category - review :: Sacha Chua

Aug 10, 2025| yearly, review

I'm turning 42 years old this month. I've been thinking about my annual review for a few days now. It's a good opportunity to take a step back. I often lose sight of the big picture in the day-to-day routines of life with a 9-year-old, but it's encouraging to see progress build up slowly. Parenting is still my primary activity, but I want to sketch out some things to think about over the next year in case I can nudge my life in those directions. These notes might also help my future self travel back in time and remember what it was like. My previous yearly posts cover almost all of the past 21 years. (Half my life! How different I am now, and still how much I can recognize from those days.)

Text from sketch

Life as a 41-year-old

A+'s growing independence
- "Did you know that I'm 9?"
- Virtual grade 3
  - Classwork
  - Boredom
  - Virtual vs. gifted
- Life
  - Head start
  - Stores
  - Playdates
W-'s retirement
- Walks
- Family adventures
- Bike Brigade -> Newsletter
More predictable focus time
- TODOs
- Sewing
- iPad
  - Drawing
  - Piano
  - Reading
- Writing, coding
Fun
- Minecraft: Create Mod
- Stardew Valley
Health
Next:
- Learn and grow together
- Prepare for the storm
- Keep doing what we can

By month

Text from sketch

41-42 2025-08-03-08

A+'s independence, W-'s retirement, playdates, health challenges, video games, learning

Aug 2024: Room swap, biking, paths diverging
Sept: Coding, bike adventures, post owls
Oct: sketchnotes, family: lung mets, CCAT
Nov: No school exemption, micro:bit, skating playdate, new desk
Dec: EmacsConf, skating, W-'s retirement
Jan 2025: EmacsConf, emacs.tv, skating, visited family at the hospital
Feb: iPad (drawing, reading, music, photos), sled, skating party
March: Cubing comp, skating, pottery wheel
April: Minecraft, Bike Brigade, aquarium
May: S'mores, Stardew Valley, sewing, Bike Brigade newsletter, virtual > gifted
June: Finished virtual grade 3, sewing, potato prints, sick
July: Swimming, splash pad playdates, LEGO Mindstorms, Spike Prime, Stardew Valley Expanded

Looking at the year as a whole, I can see a number of themes.

A+'s growing independence

Last year, I wrote that even as A+ grows more independent, I want to be around to spend more time with her if she wants to. I clocked less time doing childcare this year, but I think we went to more places, and there's more richness to the time we spend together. I'm learning to fret less and trust more, and this is good. We're figuring out how this might work going forward as she continues to individuate.

Exclamations of "I'm bored" have reduced slightly, although they occasionally still happen if she's tired or off-balance. She's mostly figured out how to independently explore her interests, although she still likes to spend lots of time with me. I only occasionally fret about A+ and independent time (which often involves screens). She's curious, likes to think about and apply what she's learning, and is often eager to help out around the house or go outside and play with friends.

Sometimes I have a little time to think. I'm not used to this yet and the words don't flow easily (do they ever?), but it's promising.

Sometimes it's still a challenge to get myself into the right frame of mind to fully appreciate when she wants to spend time with me. Sometimes I just want to be able to write or focus. As we like to remind ourselves, though, this time with each other is a limited time offer.

It feels like we're starting to see the results of so many little experiments accumulating over the years. I like who we are now, and what I think we're growing towards. A+ generally considers things carefully and is getting the hang of making her own decisions, knowing her own self.

My little tweaks and processes have gotten me through the worst of the early-parenting time crunch, I think, so I may have a bit of runway before health constraints kick in. As I develop my own interests, I'll probably dial down writing about life with A+, to give her the space and privacy to figure herself out. I'm looking forward to deepening the things I've been learning from these parenting and tech journeys. Life's not ideal, but it is what it is.

I'm learning more about supporting A+. This was the first year we weren't approved for any exemptions from synchronous learning, so A+ had to be in virtual grade 3 from start to finish. She was bored waiting for the class to get through lessons, and the drain of managing her boredom often resulted in resistance to doing the work in the 5- or 10-minute segments the teacher allocated during classtime. She completed pretty much all of it after class, although a few things ended up being turned in late or couldn't be done because she didn't have the information discussed in class.

Contrary to my short-term anxieties around trying to get her to do the work, it turned out that backing off was better for all of us. Even with the growing pains and the occasional questionable decision, it's better for her to learn how to learn than for me to try to push, push, push. I experimented with scheduling my fretting for Saturdays, which worked surprisingly well. This gave her space to own her learning and manage things herself. W- and A+ helped remind me whenever I started fretting unnecessarily. Transforming that nervous energy into silliness seemed to help, too.

I think school is going to be a little tricky for A+ as she's outside the normal range. Special support is only offered in in-person schools, though, so we'll just have to figure out how to make the most of virtual school for now. That might mean letting her figure out what level of attention she wants to pay when, and how to find things to enjoy while not going crazy. We tweaked our physical space by swapping rooms so that she got the one with more sunlight, floor space, and a desk by the window. That way, even with longer days in front of a screen, she could still get a bit more light. I occasionally took her out of school for informal field trips to the art gallery or museum, or to afternoon playdates with her friends. It helped break up the tedium, and that sort of learning is important too.

There were plenty of opportunities for her to practise independence at playdates after school: skating in winter, biking in the spring and fall, splash pads and pools as the weather warmed up. She took on the responsibility of packing her own clothes and snacks. With a walkie-talkie in her basket, she biked ahead to nearby playdates and nature club meetings. I was around in case she needed me to hover, like when there were little kids who were too young to be reasoned with but who were used to reading an adult's expressions.

A+ figured out her own step-by-step progression for the milestones she wanted to work on: first the corner store, then the farmers market, then the supermarket. I sewed A+ a canvas bag with a pocket for her purse so that she could buy her own snacks. She was interested in swimming and pottery wheels, so I signed her up for classes and stayed on the far side of the pool or pottery studio. I stepped back as she struggled with some social interactions and figured out what felt right to her in others. When she wanted to dress like me, I sewed us matching swimwear and skirts. When she was grumpy with me, W- tagged in, or we let her cool herself down while I went off to explore my own interests.

