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Monthly review: May 2023

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Text from the sketch

cavity - lost tooth - booster seat - bike - Realms - splash - sewing - garden

June: More of everything! Dealing with the heat, playing outside.

  • Growing bigger: A- bravely got a cavity filled under nitrous oxide. She also lost her first tooth the regular way. She grew big enough to a use a booster seat in the car. She got a 20" bike with gears, and started getting used to it. Still a little wobbly and we walk up and down slopes, but she'll get there.
  • Having fun: We set up Minecraft Realms Plus so that we could all play with my sister and her kids. Fun! Adventure & creativity. Splash pads! I replaced the top of A-'s splash gown and it's good for another year. Lots of play dates! Popsicle season.
  • Making time for my own hobbies: I started hand-sewing during playdates. It's slow, but at least I'm making progress! I sewed on some lace that A- asked for. and now I'm working on a hat.

    Moved the plants into the garden. Whee! It's lots of fun watching things grow and learning how to eat them.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Business 1.9 3.8 1.9 6.6 3.2
Discretionary - Productive 3.0 4.9 1.9 8.5 3.2
Unpaid work 2.8 2.9 0.1 5.0 0.2
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
A- 44.2 44.1 -0.1 76.6 -0.1
Discretionary - Play 0.4 0.2 -0.2 0.3 -0.3
Discretionary - Family 2.6 1.6 -1.1 2.7 -1.8
Personal 10.4 9.3 -1.0 16.2 -1.8
Sleep 34.9 33.4 -1.5 57.9 -2.6

Monthly review: April 2023

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Text from the sketch

We spent a lot of time playing Minecraft with A+, who was curious about both Java and Bedrock. I figured out how to export command books from Org Mode, so we can easily teleport around.

Matthew D. gave me an X230T and a Surface Book, since he moved on to other computers. How kind! Happy to get more use out of them. The X230T was a straightforward upgrade for my X220T, and the Surface is neat too. (Krita supports multitouch!)

I want to learn a lot about gardening this year. Many of our strawberries came back We started bitter melons, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of flowers in March, and the seedlings are coming along nicely. We also planted radishes, lettuce, beets, and carrots outside. We'll see how this goes!

Lots of playdates with A+'s friends, including biking around. She's getting better at figuring out what she wants to do with other people and what she wants to do by herself.

Other moments: dog encounters, tooth extraction, booster seat, lots of baking, bubbles in bubbles, ice cream, respect the timer

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Family 0.4 2.6 2.2 4.3 3.7
Sleep 32.9 34.9 2.0 56.8 3.4
Unpaid work 3.0 2.8 -0.2 4.5 -0.4
A- 44.4 44.2 -0.3 71.9 -0.4
Discretionary - Play 0.8 0.4 -0.4 0.6 -0.7
Discretionary - Productive 3.3 3.0 -0.4 4.8 -0.7
Personal 11.7 10.4 -1.3 16.9 -2.2
Business 3.5 1.9 -1.7 3.0 -2.8

Monthly review: August 2022

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  • Lots of little improvements because I've been getting some early morning coding time while waiting for A- to wake up.
  • Back to making visual book notes, thanks to the SuperNote
  • Lots of playing outside by ourselves or with others. A- sometimes feels jealous of others, but she'll get the hang of dealing with that feeling someday.

Blog posts and sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 39.1 41.6 2.5 69.8 4.1
Discretionary - Productive 5.5 7.7 2.2 13.0 3.6
Sleep 36.5 38.1 1.5 64.0 2.6
Discretionary - Play 0.9 0.9 -0.0 1.5 -0.0
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Unpaid work 4.1 3.0 -1.1 5.0 -1.9
Business 2.7 1.3 -1.4 2.2 -2.3
Discretionary - Family 3.2 1.8 -1.4 3.0 -2.4
Personal 7.9 5.7 -2.2 9.5 -3.8

Monthly review: December 2021

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  • I reencoded the EmacsConf videos and tagged some pages for additional work.
  • I experimented with using speech-to-text on my phone to quickly draft blog posts. That seems to be working out pretty well. I can even turn them into timestamped captions with aeneas.
  • It looks like I'm averaging a little less than a minute on the 3x3 Rubik's cube now (Ao5: 57.01), so I upgraded to a DaYan TengYun V2 M. Feels nice. I also learned the beginner's method on a Megaminx.
  • I updated compile-media to handle temporary files, and I changed subed-record to use it.
  • I changed subed.el to make it more generic.
  • I learned how to use Krita to animate.
  • Lots of gingerbread this month.
  • Lots of catching up on my backlog, too!

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 32.3 38.3 6.0 66.4 10.1
Unpaid work 4.2 5.7 1.5 9.9 2.5
Business 1.0 1.6 0.6 2.7 1.0
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2
Discretionary - Play 0.6 0.6 -0.1 1.0 -0.1
Discretionary - Family 0.2 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.3
Sleep 32.5 32.4 -0.2 56.1 -0.3
Personal 9.6 8.6 -1.0 14.8 -1.7
Discretionary - Productive 19.6 12.9 -6.7 22.3 -11.3

Monthly review: September 2021

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  • Lots of little improvements to the house. Switched to a round table. Sewed wedge-shaped placemats.
  • A- started virtual senior kindergarten.
  • A- had to deal with some stomach pain.
  • A- wanted to waltz. We watched a few waltzes, learned how to do the box step, and then had fun doing some regular two-steps.
  • A- was curious about gymnastics.
  • A- wanted to buy a newspaper.

