---
title: "Vibe Check #0"
author: "Thomas Wilson"
date: 2022-02-04T18:46:00
slug: "2022-02-04-vibe-check-0"
draft: false
---

January 2022 was a good month.  It's weird how slow the start of the year feels, until it's over.  The days get longer, and it feels like momentum is returning to my life, which is cool. 

Some highlights from this month include: 

- Turning 30, taking the day off work, and sitting in the sun drinking a coffee, reading Marcus Aurelius.  I've read _Meditations_ a lot, but not for a couple of years.  There are parts of it I'm proud to have internalised.  There are other parts that are good to hear.  
- Going for a Christmas dinner nearly five weeks post-fact.  Or maybe forty-seven early.  It was wonderful, but boy has the pandemic made it easy to forget that some people ironically eat dinner at 22:00.  That's insane to me, I should be in bed.
- Taking my first outdoor road cycle of 2022.  The days are short and the weather mild (if a little windy), my stamina has legitimately been shot, but it felt good to be out. 
- The days are getting longer.  It's now not dark when I finish work.  I can take an evening stroll or run (so long as it's _immediately_ after work) and it's not dark.  
- I've seen a lot of robins. 

2022 feels as though it's off to a gentle start to me personally.  There have been (good) growing pains at work, as product and engineering leave their infancy, and processes and people start to get put in place.  It's been truly remarkable to return my attention to the design of accessible, clean user interfaces.  There's a lot of dust in those books, or wastage in those muscles (depending on the harshness of your preferred analogy).  It's good though - I love design, and I love some of the engineering conversations we've been having recently.  

This month I've been reading:

- [A Line To Kill](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Anthony-Horowitz/A-Line-to-Kill--from-the-global-bestselling-author-of-Moonflower-Murders/25942616) by Anthony Horowitz.  This whole series (_Hawthorn and Horowitz_) is an absolute delight. 
- [Meditations](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Marcus-Aurelius/Meditations/356664) by Marcus Aurelius.
- [Atomic Habits](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/James-Clear/Atomic-Habits--the-life-changing-million-copy-1-bestseller/22336599) by James Clear.  It's a cliché and I'm late to the party, but definitely worth reading. 
- [Under the Whispering Door](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/TJ-Klune/Under-the-Whispering-Door/26207314) by TJ Klune.  It's a fiction book about death.