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Monthly review: August 2021

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  • I wrote a few 11ty shortcodes and Emacs commands to make sketches easier to embed into my blog posts.
  • W- finished hanging up the cabinets in the kitchen. It'll be nice to have more storage!
  • We picked lots of cherry tomatoes and jalapeno peppers from the garden.
  • The Brickloot balls arrived, so we opened a bag and started using them in our LEGO Great Ball Contraptions. I learned how to use the 9V motors, so we were able to rig up the sloped stepper, the pinwheel, the ball pump, the S-capades, and the crane module in a loop.
  • A- was able to tap the badminton shuttles 43 times in a row, starting with 7 shuttles. I was able to bounce my shuttle up in the air 20 times in a row.

Blog posts

Sketches

  • [[2021-08-05 Purrmaid %23art-hub.jpg][2021-08-05 Purrmaid #art-hub.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-05 Skeleton surprise.jpg][2021-08-05 Skeleton surprise.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-09 37 to 38 %23yearly %23review.jpg][2021-08-09 37 to 38 #yearly #review.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-17a Mama, I want to play with you %23parenting %23challenge %23play.jpg][2021-08-17a Mama, I want to play with you #parenting #challenge #play.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-18a What do I want to learn %23planning %23learning.jpg][2021-08-18a What do I want to learn #planning #learning.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-19 Brush lettering - A a %23lettering.jpg][2021-08-19 Brush lettering - A a #lettering.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-19a Playing with lettering %23lettering %23sketchnoting %23drawing.jpg][2021-08-19a Playing with lettering #lettering #sketchnoting #drawing.jpg]]
  • [[2021-08-19b Menu of activities %23parenting %23play .jpg][2021-08-19b Menu of activities #parenting #play .jpg]]

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 39.3 41.2 1.9 69.3 3.2
Discretionary - Productive 4.6 5.7 1.2 9.6 1.9
Discretionary - Family 0.5 1.1 0.6 1.8 1.0
Business 3.5 3.9 0.5 6.6 0.8
Discretionary - Play 0.6 1.1 0.5 1.8 0.8
Personal 7.1 7.0 -0.1 11.7 -0.2
Unpaid work 8.3 6.4 -1.9 10.7 -3.2
Sleep 36.1 33.6 -2.5 56.5 -4.2
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: June 2021

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  • I added more features to my Emacs interface for Plover, including recent suggestions and completion with stroke information.
  • We tweaked the kitchen layout, bringing the cabinets upstairs, moving the cart around, and replacing the big table and chairs with a child-sized table. It's nice to have more storage and floor space, and A- can use the table more easily.
  • I shared seedlings and preserves with our neighbours.
  • I made a splash gown for A-.
  • We started helping A- learn badminton.
  • A- was able to push the merry-go-round, get on it while it was moving, and get off it while it was moving. She was able to match other kids' speed.
  • We harvested strawberries.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time
Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Unpaid work 5.4 7.9 2.5 12.8 4.1
A- 42.1 43.0 0.9 70.0 1.6
Discretionary - Family 0.0 0.9 0.8 1.4 1.4
Business 0.7 1.3 0.7 2.2 1.1
Sleep 31.6 31.8 0.2 51.8 0.4
Discretionary - Play 0.1 0.1 -0.0 0.1 -0.0
Discretionary - Social 0.1 0.0 -0.1 0.1 -0.1
Personal 6.6 5.9 -0.8 9.5 -1.3
Discretionary - Productive 13.3 9.1 -4.2 14.8 -7.1
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: July 2021

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  • I got my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, hooray!
  • We built LEGO Great Ball Contraptions.
  • A- and I played with a lot of math by extending Numberblocks: squares, cubes, greatest common factors, least common denominators, and memorizing numbers.
  • A- had lots of fun with forward and backward rolls.
  • We worked with kitchen clay and papier mache.
  • We harvested lots of basil and tomatoes. We also picked a few bitter melons.
  • I accidentally cooked my sourdough starter, but I was able to revive it from my backup in the freezer.

