I want a small wall calendar that’s not designed for use as a planner. I don’t need space to write things and I don’t need large photos of anything. Basically something like this except for a whole year instead of individual months. Anyone know of anything?

A 15-month calendar from Field Notes highlighting November 2024 is prominently displayed.

The Sustainability of Theme Development on Micro.blog

Originally, Tiny Theme for Micro.blog was simply a personal project for my blog. After I went live with it, I began to receive requests to make it available to others. I had no objections to people using my work in this way, so I did the necessary work to make it as useful to others as it was to me.

From day one, the response was incredibly positive. It received what I consider a high adoption rate and more and more micro.blog users installed it as their theme of choice. Support and tutorial requests started to roll in, but nothing I couldn’t handle at the time. Honestly, I enjoyed helping others accomplish their goals for their sites.

Eventually, I released another theme, Sumo, for the platform. Again, it has received positive reviews and been used by more people than I could’ve imagined. What started as a personal project morphed into an unexpected design customization hobby. While I do enjoy the work, I noticed more and more of my time was being devoted to designing and developing freely available blog themes.

At a certain point in the process, I knew I’d have to figure out a way to monetize it. This isn’t ideal, but when you’re spending hours and hours on a project, at some point it has to make financial sense. There are expenses that I incur relating to hardware, software, hosting, and of course time. I needed to at least cover some of those costs. This lead me to introducing a simple Buy Me a Coffee monetization structure. Basically, you get everything for free and if you can afford it, buy me a cup a coffee1 from time to time.

The generosity of others has always amazed me. In this case, there have been a few who have been more than willing to help offset expenses. It’s hardly profitable, but it has enabled me to at least cover a few costs over the last year. The total amount of donations I have received over that time is $532.73.

Here is the monthly (13 months) breakdown:

income chart for micro.blog design and development

As you can see, things fluctuate greatly. The peaks in the chart are always connected to helping an individual user with a larger customization issue. The minimal values are typically propped up by a few automatically recurring donations. These donations have covered the cost of my preferred coding software, design software, Micro.blog hosting, and a few cups of coffee. That’s been fantastic.

The uncovered aspect is, unfortunately, time. To be clear, this isn’t the fault of users or of the Micro.blog platform. It’s simply a byproduct of a hobby based design/development project. There aren’t many people making simple blog themes that provide large weekly cash drops. It’s the nature of the beast.

With Micro.blog being a few years old at this point, I would still consider it in its infancy. Manton and team have done an incredible job developing a platform with many strengths and possibilities, and I know they have ambitious plans for the future.

However, as someone who is simply designing a theme for the platform, I must find a way to prioritize my time and resources in a way that makes sense for me. That doesn’t mean Tiny Theme or Sumo Theme are going away. Not by any means. But it does mean, at least for a season of life, I have to redirect some of my time to more pressing matters.

First and foremost, that’s the well-being of my family. This year, our family received some very tough medical related news involving two individuals. This isn’t the place to get into specifics. But I will say that both of those individuals, after months of treatment, are rebounding beautifully and the future looks bright.

As for Micro.blog, I’m still a supporter. As for Tiny and Sumo Theme, I’ll still be maintaining and updating them. When it comes to support, I’ll still attempt to address any issues and provide tutorials when possible. You can feel confident that the themes will continue to exist and be supported. Timelines may look different. I once released support for a feature less than 5 minutes after Micro.blog announced it. I don’t know if that will happen again, but…never say never.

To wrap this whole thing up, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for the Micro.blog team to support and entice further theme/plugin development on the platform:

  • Introduce a “verified” (or similar) category for plugins. If a theme (or other plugin) passes certain criteria, let it be viewed under a heading that indicates its quality.
  • Provide discounts to proven developers on the higher paid plans. For example, a developer may not need to use a certain feature (like family plans) for their personal account. But to provide support and testing for others, it would be nice to have access to them.
  • Add a link to each developer on individual plugin listings. Or perhaps a “follow” button.
  • Communicate upcoming changes/features, when possible, to proven designers/developers beforehand.
  • Find a way to further incentivize quality development. We’re a simple folk. I know a guy who developed an entire app for a company just for a chance to win a box of swag. T-shirts and notebooks and stickers and mugs and and and…are powerful stuff these days.