I think this is the way to go for us. Closeness when she wants closeness, space when she wants space. People learn how to decide by deciding, so it's good for her to experiment with decisions while the stakes are low. She's beginning to figure herself out. I still worry a little, of course, but that's part of life. She's curious, and I enjoy learning along with her. I love our late-night conversations about all sorts of things. (Last night we talked about wired telephone exchanges and cellular networks.)

More time with W- because of retirement

W- retired in December to spend more time with us and explore his own interests. He'd been planning it for a while, and the transition was smooth. Some afternoons, he volunteered with Bike Brigade, delivering hampers from food banks to people with mobility issues and other challenges. It's a good way to stay active and to connect with other people. He even cycled through snow and rain. A+ and I sometimes tagged along on W-'s deliveries when the weather was pleasant. My cargo bike made it easy to take A+ and her bike downtown. At the pickup point, I unlatched her bike, she transferred some of the groceries to her basket, and she biked between us to the recipient. She often carried the groceries up with W- while I stayed outside to watch the bikes. It was a little harder for A+ and I to commit to getting out of the house for a scheduled delivery, so I helped out in other ways like handling the newsletter, since that was something I could do on a more flexible schedule. I like how it gives all of us different ways to contribute.

We also went on family adventures to parks and playgrounds that were a little further from the house. With our e-bikes, it was easy to take the Martin Goodman Trail downtown to explore places we hadn't been. It was nice sharing those moments with W-.

More predictable focus time

Going to virtual school meant that A+ had a more predictable schedule that often gave me hour-long chunks of focus time. Because W- was around in case A+ needed help, that meant I could occasionally head out of the house for long morning walks and the occasional bike errand. Knowing the schedule also meant that I could plan a few tasks on my list, make reasonable progress on them, and wrap up neatly before recess or lunch, which was a wonderful feeling. I even felt comfortable using some of that potential focus time for playing the piano, writing, drawing, reading, and playing games.

We planned to keep things mostly the same, so I wasn't under any pressure to increase my consulting. I was still the primary caregiver, taking A+ to playdates, giving her hugs throughout the day, snuggling her when she needed emotional first aid.

We are slowly entering the phase of spending time doing separate things, coming together, splitting up again, coming together. Sometimes A+'s happy to spend time on her own, imagining stories, playing Minecraft, or reading the Star Wars or Stardew Valley wikis. It feels odd shifting to not knowing what she's doing for a few hours at a time. I'm reminded of how some families keep screens in common areas for easier checking-on. At the same time, she's got a good head on her shoulders. We're comfortable talking about things and have talked about a few things to watch out for (people can be quite weird on the Internet). I trust her with managing things during the virtual school day. So why not summer mornings too? In the afternoon, she often takes the initiative to suggest a park to go to or friends to reach out to for a playdate. That makes it a little easier for me to be less anxious about screentime. There are still plenty of moments when she's all over me ("Mama concentration detected!"), and it's easier to set aside what I'd been working on knowing that there'll be time to pick it up again.

Emacs

All the work I put into automating EmacsConf in previous years continues to pay off. I extracted repeatable processes from each year's organizers' notebook (2024, 2023, etc.) into our general organizers' notebook. I had more time to help with captions before the conference, and I even got to enjoy listening to a few sessions and take notes.

With all these interesting videos about Emacs, I wanted to help build an index like the one for Ruby videos. Alvaro Ramirez set up emacs.tv, and I started indexing videos as part of my Emacs News collection process. It's been fun occasionally watching random Emacs videos in the background.

One-hour chunks of focus time feel too short to schedule a call like the Emacs Chats I used to do, but 1-minute videos might be doable. The videos I made feel a little too fast to be generally useful for covering personal workflows (blink and you'll miss it), but maybe if I scope it down, that might be good to experiment with again.

Drawing

I got a 13" iPad Air because I thought it would be fun to do some digital drawing and painting along with A+, who likes to draw on hers. I sometimes draw along with A+ when she's doing art assignments, especially when I pull her out of school for an informal field trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I think company helps.

We tried the Simply Draw tutorials too, although she was only interested in the colour tutorials and she ran out of things to do there. I made a bit more progress and I liked what I drew. I eventually got a little frustrated with their drawing interface, which sometimes forgot what I had drawn. I wonder if they've already fixed that bug. I haven't figured out a better way to go through the tutorials while drawing in Procreate. Maybe I should revisit this sometime.

In the meantime, I've been doing a fair bit of sketching in Noteful: daily moments, monthly reviews, this yearly review, doodles for my blog posts, and even the occasional visual book notes. Compared to the Supernote A5X, it's nice to actually be able to see the colours, and I like how I can select a line and change its style. I still draw with a limited palette of colours: black, a yellowish highlighter, maybe gray. I used to draw with more colours. It feels a little indulgent to spend extra time playing with colour, but maybe I'll get better at doing it just for fun.

Piano

A+ likes to sing. I think it might be fun to learn how to accompany her on the piano. Making music is also a different way of enjoying it. I think that might be a good long-term interest. I subscribed to Simply Piano because I like the way the scrolling notes help me learn timing without counting. I tend to forget that when it comes to sheet music. It's an expensive subscription, but it would be hard to fit sessions with a real-life piano teacher into my life anyhow. I like how I can squeeze in half an hour to play on the piano wherever the day allows. I mostly practise in the morning because we hang out in the living room in the evening. I bought a MIDI to USB cable so that I could plug the piano into the iPad for more accurate tracking and the occasional quiet headphones practice session. It's a little rough feeling the limitations of my memory and my ability to get my fingers to do what I want them to do. Nice to make progress, though. I'm about halfway through the Pre-Advanced III lesson in Simply Piano, which is still probably more of a beginner-level thing compared to what other people can do. (And that's fine; it's good to have interests with high ceilings.) Once I'm done with Simply Piano's course, I might check out Piano Marvel or Pianote.