Blog posts

Time
Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Sleep 31.8 36.1 4.3 62.8 7.2
Business 1.3 3.5 2.1 6.0 3.6
Personal 5.9 7.1 1.2 12.3 2.1
Discretionary - Play 0.1 0.6 0.5 1.1 0.9
Unpaid work 7.9 8.3 0.4 14.4 0.7
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.0 -0.0 0.0 -0.1
Discretionary - Family 0.9 0.5 -0.3 0.9 -0.5
A- 43.0 39.3 -3.7 68.3 -6.2
Discretionary - Productive 9.1 4.6 -4.5 7.9 -7.6
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: May 2021

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  • I got my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine!
  • A- got interested in making friends at the playground. She usually found one or two kids to play with. She also started trying out the splash pad.
  • My Georgi keyboard finally arrived. I can slowly write journal entries on the couch. It will take me a long time before I can get fast enough to keep up with videos and presentations, but hey, a journey of a thousand miles and all that… I've also been learning how to modify Plover and write plugins. Yay Python!
  • The garden is starting to take off. I moved many seedlings outside and started more. We planted flowers, too.
  • We sold A-'s old bikes and bought her a 16" one. She had lots of fun biking with us.
  • I sewed dresses for A-.

Blog posts

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive 9.6 13.3 3.7 23.1 6.2
Unpaid work 3.4 5.4 2.0 9.4 3.4
Personal 5.3 6.6 1.4 11.5 2.3
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2
Discretionary - Family 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1
Business 1.0 0.7 -0.3 1.1 -0.6
Discretionary - Play 0.7 0.1 -0.6 0.2 -1.0
Sleep 33.3 31.6 -1.7 54.9 -2.8
A- 46.7 42.1 -4.6 73.1 -7.7
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: April 2021

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  • I switched from Wordpress to a static blog.
  • Lots of Emacs tweaks: getting the hang of Lispy, asynchronously tangling and compiling my config, posting to Eleventy.
  • I sewed grow bags for the strawberries and we worked on the garden. It's still a little chilly, so we've been moving plants in and out.
  • I'm still in the stage of reading a gazillion books out loud to A-. I've been sneakily using it as first-letter-of-words steno practice with the hand that's not pointing to what I'm reading, which has the side benefit of slowing my reading down so that it's easier for her to understand things. Mwahaha!
  • I bought a used Maxi Micro scooter for A-. She liked it a lot. I ordered new handles for her, too.
  • A- was excited about the big feathers I bought for use as quills and has been practising with them.
  • We made a couple of cakes because A- wanted to experiment.
  • I worked on a few more long dresses and a couple of fabric flowers for A.
  • We saw a squirrel nest fall. The mama squirrel came back for the baby squirrel.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 44.4 46.7 2.3 76.0 3.8
Personal 4.6 5.3 0.7 8.6 1.1
Discretionary - Play 0.6 0.7 0.1 1.1 0.2
Unpaid work 3.4 3.4 -0.0 5.5 -0.0
Discretionary - Social 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Discretionary - Family 0.2 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.3
Business 1.8 1.0 -0.8 1.6 -1.3
Discretionary - Productive 10.4 9.6 -0.7 15.7 -1.3
Sleep 34.6 33.3 -1.3 54.2 -2.2
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: March 2021

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Lots of coding again this month!

