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Monthly review: December 2024

| monthly, review

  • EmacsConf 2024 was a ton of fun, and we managed to get the Q&A videos up quickly.
  • I indexed lots of Emacs videos for emacs.tv, and I wrote some Emacs Lisp so I can manage the queue from Emacs.
  • W- retired, hooray! He's been keeping himself active with lots of biking and various projects like fixing the toaster.
  • I filed my corporate taxes.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Sleep 33.5 35.4 1.8 61.3 3.1
Business 0.3 1.5 1.1 2.5 1.9
Discretionary - Play 0.0 0.7 0.7 1.2 1.1
Unpaid work 2.9 3.2 0.2 5.5 0.4
Discretionary - Family 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.2
A- 39.3 39.0 -0.2 67.7 -0.4
Discretionary - Productive 12.9 12.3 -0.6 21.3 -1.0
Personal 10.9 7.7 -3.2 13.4 -5.4
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Monthly review: November 2024

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This month, I experimented with doing my daily drawings on a calendar grid. Since that meant I had a nice neat one-page summary of the month right there, I figured I might as well resume writing these monthly reviews.

Most of my discretionary time was taken up by preparations for EmacsConf, which was a lot of fun. The main things were adding to our organizers notebook and figuring out our own BigBlueButton installation.

We still had plenty of time to get outside to the playground, go for walks and bike adventures, go skating, and make wontons. On indoor days, we mostly played Minecraft, Ni No Kuni, and Supermarket Together. Now that her usual playgroup's shifting mostly indoors (and tend to be pretty cough-y when they're outdoors), we've been going to the ice rink instead, and have even had a couple of playdates with new friends.

A+ definitely craves more stimulation during virtual school. The teacher suggested micro:bit programming, and we've been having fun making simple programs to run on actual hardware. A+ has also been learning turtle graphics via Python programming, and she's quite proud of programming by typing instead of using blocks. She passed the first stage of the gifted identifaction process in the public school board, so we had a couple of meetings and I scrambled to do some research. I don't think it'll change much. The Toronto District School Board doesn't offer virtual placements for gifted students even if they do identify an exceptionality, and there probably isn't anything in their budget for extra resources for the self-contained virtual school they're setting up next year. Ah well. We're planning to take a very chill, non-tiger-parenting approach to the whole thing, and we'll just have to see how things work out.

We set up a new desk for A+ near the window, which let her enjoy more sunlight during the day. In return, I got to have her old desk setup, so now I can sometimes get computer time with an extra monitor (at least when I'm not helping her stave off boredom).

It was the last month before W- retired, so we squeezed in a few dental and medical appointments to take advantage of the remaining coverage. Now we get to figure out what our days could be like!

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A+ 30.3 39.3 8.9 63.9 15.0
Personal 8.3 10.9 2.6 17.8 4.3
Discretionary - Play 0.2 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.3
Unpaid work 3.5 2.9 -0.5 4.8 -0.9
Discretionary - Family 1.0 0.2 -0.8 0.3 -1.3
Sleep 35.8 33.5 -2.3 54.6 -3.8
Business 4.1 0.3 -3.7 0.5 -6.3
Discretionary - Productive 16.9 12.9 -4.0 21.0 -6.7
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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

| monthly, review

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

| monthly, review
  • 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

| monthly, review
  • 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

| monthly, review
  • 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