Gardening

I have a pretty consistent morning routine that includes watering the plants, but the heat makes it less enjoyable to spend time weeding. The cherry tomatoes are doing well. The bitter melons are a lot slower than last year, and their leaves are yellowing. The lettuce bolted before I got around to doing much with it. The perilla is fine, though, and we enjoyed that with some lettuce rolls. The dahlias are browning. I'm not sure if I've been overwatering them or they're having a hard time with the heat. The front garden has been getting quite straggly. Maybe next year, we'll add a lot more compost to the garden and get fresh potting mix for the containers.

I haven't quite found my groove as a gardener, but it's reassuring to see that some things are still going on in the garden despite my neglect. There are lots of things going on in my life right now, so nature mostly does what it does.

Fun

A+ and I have been playing more video games together. We had fun learning more about Minecraft parkour together thanks to the excellent (and free!) maps from Hielke, which include a training mode. She's excited about the recent developments in Minecraft Bedrock Preview, especially the copper golem and the shelves. We also enjoyed exploring various Minecraft worlds together, like Witchcraft and Wizardry (a free fan-built Harry Potter world) and Path of the Jedi. I set up Syncthing on her computer so that her GDLauncher instances are automatically copied over to my computer, which is very handy for picking up the mod list for the Minecraft Java instances she likes to experiment with. I enjoy learning more about Create mod contraptions.

She was curious about farming sims, so we all picked up Stardew Valley. I like Stardew Valley a lot. It fits the way my brain works. I like planting crops, mining, and working on quests. A+ enjoys developing friendships in the game, and she's slowly becoming more comfortable with other aspects like fishing. We have a playthrough with the Stardew Valley Expanded and Ridgeside Village mods, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

I love that both Minecraft and Stardew Valley have deep, long-term communities. Sometimes A+ feels that most of the kids in the playgroup like to run around playing shrieky games like tag or grounders, and talk over each other in conversations, and are not that interested in conversations about Ahsoka Tano's lightsaber forms or Anakin's descent into the Dark Side. She'll find her tribe someday.

In the meantime, I'm happy to have fun with A+. This year, we enjoyed swimming, spinning poi, biking, and singing. On days we don't have playdates, we sometimes go on bike adventures. It's nice to share these things with her while she wants to spend time with me.

I've been able to have more fun on my own, too. I changed my morning routine to include some piano practice, which is this interesting combination of feeling my brain struggle with learning something and being satisfied when I do get the hang of it.

Health

Fun is harder to enjoy when there are health challenges, though. This year was really tough for many people I care about. I only had to deal with minor hiccups like the dry eyes or the cough I had to deal with for about a month - not COVID according to the at-home tests I took, but still a reminder that even our precautions aren't 100%. Other people I cared about had it worse. One had COVID and was out of commission for a couple of weeks. One had a stroke which was luckily caught early enough for treatment. Another's cancer came back, this time metastasizing to her lungs. The cancer's currently responding to chemotherapy, but it's a lot harder to deal with something you can't cut out. Another continues to struggle with physical and cognitive decline. It's hard to watch them go through it and not be able to do anything. And then there's the world. This summer, the new normal includes heat waves and poor air quality due to wildfire smoke, and the world has taken a decidedly less optimistic turn.

All we can do is just keep taking care of what we can take care of, one day at a time. Watching other people go through health challenges I couldn't do anything about, I felt even more determined to savour the time we do have.

Time capsule

One of the nice things about having so many years of annual reviews is that I can quickly step back into what it was like back then. How did things work out? What might I have forgotten along the way that would be good to revisit?

In 2005, I had just moved to Canada. I was anxious about graduate school and figuring out a topic for my research, but determined to learn so that I could go back to the Philippines and teach computer science. I initially wanted to focus my research on personal information management practices and people's Emacs customizations, but the researcher who was probably most related to that had moved to a different university, so I was looking around for another topic that my supervisor could approve.

Twenty years later, I'm still in Canada. With A+, I've developed a deep appreciation for public libraries, playgrounds, and healthcare. I sometimes feel like I haven't done much with my master's degree, but then again, when I did my research into enterprise-based social computing, it was just at the right moment to be part of something interesting at IBM. I rode that wave for a number of years as part of my career, and even into consulting. So that's probably all right, even though it's been years since I've applied the things I learned in my statistics course. My thesis remains obscure, and that's okay. Maybe someday I'll do something like what Karl Voit does with his personal information management lecture. On the other hand, it's nice to be able to write about stuff without having to mark homework… Anyway, not for now, but maybe someday.

In 2010, I enjoyed working at IBM building websites for charitable causes and facilitating large-scale brainstorming discussions. Compared to then, I'm less professionally engaged. I have fun working on little prototypes for my consulting client, but I've definitely taken a step back so that I can have a more relaxed lifestyle with A+. I kinda miss working with the kinds of teams I got to work with back then, but what I've got now is also awesome.

Also, back then, I was about to marry W-. I continue to be very happy about that decision.

In 2015, I reduced my consulting time to one day a week and shifted more time towards personal interests. I also shifted from hosting get-togethers to hanging out at Hacklab. It was lots of fun experimenting with laser cutting and sewing. I dealt with pregnancy fatigue by becoming more of a hermit, lowering my expectations, and learning how to collect fragmented thoughts. W- and I played a lot of Borderlands 2 in the evenings.

People continue to do interesting things at Hacklab, although they've moved to a new venue since then. It'll probably be a while before I can wander over and hang out, since A+ still really enjoys my company.

In 2020, COVID reshaped our world. We had plenty of fun at home. A+ grew and grew: reading, biking, pretend. I'm surprised I managed to do some technical stuff too. I made a font, added features to my journaling system, helped organize EmacsConf.

Compared to then, I feel like I haven't been working on as many projects. I'm sure I'll have more time as A+ develops independent interests.