  1. Yes, it says coffee multiple times. And yes, that’s the name of the company I use to process donations. And yes, most people think coffee is a live saving substance. However, I don’t drink coffee. I’ve tried so many times. From the entire Starbucks menu to every artisan thing imaginable to adding overwhelming amounts of sugar/milk/honey/syrup, it just doesn’t work for me. I’ve even tried the add salt trick to help with the bitterness. Coffee just isn’t for me. My drink of choice is a nice cold Dr. Pepper. As a Texas-born (Louisiana native) man, it make sense. Alas, there is no service called Buy Me a Dr Pepper. Yet. ↩︎


The perfect iPhone case must be:

  • Leather
  • Thin
  • Metal buttons
  • Full cutout on bottom
  • Subtle camera bump
  • Minimal branding
  • MagSafe

This is the best of two I’ve found that meet that criteria. The non-metal version.


My wife’s family all share their location with each other 24/7. They’re all grown adults, some living 200+ miles away. Is that odd or normal?


Coach pitch baseball practice tonight:

  • “Throw to 1st! Jack, that’s 3rd.”
  • “Why is your shoe off at short?”
  • “Your helmet is backwards, Liam.”
  • “Stand up in the outfield.”
  • “What position are you?” (“I’m cutoff!”)

But all you need is one athletic fielder and a first baseman that can catch to win.


I have a couple of Field Notes centric bundles available for sale. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Both bundles include multiple Field Notes, a notes sheath, a challenge coin, and more. $105 per bundle.

Auto-generated description: A collection of Field Notes notebooks, a orange notebook holder, a multi-tool knife, a pack of playing cards, and a small black pouch with a challenge coin are arranged on a wooden surface. A collection of Field Notes notebooks, a brown notebook holder, a pen, and a challenge coin.

I have been using my in-laws’ DSL connection with provider-installed WiFi in an area with low cell signal for two days. I’m one day away from switching to faxing text messages.


Arrow indicates home. I guess it’s time to prep a bit.

Hurricane Cone Chart

For those of you that cross post to different services (Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, etc)…do replies on those services appear on your site?


My initial thoughts on these new aggregator apps like Reeder and Tapestry are:

  1. It’s nice to have so many sources in one place.
  2. But all of them have limits, meaning you’ll need other* apps anyway.

*If you ever plan on replying, creating new posts, or using native features other than merely reading.


Reeder (new) vs Tapestry (beta). Hmm.


I’ve been carrying a Field Notes with me every where I go. I’ve really enjoyed returning to an analog style of Notes/To-Do Lists. I also got a Stuff Sheath that fits in my back pocket (it came with a limited edition Field Notes). My favorite notebook from them is the Pitch Black Dot Grid version.

A collection of items on a wooden surface includes an orange stuff sheath, an orange Field Notes booklet, a coin, a pen, a yellow knife, and a Hop on Pop handkerchief.

Anyone have any machined pens (Tactile Turn, Saga, Machine Era, etc) that you no longer use and would like to sell/trade?


My wife and I are entering the AirBnb market. If anyone else owns/operates one (or similar), do you have any tips?

A house with a sloped roof sits beside a tranquil pond surrounded by lush trees and greenery.

Carrot Weather’s unadvertised Premium Mini plan hits the sweet spot for me ($1/mo or $7/yr).


I just pushed out updates for both Tiny Theme and Sumo Theme with some bug fixes. Nothing major, but a couple of things that needed to be worked out.


I’m selling a few things soon. Putting on here before I list elsewhere in case anyone is interested:

  • AppleWatch Ultra
  • FourSevens Mini Turbo MKIII (Midnight Blue)
  • Multiple A19 Philips Hue bulbs
  • Keychron K2 (Brown switches)
  • Code V2B (Cherry MX blue)

Any Tapestry Beta testers have luck connecting Micro.blog yet?


I just pushed out a small update to Sumo theme to fix a bug with navigation buttons on category pages. I’ll be working on a few other things over the coming days. If you have a specific request, let me know.


We had a bunch of life happen to us during the last couple weeks, so I fell a little behind on Tiny/Sumo updates. They’re a little delayed, but will still be pushed out within a few days.