Hi! Design-wise I have no problem with it, it looks neat and I love the colours used. The positioning of the categories with their featured posts is some what unique as well. Because I usually see blogs having sliders when it comes to their featured posts. One thing with that I think putting the category on the upper left side of the featured photo is quite redundant already. For me highlighting the said category is enough already to know which category is it.
One more that I would like to highlight the email field when subscribing to the Newsletter. I think you'll need to make the font colour lighter for the sample email "
[email protected]" or make it disappear once the user has clicked on the field. Because what happens now is, the cursor blends in with the sample email upon clicking the email field.
But besides that it's a good design. I really love it, hoping to see more of your work in the future too.