Looking ahead

I wonder what things will be like in a year, in five years, in ten years. I think things are going to be harder, not easier. I want to use this time to store up good memories and prepare for the storm. I want to keep developing relationships, playfulness, and practical life skills. I want to stay flexible and practise acceptance. There will likely be some tough decisions in my near future. It sucks, but other people have made it through before, and we can too.

Bright spots: I get to learn and grow together with A+ and W-. It'll be interesting to see how A+ continues to grow more independent in this dance of closeness and space.

I just need to keep focusing on doing what we can. That starts with checking in with myself to make sure I'm sleeping well, eating well, taking care of myself, and figuring out what's my responsibility and what belongs to other people. Then I can try to do my best for my circle of influence, and hope that ripples outwards.

I'm probably going to be circling around these questions:

How can I get better at supporting A+ when she wants help and step back when she wants to try things on her own?
How can I get better at managing myself so that I can enjoy the time she wants to spend with me and pounce on the opportunities to do my own things when she wants to be independent?
What do I really value, and what am I willing to sacrifice?
What's in my control? What can I influence? What's outside both?

Appendix A: Blog posts

Aside from Emacs news, I wrote 147 posts last year, compared to 63 the previous year and 52 the year before that. It was nice being able to set aside more writing time during the schoolyear. At the moment, I don't have much time for thinking aside from the snippets I can squeeze in here and there. I just have to keep saving ideas.

I also started making topic pages, which are undated notes that are more like a digital garden: Blogroll - Emacs - Emacsconf - Emacs Lisp - Inspiration - My everyday carry - Now - Org Mode - Personal knowledge management - Questions - Subed - Supernote - Uses - Visual book notes - Workflows - Yearly reviews

Appendix B: Sketches

Appendix C: Time

Category	The other year %	Last year %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive	7.4	12.6	5.2	21.1	8.7
Discretionary - Play	0.8	3.0	2.3	5.1	3.9
Unpaid work	4.0	4.2	0.2	7.0	0.3
Personal	9.3	9.2	-0.2	15.3	-0.3
Discretionary - Family	0.7	0.3	-0.4	0.5	-0.6
Business	3.4	2.2	-1.2	3.7	-2.0
Sleep	34.6	33.4	-1.2	55.9	-2.0
A+	39.9	35.2	-4.7	58.9	-7.9

Appendix D: Biking

One of the things that has helped with both health and enjoying time with A+ has been the cargo bike. From Aug 2024 to July 2025, I biked 1795 km (avg 150 km/month), compared to 1154 km from Nov 2023-July 2024 (avg 128 km/month). It's been really nice being able to go places on our own, especially as very few people mask on public transit these days. I usually take A+ in the cargo bike both ways, although sometimes she'll bike to the place and ride in the cargo bike on the way home. I use the Bakkie bag to tow her bike back home.

Javascript code for extracting distances and times from ebike-connect via Spookfox

[...document.querySelectorAll('.activities__ride-menu')].map((o) => {
  return {
    date: o.querySelector('.activities__menu-details > span').textContent,
    distance: o.querySelector('.activities__menu-distance-text').textContent.trim(),
    time: o.querySelector('.activities__menu-details > span:nth-child(2) > span:nth-child(2)').textContent,
  }
});

Emacs Lisp to group distance by month

(let ((by-month (seq-group-by
  (lambda (row)
    (let ((date (plist-get row :date)))
      (when (string-match "[0-9][0-9]\\.\\([0-9][0-9]\\)\\.\\([0-9][0-9]\\) [0-9][0-9]:[0-9][0-9]"
                          date)
        (format "20%s-%s-01"
                (match-string 2 date)
                (match-string 1 date)))))
  trips)))
  (append
   '(("Month" "Distance (km)")
     hline)
   (mapcar
    (lambda (row)
      (list (format-time-string "%Y-%m" (date-to-time (car row)))
            (format
             "%d"
             (round (apply '+
                           (mapcar (lambda (entry) (string-to-number (plist-get entry :distance)))
                                   (cdr row)))))))
    (reverse by-month))))

Data by month

Month	Distance (km)
2023-11	208
2023-12	157
2024-01	69
2024-02	78
2024-03	176
2024-04	82
2024-05	106
2024-06	143
2024-07	135
2024-08	96
2024-09	212
2024-10	120
2024-11	144
2024-12	235
2025-01	27
2025-02	60
2025-03	97
2025-04	133
2025-05	200
2025-06	158
2025-07	313
2025-08	101

Code for graphing

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
TEXT_COLOR = "black"
data_dict = {}
for row in by_month:
    data_dict[row[0]] = int(row[1])

months = ['Aug', 'Sept', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June', 'July']
data = {}
base_year = 2023
for start_year in [base_year, base_year + 1]:
    data[start_year] = {'data': [], 'label': '%d-%d' % (start_year, start_year + 1), 'total': 0};
    for month_num in ['08', '09', '10', '11', '12', '01', '02', '03', '04', '05', '06', '07']:
        if month_num < '08':
            key = '%d-%s' % (start_year + 1, month_num)
        else:
            key = '%d-%s' % (start_year, month_num)
        data[start_year]['data'].append(data_dict.get(key, None))
        data[start_year]['total'] += data_dict.get(key, 0)
plt.figure(figsize=(12, 8))
x_positions = range(len(months))
marker_styles = '>^+*'

import itertools
marker = itertools.cycle(('o', '>', ',', '+', '.', '*'))
for key, val in enumerate(data):
    line = plt.plot(x_positions, data[val]['data'],
                    marker=next(marker), linewidth=2, markersize=8,
                    label=f'{data[val]['label']} (total: {data[val]['total']} km)')
    for i, val1 in enumerate(data[val]['data']):
        if val1:
            plt.annotate(val1, (i, val1), textcoords="offset points",
                         xytext=(0,10), ha='center', fontsize=9, color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.xlabel('Month', fontsize=12, color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.ylabel('Distance (km)', fontsize=12, color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.title('Biking by month', fontsize=14, fontweight='bold', color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.xticks(x_positions, months, color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.yticks(color=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.legend(fontsize=11, labelcolor=TEXT_COLOR)
plt.grid(True, alpha=0.3)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.savefig('biking_comparison.svg', dpi=300, bbox_inches='tight')
return 'biking_comparison.svg'

