When your passion becomes a grind


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Hello Reader,

Before we dive into the content of this one, I want to let you know that this will be the last newsletter of the year, and I’ll be back in your inboxes sometime in mid-January.

I’ll still have YouTube videos coming out, so you can keep an eye out over there by making sure you’re subscribed (only like 4,000 away from 1 million!). I’ll also do a quick roundup of all the content I put out once the newsletter resumes.

With the family home for the next two weeks, it's the perfect time to wind down a bit, but I've been thinking about why that even feels like something worth mentioning.

This was the first year I actually took a real break from YouTube, with a short period with no videos, and more weeks without a newsletter than I've had in years as well.

It felt really strange, but as you can guess, the world kept on turning just fine (or well, it kept on turning, I’m not so sure how fine things are in the big picture, but you know what I mean 😅).

When we're in the thick of things, it's hard to realize how much we're pushing ourselves. The constant need to produce, or sometimes, the need not to fall behind simply becomes the “normal” state of things.

I know for me, a big part of it is always trying to keep the momentum up, which was why taking a break from YouTube and the newsletter this year was scary for me. I know myself, and how it can be hard to get started back up again.

Now, that’s not to say it’s easy. Sometimes we need to buckle down and simply get things done, whether it’s to finish a job on time or do extra work at night to help pay the bills, but often stepping back isn’t slacking, or giving up. Instead, it’s giving ourselves a chance to breathe for a second so we can come back at things with a bit more energy.

My break this year did more good for me than anything else, and I came back more motivated and excited about making content than I'd been in a while.

So yeah, a little bit of a wind down for me for the next little bit, and I hope you also have a chance to do the same 🙂.

📺 Stop using the legacy color syntax

video preview

After talking about this a while ago on Bluesky, it turns out a lot of people didn’t realize that the syntax for CSS colors has changed quite a bit. I wrote a post on Piccalilli that was super well-received, so I figured I’d take the start of that article and turn it into a video 😅.

⚡ 4 color variations from 1 variable super easily

video preview

Speaking of new color stuff, this week’s short dives into why relative colors is one of my favorite “new” CSS features.

🎙️ Podcast

Staying sane when things get busy

show
Staying sane when things get...
May 15 · General Musings with Kev...
16:24
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I recently went through a period that could have led to burnout, but I managed to avoid it, so I thought I'd share how I managed to get through it.

LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE | RSS

📝 Quiz time!

You want an element to transition from height: 0 to its natural height when opened. Which single line can make height: auto animatable?

  1. interpolate-size: allow-keywords
  2. transition-behavior: allow-discrete
  3. transition-size: auto
  4. will-change: height

As per usual, you'll have to head on over to YouTube to take a stab at the quiz, and once you answer, you'll see if you were right or not.

🏁

Enjoy the break, happy holidays, and see you in 2026!

Kevin


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Hi! I'm Kevin

Weekly newsletter, where I talk about tangentially-related front-end development topics and share what I've been up to in the last week, plus any cool/fun/interesting/useful links I come across as well.

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