I need to preface this post by saying: bare with me. I was without doing much coding for over a year, so maybe I'm wrong, or everyone already knows this.

I recently had a situation where I needed to add a border between elements that sat in a 12 grid with a gap between them. To my knowledge (and again, possibly I am wrong), you can't add much on top of the grid-gap. I searched around but was in a rush, so I decided to do something that achieved the result visually. But it doesn't feel super nice and clean. In moments like this, I remind myself of what Rachel Andrew said at Pixel Pioneers some years ago: “Is this the right way to do it?... well, does it work?”.

It works. So here it is. You can fake a border effect by using two shadows, one on top of the other. The first declared shadow should match your background colour, while the second should be the desired border colour. The shadow with the same background colour will be on top of the shadow with the desired border colour. When this happens, there is a tiny difference in their offset. The shadow with the border colour will only be visible in that little offset gap.

The offset value should be half of the size of the gap, and the shadow that will act as the border should be a tiny bit bigger offset value.

See the Pen Experimenting with using box-shadow as a border on top of a grid gap by Ana Rodrigues (@ohhelloana) on CodePen.

In the codepen above I was somewhat successful at reproducing this visual effect with a few specific sizes. While the gap property accepts quite a few of them, the box-shadow property is more limited (I couldn't get this to work with percentages or calc() for example).

While the pixel option is the one that seems to work as expected in most browsers (desktop and mobile), it is also quite interesting how different lengths will generate visually different thicknesses of this fake border.

Update: Christopher Kirk-Nielsen very kindly forked my codepen and experimented with using custom properties and outlines.

Editing and manipulating someone isn't new. But now that it is more accessible than ever for anyone to do, it feels as if every day I could be risking my safety.

As someone who has been online for over 20 years, the majority of those as a child, teenager and young adult who didn't think much of consequences means that I have been trying to delete traces of myself from the internet for a couple of years. As a typical millennial, I went from extreme oversharing to extreme perusing of every privacy setting when I create an account anywhere.

In the early 2000s, someone could edit an image of me, for example, or as we say, "to Photoshop" me into anything. It could be done as a joke or malicious. It wasn't impossible but rare as most people didn't have the skills to do so. Nowadays, we can't say the same. Image manipulation apps are easy and free to get, as well as filters. With the so-called "deep fakes", your face could be posted on any body quickly and maliciously. The same with your voice.

Many years ago, I was having a conversation with a filmmaker who told me something that still haunts me: "I can't wait for it to be possible to use any dead actor in my films". The disregard for someone's image for profit and the lack of consent isn't new, but somehow tormenting when it is about someone who isn't alive anymore. I thought we were far from it, but it is already happening.

Almost every invention is eventually weaponised to hurt women.

I'm keen to return to being more active in the online community, particularly giving talks again. I'm now stressed about having videos of my face and voice online. It has put me off of doing some videos or even streaming. I've found examples of people who successfully stream without showing their faces or voice. Still, they have a lot more experience in setting up such things. Right now, I don't have the same skill or time. I recognise that perhaps I am overthinking and over-fearful of an unlikely scenario, but it does take one bad event.

I have thought, "While there isn't more protection, I will stay hidden and quiet, " but then the opportunities I want will also be taken away from me.

I don't have a solution. Just concerning thoughts.

• Deepfake porn documentary explores its 'life-shattering' impact
• Fake naked photos of thousands of women shared online

When I moved to the UK some years ago, I developed a strange new fear that I was unfamiliar with. Despite living alone for many years at that point, it was the first time I was living abroad. For the first time, I realised that I was hundreds and hundreds of miles away from my parents. I suddenly became afraid of being far from my parents should something happen to them. This new anxiety took over my life. I was finding myself crying over things that hadn’t happened yet. I was also saving money if I needed to buy a last-minute flight. It was one of the reasons why I did therapy some years ago. I needed to let go of things I couldn’t control.

Then the pandemic happened. Something I didn’t even think could happen: flights were grounded. I was terrified that my parents would become seriously ill and I couldn’t see them, just like it happened to loads of people. I was not seeing my parents in person for nearly two years, but we made it.