View org source for this post

You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Monthly review: July 2025

Aug 3, 2025| monthly, review

2025-07-31-10 July 2025 #monthly #review

Text from sketch

July 2025 Summer! Park playdates, swimming, exploration

🎇 Swimming, poi, fireworks
🏊 High Park pool
🥖 farmers market bread
🎮 Minecraft at the park
🏊 somersault, somer-pepper
🎮 Stardew Valley Expanded
🏖️ sand restaurant; supermarket sims
🦈 more diving toys
🛍️ errands: clothes, books
🗘 poi
🧺 snacks
🏊 3 breaths while swimming
🂡 card games
🏊 swim checklists, lessons
🏊 deep end test, water slide
🏊 needs more practice to pass
🪄 LEGO Glinda and Elphaba's dorm
🤖 LEGO Mindstorms
⚔️ lightsabers
👕 clothes shopping
🥣 mulberries
🤖 LEGO Spike Prime
🚴 bike playdate
🏊 last swim lesson; Sunnyside party
🏊 doing our own thing at the pool
😃 Biidaasige Park, ziplines; Korean BBQ
🏺 KidSpark; pottery
🥣 Kidspark; wontons
🎨 Perler beads
🫐 more mulberries
🚴 bike playdate

2025-07-31-10

This month was mostly about playdates, swimming, and exploring Toronto. I asked A+ if she wanted summer to be mostly structured time or unstructured time, and she picked unstructured time. Summer break means getting to play with our friends earlier in the afternoon. We usually went to playgrounds with splash pads or wading pools because it was so hot and sunny. Mulberries were in season, so A+ enjoyed foraging for them and crushing them into paste. Whenever A+ was deeply absorbed in playing with her friends, I chatted with other grown-ups, drew thoughts on my iPad, or read a book.

I used to bring two boxes of popsicles in a large cooler, but A+'s usual playgroup tends to be smaller these days because many kids are in summer camps or out travelling. I figured out how to pack a few popsicles into the 2L Zojirushi insulated container instead, so that helped us stay cool even during small playdates. If it's just the two of us, I take the 0.5L one, which is just enough for two pops.

When we didn't have playdates scheduled, A+ and I went to the pool. She had fun figuring out how to move through the water. She likes experimenting with things herself and showing me what she's figured out more than me setting exercises or telling her what to do, and I'm happy to leave that to other people. It turned out that we can register for city-run swimming lessons at the public outdoor pools, so I signed A+ up for one-on-one swimming lessons at our favourite pool. She enjoyed learning from the instructors and breezed through most of the checklists. I sat near the fence and watched her talk to the instructors, trying out their suggestions and getting the hang of new skills. She struggled with the last skill (continuous 25m front crawl) on the Ultra Swim 4 checklist, so that might be something that'll wait for next year. She was able to pass the deep end test once, and had so much fun going down the water slide. She failed it after that, though, and has decided to focus on other things for now. I know all the other things she does (monkey bars, biking, even just the growing she does throughout the months) will help her, so there's no need to drill past the point of frustration at this time. She wants to prioritize hanging out with her friends in the afternoon, and that's fine. This is her learning, and the social skills she picks up from playdates are important too. It's easier to work with the grain than against it. I know she'll learn quickly when she wants to.

We've been exploring other parts of the city: the ziplines at the new Biidaasige Park, the KidSpark area at the Ontario Science Centre fragment that moved downtown, Sunnyside Pool's 100th anniversary celebration. A+ tried out poi at a street festival and remembered that my sister had taught me how to do it a long time ago, so I showed her how to get started. I made another set of poi so that we could do it together. That was nice.

Some days we stayed inside because of rain, heat, or wildfire smoke. A+ enjoyed the LEGO Mindstorms workshop that she did at the library, so we decided to get a LEGO Spike Prime set. W- dusted off his old LEGO Mindstorms sets, too. I've been slowly going through the different lessons in the unit so that I can learn more about robotics. We started a Stardew Valley Expanded / Ridgeside Village playthrough, which was fun. A+ likes to focus on relationships, while I'm happy to do the gruntwork to get the farm up and running.

I enjoyed the Emacs Carnival July theme on the writing experience. It inspired me to tweak my config and write about my workflow. I've also been taking advantage of quiet mornings to do more thinking, coding, and writing. On her own, A+ likes to spend a fair bit of time playing Minecraft, watching videos, and imagining Star Wars stories, which is all right. When she wants to spend time with us, she's keen to help out around the house or go out to interesting places.

Next month, my days will still probably focus on taking A+ to hang out with friends at playgrounds. We'll also experiment with a half-day summer camp focused on the pottery wheel. A+ wants to celebrate her half-birthday since the weather's warmer. If she wants to make cookies, I'm happy to practise decorating them to look like Hutts from Star Wars. (She's got ideas.) I'm working on my annual review. The moment-of-the-day drawings and monthly reviews have been really helpful in revisiting the year. Maybe someday I'll do weekly check-ins or reviews again. More focused work like dusting off and improving EmacsConf infrastructure will probably wait until September or October, when I might have more predictable focus time again. We'll see what the new virtual class is like. A+ will probably find it boring, but at least we'll have more options for our informal field trips thanks to our explorations. At the moment, it's great to be able to go with the flow, seeing where A+ wants to wander. Looking forward to learning more!

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category	Previous month %	This month %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
A+	26.3	34.3	8.0	59.5	13.4
Sleep	27.3	30.7	3.4	53.3	5.8
Discretionary - Family	0.3	0.0	-0.3	0.0	-0.5
Business	0.9	0.5	-0.4	0.9	-0.6
Unpaid work	4.5	4.0	-0.5	6.9	-0.9
Personal	11.5	9.4	-2.1	16.2	-3.6
Discretionary - Productive	14.8	10.7	-4.0	18.6	-6.8
Discretionary - Play	14.6	10.5	-4.1	18.2	-6.9

Shifting a little time back from Stardew Valley towards writing and coding instead.

