Wondering Wanderer

Written by Katrin Valdre who has a permanent address in Portland, OR but does not believe in one physical location. You should follow her on Twitter

Week Notes Vol 30

I did not grow up celebrating Thansgiving. I find the whole notions of Pilgrim’s meal with the Native Americans appalling - most people know…

Week Notes Vol 29

Last week was a bit of a downer as work travel takes its toll on me. Being an introvert having multiple days of back to back meetings…

Week Notes Vol 28

It’s been a rough few weeks trying to navigate project planning season where most of the stakeholders gather in the office. Looking at my…

Week Notes Vol 27

Everybody has bias, there’s no point to denying it. The key is understanding your own biases and working on recognizing when you’re tempted…

Week Notes Vol 26

I bought a wedding dress at Goodwill two years ago. It felt theraupetic after the recent turmoil in my life. I had also never had the…

Week Notes Vol 25

End of the year is near - and planning for 2020 has started. For most people it means annual enrollment period has begun (oh, the joys of US…

Week Notes Vol 24

Sometimes you ask universe for a challenge and then it just dumps a boatload of them on you all at once. Well, universe, I’m not going to…

Week Notes Vol 23

One of the things I find great satisfaction in is helping other people achieve their goals. Sometimes this does not exactly work out for my…

Week Notes Vol 22

Life hacking, optimizing time, optimial productivity - no matter what you name it it is essentially the same thing. I’ve been experimenting…

Week Notes Vol 21

I am officially in the “will never move to San Francisco” camp after this week. I’ve always found this city dirty and uptight but after this…

Week Notes Vol 20

I don’t often travel for work but when I do I try to keep some kind ouf routine. Without it my days would follow this template - meet team…

Week Notes Vol 19

Who does’t love September and planning/budgeting for the next calendar year? Everything is due yesterday. I honestly do not mind all the…

Week Notes Vol 18

I have been reflecting on my career path quite a bit this week as I am reading a book by someone who on the surface had career trajectory…

Week Notes Vol 17

As of this week I am the only female on our development team of 24 people. It is a lonely place to be and the bigger the team grows the less…

Week Notes Vol 16

For the past 8 or so years I have been celebrating what we call knitter’s Christmas in July. This year our annual party shifted a little…

Week Notes Vol 15

This week I celebrated my 14th year of Drupal. It’s been quite a journey to say the least. Yes, I definitely drank the coolaid. At the same…

So you too want to work remotely?

First it was individual offices, then cubicles, then open floorplans followed by remote friendly workplaces. The reality is that some of us…

Week Notes Vol 14

I’ve been going down a rabbit hole of reading about the history race and class in the United States for the past few months. Some of this…

Week Notes Vol 13

After two and half years of planning West Coast Estionian days is finally here! Kicked off by mass dance practice followed by potluck on…

Week Notes Vol 12

There are two kinds of people - those who care about status in context of travel and those who do not. I travel a fair amount but I am…

Week Notes Vol 11

Post vacation blues is a thing . Usually it doesn’t hit me as hard since I’m always plotting the next adventure but this time I came back…

Week Notes Vol 10

Vacation in Estonia has been a flurry of activities - one could almost say a castle a day? We attended the main rehearsal for the dance…

Week Notes Vol 9

Is there anything better than unstructured time? No meetings, no phone calls, no obligations except to go see family while on vacation in…

Week Notes Vol 8

Vacation autoreply - check. Slack OOO status - check. Updated team calendar - check. Signed out of Slack and work email on my phone - check…

Work With Me

I am a strong believer in autonomy. I’m not a mico-manager by default unless I feel the project or directions have changed in such a way…

Week Notes Vol 7

Another year older and realizing nothing really matters more than surrounding yourself with people who love you and people you love (often…

Week Notes Vol 6

Burnout has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve been essentially working two jobs for months now - one being what my job title is and the…

Week Notes Vol 5

It’s an amazing feeling when you finally accomplish something. I set up a goal back in April 2018 and chipped away at it until all of the…

Week Notes Vol 4

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear, failure, taking responsibility and finding ways to overcome challenges this week. There’s this quote by…

Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a day (May 25th, 2019)

We came up with the plan of hiking Grand Canyon R2R in a day during a long weekend trip to Utah in November 2018 after hiking Angel’s…

Week Notes Vol 3

Trails are therapy. I used to use mountains as a way to escape from some things in my life and I have finally found that sweet spot between…

Not Defied By Mt.Defiance

There weren’t many takers when I asked if anyone would be up for a “leisurely stroll” up Mt. Defiance on Saturday earlier this week. My…

Week Notes Vol 2

You know those weeks when one thing happens after another and before you know it you have logged a 50-60 hours for your day job? Yeah, it…

Week Notes Vol 1

I realized this am on my way to the airport that I had been there a total of 5 times in the last 7 days. I’ve been to NYC, SF and picked up…

DrupalCon Seattle 2019

Reflection on past DrupalCons and links to interesting sessions from Seattle.

Hello World

For over a year I’ve had a task in my todo list - spin up the site on this domain in Drupal 8. Quess what? It never happened. I realized…