2026-07-22

I've been playing around with Obsidian and Forestry in bits and pieces in the week or so since I started this digital garden. I've been gradually making changes in line with the principle of just doing the thing and putting it out there in its imperfect form.

I started off using the origami theme by kneecaps with the shark time color palette. I liked the contrast of the pinks and blues, but I knew that I wanted this pastel speckled-rainbow background (yes, this is fully intentional) so I got that done with css yesterday.

Today, I decided I wanted to create a bookshelf to display what I'm reading. Figured out how to do this with a base. Still deciding if I want the book covers to be shown on the notes themselves. If that time comes, I've figured out how to wrap text around an image.

At its core, Obsidian is a markdown-based note-taking app. There are things (like text-wrapping options) that we've gotten used to seeing in text editors today that don't come out-of-the-box in Obsidian. Yet, at the same time, this simplicity clearly wasn't designed to restrict. The more I use this app, the more I'm absolutely floored by how customizable everything is, how many plugins there are, how so many people have written css solutions to these common things people want to do with the app. It's like LEGO Classic Brick Boxes—free tiles to do what you want, with suggestions included for things you can build but also lots of "unofficial" uses and guides to get you there.

Perhaps I say the above as a person who used Notion for knowledge management at work, then started using it for my personal life too. Trying to get Notion to do what I wanted always felt like figuring out a water pouring puzzle. Obsidian says you can make your own jug, then share it with others who want a jug of this size too.