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You can comment on Mastodon or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

June 2025: playdates, splash pads, sewing, Stardew

Jul 3, 2025| monthly, review

June 2025: 🖼️💦🪴🪡🪡🙃🍦🚲🪡🍪😴🍦🚲🥔👴👰🍓🌧️🦕🌡🥧😷🌡🍓🎵🪡🏊🏺🐸🪡

Text from sketch

June 2025 2025-06-30-04 playdates, splash pads, sewing, Stardew

🖼️ art gallery
💦 splash pad
🪴 jump rope, seedlings
🪡 lots of sewing
🪡 sewed a hat
🙃 upside down with friends
🍦 radishes, ice cream
🚲 biked through rain
🪡 storage bag
🍪 cracker
😴 tough bedtime
🍦 ice cream bar
🚲 friend delivery
🥔 potato print, pizza party
👴 visited grandparents
👰 wedding dress in Stardew
🍓 hulled lots of strawberries
🌧️ rainy day, golden walnuts
🦕 ROM
🌡 sick day for A+
🥧 apple pies
😷 my turn to be sick
🌡 fever, naps
🍓 strawberries, lettuce, report card
🎵 stayed up for music homework
🪡 aprons
🏊 last day of school, first day of wading pool
🏺 pottery, two pies
🐸 hopping with J- & K-
🪡 swim skirt, 23x9= math

A+ finished virtual grade 3 and is now on summer break. I let her decide between mostly structured and mostly unstructured time. She picked mostly unstructured time, with one set of private swimming lessons at an outdoor pool and one week-long afternoon summer camp focused on pottery wheels. The rest of the time is for hanging out at splash pads, wading pools, and swimming pools, often with A+'s friends. When it's too hot even for that, we stay inside. There haven't been as many "I'm booored!"s as I expected. I think dealing with school gave her a lot of practice in managing boredom and coming up with her own activities, which is fantastic. It's important to be able to check in with herself and figure out what she's curious about, what she wants to do, and to know that she can come up with that instead of needing someone else to direct her day. Sometimes A+ uses Claude to help her write stories, sometimes she builds LEGO, sometimes she plays Minecraft or Stardew Valley, and sometimes she watches Clone Wars. Sometimes we tag along on W-'s Bike Brigade deliveries, so that's nice. Sometimes she helps me with sewing by doing straight seams, winding the bobbin, or threading the needle. She's been cubing again, packing a 3x3 Rubik's cube when she thinks there might be some waiting time. I still have the timer app on my phone, so she can check how she's doing. This feels like a good kind of busy: not externally imposed, but intrinsically motivated. Not regimented, but going with the flow.

A+ has lots of ideas for things to sew based on things she wants to wear or use, and is very much into having us both wear matching outfits. It turns out that I fit into kid-sized Crocs, so it's easy to get matching colours there too. The pendulum of childhood, I guess. We're currently on the "let's match" side, and then we'll swing over to individuation, and then we'll swing back, and then further out to individuation, and so on. I love that we can explore this through our clothes, shoes, and interests. Some days she wants to be just like me, and almost physically tries to occupy the same space. (Cuddles are great! I know this opportunity is time-limited.) Other days she grumps at me and nothing I say is right. It's great to be able to not take it personally. It's all part of healthy development.

We're making quick progress through my fabric stash. I've been making clothes: mostly training bras, skorts, and swim skirts out of Spandex so that we can wear it straight into the pool and out again. I've even been able to make a few clothes for me instead of just for her. I used godets to turn last year's swim skirt for A+ into a swim skirt for me, and I added in-seam pockets. Pockets are great for stashing goggles, glasses, and diving toys. I want pockets in everything now. It's nice getting the hang of more of these little techniques, especially since it means I can turn more scraps and outgrown clothes into new things. I sewed a large zippered liner for W-'s drawer so that we could protect out-of-season wool clothes and blankets from moths. I used the leftover canvas to make a bag for A+ so that she could shop for snacks independently, since the reusable bags from the store dragged on the ground when she held them in her hand. This one is just the right size. It's great to be able to make things that fit. I also made aprons for her and one of her friends, whom we treated to a pottery class. A+ enjoyed potato-printing her bag and apron at the Bike Brigade x Not Far From the Tree pizza party at the park, which was a lot of fun. It might be interesting to pick up more paintable/dyeable fabric and some fabric paint so that we can make our own designs.

A+ was briefly sick with a fever, and then I had a sore throat and a fever too. Now no one has a fever, but I still have a persistent cough. We think we might have picked something up at the party. Even though it was outdoors it was a bit crowded, lots of people were talking, and we hadn't worn our masks. Oh well, just gotta do better next time and mask up at big events. At least I'm still testing negative for COVID. I'm masking at home so that W- doesn't get sick, and generally taking it easy. We got a membership for the ROM, but the annoyance of this cough is making me extra grumpy about crowds and indoor things, so it might be a while before we're back. Plenty to do outdoors now that the weather is warm and her friends play outside.

I probably should sleep more, but I've been staying up to play Stardew Valley, which you'd be able to tell from my time records. I like the game. Even the kiddo is learning to slow down and take care of her farm. Sometimes we play co-op, and sometimes we work on our own playthroughs. I have a fairly built-up standard farm playthrough where I let A+ take over Ginger Island. I'm proud of how I successfully didn't grump when she decided to rip up most of my starfruit plants there and then ended up not replacing them with anything. Not even a blip of grumpiness. I already had more money than I felt like spending, thanks to the ancient fruit winery I'd set up. Aside from cooking and puttering around with the sewing machine, A+ also liked giving my character relationship advice. She encouraged me to marry Emily, pronouncing her the most compatible. (She married Elliott in her own playthrough.) After I gave Emily the mermaid pendant and came back to the farmhouse, A+ had set up a mannequin with a full wedding outfit as a gift for me. She was proud of gathering all the materials needed and sewing the virtual outfit herself. I love that the sandbox nature of the game lets her come up with her own ideas and make things happen.

