Starting a new chapter...becoming a software developer

An update.

If you are an avid reader of Gingerbread Smiles or know me in 'real-life', you'll know my life story and that I had been working in marketing. I'd been doing that for the past eight years and for a while now I've known that I needed a change. Although I did enjoy what I was doing, what I needed was something new. A new challenge. Something that would play to my strengths.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I had to look around to see what I liked the look of, and what I was really going to enjoy on a daily basis. As I'm a homeowner and someone who likes the luxuries of life - like our holidays to America and going out to eat - I knew that taking too much time out of employment was not really an option. So, unfortunately, a three-year degree was off the table. Don't get me wrong, if that's what I needed to do, we would have found a way.

However, in my searches, I came across a coding Bootcamp (Northcoders, located in Leeds) which looked right up my street. I'd learn Javascript, the only main language to run and browsers and servers and the most popular programming language across the world. The course would equip me with the skills to *hopefully* take up a career as a junior software developer.

Well, I stumbled across this in January this year, and as they say, the rest is history. I'm now right in the midst of it, in week five in fact. It's been a fast-paced and exciting few weeks and I can't quite believe we've progressed so quickly and that we've learnt as much as we have. For the first three weeks, we took on the fundamentals. Although we had to undertake a 'pre-course' to ensure we were all on the same level, the fundamentals really delved into the basics and ensured we could all write what we needed and have the building blocks for our next modules.

For the past five weeks, I've been so into the world of coding that I've been going to sleep thinking of solutions to problems we've been working on. But... I love it. I think that is what matters. I have not been dreading any day. I feel so much happier and I've got all my fingers and toes crossed that at the end of this I get to start a career in the tech world.

As I have plenty of time to waste on the train to and from Leeds every day, and there is only so much Netflix one girl can take, I want to start keeping my blog updated regularly. So I'm looking to do an update on the course after every block and throw a few food blogs in there too. Oh and maybe write about last year's American trip...

The start of juicing and my new layout!

Today marks the first day of a three-day juice! I am nervous but excited to see the results at the end of the three days. Yesterday I did a huge fruit and vegetable shop to pick up everything we'd need to complete the juice and I ended up with 44 apples amongst everything else! I thought the lady at the checkout would have had a funny remark but she was pretty mute.

So far today I've had my hot water with lemon which wasn't as bad as I'd imagined it. You've got to start somewhere right. I'll be keeping a diary of my thoughts during the juice which I will be writing up on here to let you know how I got on and if it made any difference.

Also you may have noticed that I have a new blog layout! I wanted to get a bit more grown-up and move away from the gingerbread men so I had Sarah from Trisarahtops Smiles design me this for only £15! It was a bargain and Sarah was a pleasure to work with making as many changes as I wanted. I love the new design and I hope you do too.

*Update! I've given up juicing after a horrible juice...will tell you about it next post...

The big move.

I'm not sure if you've noticed but I've been blogging a lot less lately...well I've just moved into my first house with my boyfriend! We took some time off work to get the house cleaned and painted and finally moved in on Wednesday. It was all pretty stressful with people everywhere but they really helped us get the house to where we wanted it for our move-in day.

I packed up my room in my Mum's house and it was sad to see it empty and know that I wouldn't sleep there again. It is a weird feeling but I am happy in our new house and I can see us doing well. I can't wait to get everything unpacked and give it all a place in the house. At the moment the spare room is just a storage facility and as I didn't see a need to label boxes at the time I do not know where anything is. Clever...

In the collage above, in the middle is our new house the day we moved in, then to the right is our food hamper from Matt's Mum and below that is the first new home card we received with some yummy chocolates. After that is me in my empty room at my Mum's house, the blue and grey room is our newly painted bedroom ready and awaiting furniture and lastly is our Friday night tea courtesy of our new toastie maker!

I have a few more house posts to come when we have put up a few more pieces of our Ikea furniture so keep an eye out.