Blog posts

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 41.2 43.5 2.2 70.7 3.7
Sleep 33.6 35.1 1.4 57.0 2.4
Business 3.9 4.8 0.9 7.8 1.5
Discretionary - Play 1.1 1.7 0.7 2.8 1.1
Personal 7.0 6.7 -0.2 10.9 -0.4
Discretionary - Family 1.1 0.0 -1.1 0.0 -1.8
Unpaid work 6.4 4.6 -1.8 7.4 -3.1
Discretionary - Productive 5.7 3.7 -2.0 6.0 -3.4

Monthly review: October 2021

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  • I drafted the schedule for EmacsConf 2021, taking speaker availability into account.
  • I got the hang of solving the 3x3 cube without referring to a guide. Now to build up speed and learn more patterns…
  • A- wanted to practise the fish move on the Rubik's cube. We did it 144 times, using the rekenrek in place value mode to keep track of the sums after each round.
  • A- pretended she was Cat Ninja doing 3-point landings.
  • A- was able to hoop around her neck 12 times in a row.
  • A- tried different typing games.
  • A- was reading Astronaut Academy silently. I offered to read it to her, and she chose to read it herself instead. I asked her how many new words she was coming across. She told me she knew all of them.
  • I flipped through a book on teaching kids how to read. A- was able to read many of the sample sentences, although she stumbled over some of the more advanced phonics rules (ex: costly, costlier, costliest).
  • We tried out Teach Your Monster to Read. A- enjoyed playing for almost an hour. I skipped her ahead to the Champion Reader stage.
  • More stomach pain for A-.
  • A- went as a bat for Halloween. She wore the bat wings I made her out of sofa cover scraps, and I covered her leopard headband with the same fabric to make bat ears. She walked pretty far and did several trips, confidently walking to the houses and greeting people. She kept an eye out for the other kids we were going with, making sure the 2-year-old didn't go near the road. Afterwards, she sorted her candy and shared some with us.
  • I showed A- how to use the playing cards to exercise our memories by naming the cards in sequence. I named cards until I started forgetting (~7 cards), and we talked about working memory. Then I showed her how mnemonics could help us remember better by using silly stories. I used the cards to improvise a story using the major number system that I'd modified to use Numberblocks, which I'd taught her previously for memorizing digits of pi. (3 said, "Look at me!" But 5 was too busy laughing at 7, who was riding a kangaroo and chasing 4, who was dressed as a pirate…) She kept bringing me more cards to incorporate into the story, and she said the numbers whenever I paused and prompted her with our mnemonic cues. We got to 23 cards before she moved on to a different activity.
  • A- finished the Pre-reader Express course on code.org. We tried a few puzzles from Course C, but "turn left" and "turn right" were a little difficult for her to think about. We might revisit this once she's more comfortable with left, right, clockwise, and counterclockwise.
  • We played lots of math card games: Garbage (filling in a 10-frame), Make 10 (adding two numbers), and Gain and Loss (black cards add, red cards subtract). She was able to use number bonds to quickly add or subtract numbers on the rekenrek. For example, when she needed to add 8 to 17, she could add it as + 3 + 5 (add 3 beads on the second row, then add 5 beads on the third row) instead of counting the beads one by one.

Blog posts

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive 3.7 10.4 6.8 18.1 11.4
Unpaid work 4.6 5.9 1.4 10.3 2.3
Discretionary - Family 0.0 0.6 0.6 1.0 1.0
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.4
Personal 6.7 6.8 0.0 11.8 0.1
Discretionary - Play 1.7 1.4 -0.3 2.5 -0.5
Sleep 35.1 34.7 -0.4 60.2 -0.6
A- 43.5 39.5 -3.9 68.6 -6.6
Business 4.8 0.3 -4.5 0.5 -7.5

Monthly review: November 2021

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  • We had our first sub-60 times on the Rubik's cube. A-'s now a little faster than I am. She was proud of buying a premium cube with her savings. She loved using the timer.
  • A- was was greatly amused by the challenge I set myself to solve Rubik's cubes and stack them on top of my head. After I did three, she wanted me to do it again, so I said I would only solve it if she could balance a Rubik's cube on her head. She was able to balance it for a few seconds at a time, practising her gross motor skills and self-regulation.
  • I got the hang of swinging the jump rope for A-. A- also figured out waist hooping.
  • A- wanted to help with knitting. After a number of knit 2 purl 2 repeats, we decided to change the pattern to knit the whole row. "Sometimes I think of it as scooping the poop," she said, working the needles. We experimented with different patterns and observed the resulting textures.
  • A- loved the Hamster Princess series and the Princess in Black series.
  • A- was curious about Pirate Fluxx.
  • We made coin sorters and coin-operated candy dispensers using LEGO.
  • W- set up some home automation.

Blog posts

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive 10.4 19.6 9.2 31.9 15.4
Personal 6.8 9.6 2.8 15.6 4.8
Business 0.3 1.0 0.6 1.6 1.1
Discretionary - Social 0.2 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.4
Discretionary - Family 0.6 0.2 -0.4 0.3 -0.7
Discretionary - Play 1.4 0.6 -0.8 1.0 -1.4
Unpaid work 5.9 4.2 -1.7 6.9 -2.9
Sleep 34.7 32.5 -2.2 53.0 -3.6
A- 39.5 32.3 -7.3 52.5 -12.2