I also have a four corners farm with remixed bundles where I've just completed the community centre and I'm now slowly collecting hardwood for the boat to Ginger Island. I've developed an appreciation for the fishing minigame that I used to avoid. It's a great way to get treasure. Anyway, Stardew is a pleasant enough way to spend little bits of time here and there, and to relax after A+'s bedtime. It's encouraging to see that I could actually find plenty of discretionary time in my day for playing, and I can use that time for other things once this hyperfocus passes.

Our real-life garden is doing all right, too. Most of the remaining radishes have bolted, although some of the larger ones are still growing well. In spring I gave A+ a bunch of seed packets and let her plant entirely at her own discretion. I've been having fun figuring out how to identify and manage the results, thinning out the ones that are definitely not what we're looking for in that space or that just need a little more spacing. We get a lot of volunteer tomatoes, perilla, goosefoot, wood sorrel, and clover. I've been putting those in the compost to make room for the marigolds and poppies that I recognize from the seed packet pictures. I'm learning to identify other plants as they grow. It's fun letting A+ try whatever she likes and then figuring out how to work with that. It's also fun blending the real-life world and the virtual world. We make the sound effect from Stardew Valley when we uproot our radishes and hold them up above our heads.

Taking advantage of those last days of predictable focus time while virtual school was in session, I got the ball rolling for EmacsConf 2025 with the call for participation. I also enjoyed attending the virtual Emacs Berlin meetup and taking notes. I wrote a bunch of blog posts, too.

We'll see how my focused time settles down now that we're on summer schedule. It turns out that I still have plenty of free time. The daytime part is just more interruptible now because I want to be ready to do something with A+ or head out the door when A+ expresses an interest in going to a playdate or a pool. I still want to get my own stuff done instead of feeling like I'm on standby, so it's great that my notes make it easier for me to make progress in stop-and-go segments. I want her to feel like I'm happy to spend time with her instead of being distracted by an interrupted task. I also want her to see how I choose things to do with my time and how I use notes to help me work around the limitations of my brain and my attention. It's an interesting challenge balancing between occupation and flexibility. I want her to enjoy unstructured time and to be able to shift between solo interests and shared time according to the rhythms of her energy.

July is probably going to be about hanging out with A+ near some kind of water. I like this approach of trusting her to manage her time and attention, letting her take the initiative when it comes to going out and playing with friends or swimming in the pool. In the meantime, there's time for me to write and play.

Blog posts

Sketches

2025-06-30-04 June 2025 #monthly #review.jpeg

Time

Category	Previous month %	This month %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Play	3.7	14.6	10.9	23.7	18.2
Discretionary - Productive	12.5	14.8	2.3	24.0	3.8
Personal	10.7	11.5	0.8	18.7	1.4
Discretionary - Family	0.2	0.3	0.1	0.5	0.2
Business	2.0	0.9	-1.1	1.4	-1.9
Unpaid work	5.7	4.5	-1.2	7.3	-2.0
Sleep	31.3	27.3	-4.0	44.3	-6.7
A+	33.9	26.3	-7.7	42.7	-12.9

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You can comment on Mastodon or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Monthly review: May 2025

Jun 1, 2025| monthly, review

May 2025: 🌧️🎨📰🚴🌼🐱🐸📰🦷🧵🚂🔥🐕🐒🏰🔥💡👗♻️🎮🌧️🎣🎪🏺💻🍦🎢☕🍓🛝🧵

Text from sketch

May 2025: Stardew Valley, s'mores, sewing

🌧️ rainy day writing
🎨 painting pottery
📰 newsletter training
🚴 Bike Brigade
🌼 dandelions
🐱 cat food delivery
🐸 toad day
📰 newsletter
🦷 dental cleaning
🧵 sewing
🚂 trackless train
🔥 s'mores
🐕 dogs in Minecraft
🐒 monkey bars, fashion
🏰 at the castle playground
🔥 s'mores and popsicles
💡 W-'s bike light
👗 clothes, sewing
♻️ compost
🎮 Stardew Valley
🌧️ More Stardew, rainy day
🎣 Trout derby - Stardew Valley
🎪 silo, fair - Stardew Valley
🏺 pottery wheel, ankle hurts
💻 laptop refresh
🍦 ice cream
🎢 whee!
☕ peppermint tea, drizzle
🍓 farmers market strawberries
🛝 market playground
🧵 sewing

2025-05-31-06

Last month, I wrote:

In May, I want to add more plants to our outdoor garden, sew some swimwear for A+ and me, and see about volunteering for Bike Brigade.

I volunteered to help with Bike Brigade's e-mail newsletter, since they were looking for someone to take over from another volunteer and it might be a good way to build real-life community. I like the cause: volunteer cyclists connecting food banks with people who need those groceries delivered. W-'s been volunteering for that for a while, and A+ and I also did a couple of deliveries, and it's nice to see her enjoy helping out. I also listened to a virtual panel about bikes and social justice, and I shared my sketchnotes afterwards. I'm glad there are people thinking about these issues, and I'm also glad that there are small, concrete, on-the-ground ways that we can help.

We made more progress through the Toronto District School Board's gifted identification process, but I think we're going to opt for a regular class in the public virtual school instead of the gifted placement in an in-person school. A+ gets bored in class, but I think she'll enjoy having the extra opportunities to play with her friends and explore ideas, and she also appreciates the way she can read and sing in the middle of class. (Hooray for the mute button!)

