting more and more tedious to update. There would be 1 line change in a page, and I'd have to skim through my bajillion pages to see if shit will break just because of 1 line. I figured, if I really want this to grow as my archive, going through each page manually will sooner or later kill my motivation to put things in my website. And so, I happen to stumble across 11ty. It’s a static site generator that I was fully aware out of my skillset but it’s the internet and the internet is free. Thanks to free tutorials generously shared by people, I slowly and painstakingly migrated my website files to 11ty. I had to learn a lot of technical jargon but the payoff was also a lot. It had become much bearable to organize my files and honestly I would’ve stopped updating this website without it.

Hopefully in the coming months, my pea brain will actually comprehend plugins and stuff. But that’s for another time :P

layout changes

As of writing, I have changed layouts twice so far from the initial one and I made and designed them both myself. Was it frustrating to the point I was pulling my hair because I can’t understand CSS grids for the life of me? Yes. Did I visit my website every day a few days after a layout change because I’m so impressed at myself? Also yes.

I started out as a total beginner and I’m proud to say I have improved so, so much because I’m just as stubborn that I wanted to make my own layouts. They’re not really innovative nor jaw-dropping or anything (sidebar layouts? groundbreaking), but it’s what I want and that’s what matters.

numbers and stuff

Now, I really don’t want to put emphasis on website statistics (because it means I have to face the fact that I’m being perceived) but I’m putting these here for reference when I look back on my next anniversary post.

As of 12 May 2025, cherie has been viewed 50,440 times (HOW?) and followed by 79 cool people in the nekowebs. The website is 84.2 megabytes small and consists of 596 files in 94 folders. My guestbook has been written 42 times from people all over the web. I have 22 net neighbors and I definitely would like to meet more! I have written 17 blog posts and dear god, I really wish I would write more lmfao..

future plans

Like my year in review post, I’d like to write down a list of things I want to ✧manifest✧ into this website into the next year. Yes, this website will live to another year… ON GOD.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Hah, that was a long tangent. I’m literally just rambling but I do what I want.

Again, happy anniversary to my little passion project that I will cultivate into a garden of things that make me me. I’m always thankful for this corner of the internet that pushes me to create even when real life gets a little too heavy to be in it.

Well then, I’ll see you in the next entry!

~ niki

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