Three months ago, my biggest fear happened. My dad passed away suddenly, and no money in the world and no amount of anxiety helped me be prepared for it. I got a phone call from my uncle informing me that my dad was suddenly in terrible shape and that it didn’t look good. He told me I should arrange to fly as soon as possible. It was evening, so I only had flights the next day. When I finished booking a flight, I got a phone call telling me my dad had passed away. I wasn’t on time. My biggest fear happened.

In this blog post, and in no particular order, I will share some of my favourite memories with my dad.

My dad used to call me whenever “In the Shadows” played on the radio and put his phone down for me to listen. He knew it was my favourite band and was excited for me every time they played on the radio.

My dad took me to see The Rasmus live in 2005. I was there for hours, queuing to be in the front row. My dad and mum went out for dinner and returned to the venue when the opening act started, and all the fans were already inside. My dad met the band and scored himself row 0 tickets and a free drink! Incredible!

I remember when he taught me how to ride a bicycle.

When I was tiny, we were walking somewhere, and I kept finding money on the floor, and I was over the moon! Turns out my dad was pranking me by throwing money on the floor without me noticing.

Almost every Christmas, there would be fun and complicated wrapped presents, surprises and pranks.

He would play with me and my little friends at my birthday parties when I was little.

His reaction when I shared that I was pregnant.

Our last Christmas together, the first with his granddaughter.

I miss you every day, dad.

My maternity leave has ended! I was one year at home with my little one. But, it's really like they say: the days are long, but the years are short. Around six months ago, I wrote a blog post called Matrescence which resonated with a few people. Meanwhile, as I found some headspace to go back online, I found a few more posts written by other parents that resonated with me too.

Around the time I wrote that post, things were rough in a different way. Driven by the fear of losing myself, I forced myself to attend three conferences (as an attendee) when maybe I wasn't ready. I put so much pressure on myself and on "having it all". I wanted perfection in our society's imperfect and unfair world of motherhood. I would crumble when I didn't achieve perfection (I never did). Finally, around December, I admitted that I needed to pause. Mentally I wasn't okay, so I took myself to see a GP. While we're still bouncing back ideas on whether I have PPD or PMDD, I started medication.

The first weeks were again tough. The side effects were brutal, and it took a while to see a difference. But now, nearly six months later, I am thankful to my past self for taking action. While life wasn't easy (for example, my father passed away unexpectedly a couple of months ago), I coped much better than I would have six months ago. And, of course, while there are moments of sadness, I can finally find joy in many things. Of course, I still worry about milestones and everything that entails in growing a little human, but I don't start the waterworks and can sleep at night.

Besides medication, I also took a proper social media break. It helped that Twitter, my social media of choice to compare myself to others and then feel sad, somehow got even worse, and people started to migrate to other places. But I did delete the app from my phone. Eventually, I completely forgot to check it out. Away from the sight, away from the heart. I stopped checking other places where the tech community hung out and didn't work on my blog. I stopped. And it was the best thing I did.

More recently, I did get back to it and noticed a few things. My network is now much smaller and also more spread out. I suppose many people assumed that my lack of content meant goodbye, so I must admit that it was a bit sad seeing mutuals unfollowing me. It's okay, and I know it isn't personal, but my evil inner voice blames me for not being "out there". On the other hand, I did reconnect with people differently.

I'm happy and excited for this new chapter of my life. I'm so glad to have found peace and some happiness in slowing down. I'm sure some days I will have labrador energy, and I'm sure that other days it will look like I went missing again.

I asked on Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky what I missed, and these were the replies. So if you were away for the last 12 months, here it goes!

• 100 Days Of More Or Less Modern CSS via Dana and Stu.
• CSS Variable Secrets via Matthias.
• Scaling CSS Layout Beyond Pixels via Matthias.
• A Complete Guide to CSS Cascade Layers via Matthias.
• Use the Right Container Query Syntax via Matthias.
• beyond tellerrand 2023 playlist via Calum.
• Rich Harris on frameworks, the web, and the edge via bersling.
• The Interactive Guide to Rendering in React via Nitin.
• Andy Bell's talk "be the browsers mentor, not it's micro-manager" via Grace and Gregory.

This post has a content note of pregnancy, birth & mention of previous loss. Visit the link directly if you're okay with reading it.