  • Emacs News: I wrote some code to schedule announcements on IRC and Twitter, and I pulled the other meetups' iCal feeds in automatically.
  • Streaming: I tried streaming again, but I think OBS was taking up too much CPU and it made my computer a little too unresponsive. I'll try streaming from OBS to Twitch instead of using ffmpeg to multicast next time.
  • Captions: I wrote some code to use word-level timing from Google's video transcripts when splitting subtitles. I experimented with redirecting my automatic caption output into Emacs, using it to dictate a few sentences.
  • Video processing: I split the BigBlueButton video based on XML, writing some Emacs Lisp code to generate title clips with LaTeX and make the FFMPEG commands to cut by keyframes when possible. I split out audio into a separate track for smoother playback.
  • Publishing: I added the ability to expand all, collapse all, and toggle visibility of headings in my exported HTML. I added night mode to my blog, and I removed the search form and sidebar.
  • Other Emacs improvements: I added preview to my consult function for reading a sketch filename. I added the ability to set the category and add other text to my journal from Emacs.
  • Drawing:
    • I drew a lot during A-‘s classes. I practised sketching plants following “Illustration School: Let's Draw Plants and Small Creatures.”
    • I tried sketching in both Concepts and Procreate. They're both nice. I modified my sketch viewer to handle SVGs. I figured out how to switch colours on the SVG I exported from Concepts so that it could respect dark mode. I also changed my stylesheet.
    • I wrote some Emacs Lisp code to extract paths or groups to individual SVGs in preparation for updating my font.
  • Other:
    • I sewed some long dresses and a bonnet for A-. She wears them often. I also sewed a pair of pajama pants for myself.
    • I ordered the Georgi chording keyboard. I want to see if I can get the hang of stenography for captioning, writing, and coding.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Sleep 30.1 34.6 4.4 64.2 7.4
Business 0.7 1.8 1.1 3.3 1.8
Discretionary – Family 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3
Discretionary – Play 0.5 0.6 0.1 1.1 0.2
Discretionary – Social 0.1 0.0 -0.1 0.0 -0.1
Unpaid work 3.6 3.4 -0.2 6.4 -0.3
A- 45.9 44.4 -1.5 82.6 -2.5
Personal 6.2 4.6 -1.5 8.6 -2.6
Discretionary – Productive 12.9 10.4 -2.5 19.3 -4.2
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Monthly review: February 2021

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  • Streaming:
    • I experimented with streaming to Twitch.
    • I added a hydra for switching OBS scenes.
    • I added a marginalia function for hiding password-ish variables.
    • I got captions to flow from my phone to Node to Emacs to OBS to Twitch. There's some delay, but it's a good starting point that might come in handy for live captioning my own stuff.
    • I experimented with using impatient-mode to share live show notes.
    • I wrote some code to split a video and its subtitles based on the selected region in Emacs.
  • Emacs:
    • I added regexp-based autocategorization to Emacs News.
    • I tried out pretty-hydra.
    • I wrote some commands to remotely control Geeqie from Emacs. They're useful for quickly flipping through images.
    • I got Embark to recognize headings from my Org agenda.
    • I attended the EmacsSF, EmacsNYC, and EmacsATX meetups.
  • Other coding:
    • I added photoswipe to A-‘s learning stories and my sketch gallery.
    • I removed lots of old docker images from my laptop and server, so now there's a bit more space on my root partition.
    • I tried using the TV as a second monitor, but typing on the coffee table was too awkward. I dusted off my Cintiq and set it up again.
    • I added photoswipe to my sketch gallery.
    • I broke Quantified Awesome in the process of trying to fix the http/https issue. I managed to fix it, and I think I have a reasonable docker image for it at least for now. I also disabled sign-ups and added a warning message.
    • I needed to restore from my Linode backup because I deleted more files than I intended to. Fortunately, the backups worked.
    • I started configuring 11ty to generate a static copy of my site. Neat! Search might be a challenge, though.
  • Us:
    • I started thinking about the second half of virtual kindergarten.
    • I spent some time tidying up my Org Mode inboxes. I'm actually reasonably up to date now, yay!
    • I tried out making yogurt. It turned out all right.
    • W- cleared off lots of snow from the roof so that it would melt away from the house.
    • I finished knitting a hat for A- and crocheting slipper socks for me.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category Previous month % This month % Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
A- 43.5 45.4 1.8 68.8 3.1
Sleep 28.6 30.1 1.6 45.7 2.6
Personal 6.0 6.8 0.8 10.3 1.3
Discretionary – Play 0.0 0.5 0.5 0.8 0.8
Unpaid work 3.6 3.6 0.0 5.5 0.0
Discretionary – Social 0.2 0.1 -0.1 0.1 -0.2
Discretionary – Family 0.3 0.0 -0.3 0.0 -0.5
Business 2.1 0.7 -1.4 1.1 -2.4
Discretionary – Productive 15.6 12.9 -2.8 19.5 -4.7
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com