A+ took a pottery painting class and another pottery wheel class at Clay With Me. This time she did a 2-hour wheel workshop, and the teacher was able to help her with a couple of pieces. We've been using the bowls we made in the previous class. It's nice to have hand-made things. This seems to be an ongoing interest, so we're going to experiment with a pottery-related summer camp. I found one that lets me register for a week-long afternoon camp that focuses on the pottery wheel. We like to keep our time pretty flexible, so this is our first experiment with a camp. I think it'll be great to be able to build momentum and learn from a teacher with more experience, using equipment that we don't have access to at home. The camp description says kids will learn how to add attachments and other decorations to their work, so that could be pretty cool.

I experimented with bringing a portable butane stove to the park. We were able to make s'mores on two separate occasions without setting anyone on fire, hooray! It was a good experience. The kids had fun.

On nice days when we didn't have any playdates planned, we I went on bike adventures. We checked out the flower event in Yorkville. We also explored the St. James Park playground, which was included in the recent Doors Open event. A+ liked the tall slide there. We also went to the Art Gallery of Ontario so that she could work on her Group of 7 art assignment while looking at the actual paintings. She picked Figure with Rays of Light by Lauren Harris.

There were quite a few rainy days. We got a lot of sewing done. A+'s getting better at sewing simple seams, and she can stop the machine when things sound weird. We made a fancy skirt with an embroidered mesh layer over satin, a couple of skorts made of spandex so that she can wear it into the splash pad or even the swimming pool, a swim set, and a few tops.

Rainy days were also good for playing together. A+ was curious about playing a farming game, so we started playing Stardew Valley, and we all got into it quite a fair bit. A+ likes collecting eggs, cooking food, and building friendships. I enjoy farming and mining. It's a lot of fun, especially when we play co-op. Even W-'s gotten into it on his phone. This could be a fun way to learn more about life and parenting. Having my own solo farm is also nice, too. It helps me be more patient when we play in co-op because I know I have a different space where I can try things out. It does mean I get tempted to stay up late. I can definitely see the impact of this new interest on my time graph and sleep totals, but that's fine. It's good to ride the wave of our interests, especially when we can do it together.

In our real-life garden, the radishes have been very happy, and other seeds have sprouted too. The mini roses, dahlias, and strawberries have come back, and so has a dianthus. The daffodils are done with their blooms. Last year's compost turned out pretty nicely, and I've started turning this year's trimmings into compost. I love letting A+ plant seeds wherever she likes, and I've been enjoying learning how to identify those sprouts as well as other ones that turn up in our garden.

A+'s been enjoying the sourdough rye from the Dufferin Grove farmers market, so I revived the sourdough starter we got from a trip many years ago, which we'd revived in 2020 or so and then re-dehydrated. I thought I got it to be pretty active again, but I haven't quite figured out baking a proper loaf yet. On the other hand, W- has been on a roll (hah) with all the breads and bagels he's been baking. I put the starter in the fridge for a week because we had lots of potato-rosemary bread in the house, and now I think the starter needs a few days of waking up again. Oh well, flour is tuition for learning how to bake. Fortunately, I've discovered I like sourdough discard pancakes, so at least there's a way to deal with the excess.

In June, I'd like to take A+ on a few more informal field trips during the school week, to take advantage of places before they get swamped by everyone else on summer break. Maybe Centreville, and maybe strawberry-picking like last year. Her friends will probably be more available for playdates too, so that'll be a nice shift in our routines. I'm looking forward to more cooking and sewing and gardening and pottery. We like making things together and enjoying them together. As the days get longer and the weather warms, I shift: less computer time, more outside time. This is good. I'm looking forward to exploring more of the city by bike, now that we know we can make it out to playgrounds on the other side of town. It's the season for it!

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category	Previous month %	This month %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
A+	30.7	33.9	3.2	58.9	5.4
Unpaid work	4.9	5.7	0.8	9.8	1.3
Discretionary - Play	1.6	1.3	-0.3	2.2	-0.5
Discretionary - Family	0.5	0.2	-0.3	0.3	-0.5
Business	2.4	2.0	-0.4	3.5	-0.6
Sleep	32.2	31.3	-1.0	54.3	-1.6
Personal	11.6	10.7	-1.0	18.5	-1.6
Discretionary - Productive	16.1	9.9	-6.2	17.2	-10.4

I've been staying up playing Stardew Valley. =)

Related: May review in 2023, 2021, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2010

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You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Week ending May 9, 2025: E-mail newsletter, gardening

May 12, 2025| review, weekly

I started helping Bike Brigade with their e-mail newsletter. I read through their Slack history and a couple of years of newsletters to build up a library of newsletter blocks. I made a collage of the Jane's Walk photos. I didn't get around to editing the photos and posting them on Facebook. Maybe next week. We also did some more deliveries.
We biked to the Stockyards so that we could buy clover seeds, flower seeds, plants, and other gardening supplies from Canadian Tire and Rona. A+ also took the opportunity to have har gow and some quick playtime at the arcade. I moved the strawberries into pots. I potted the dahlias (including the new ones) and scattered many of the flower seeds we bought. I also pruned the mini roses.
We attended an IPRC meeting to confirm A+'s exceptionality.
We went to the dentist. So far so good.
A+ improved the organization of the bathroom by putting away less-used things.
I dropped my phone and damaged the screen protector. Fortunately, the screen was fine. I found the other screen protector and applied it.

Blog posts

Sketches

2025-05-10-05 Flowers and sprouts #drawing #gardening.jpg

2025-05-09-01 Dry eyes – life health.jpeg

Toots

I have some reflections on these topics bouncing around in my head.

I made a keychain – avdi.codes (toot) From @avdi@avdi.codes:

“The truth is I still put a lot of pride into being Very Good At Ruby. I cling to that pride, sometimes. I want to show that I've “still got it”. In a life drowned in caregiving and homemaking and survival, I often feel like I'm vanishing. Like I have so much still to offer, if only—and then there is screaming from another room, and I must defuse a meltdown, or mediate an argument, or make a belated dinner, or chase down a meds prescription, or or or…”

This is something I remember struggling with. I think I've come to terms with it now, mostly by giving up the idea of being good at stuff. I've been making peace with the fact that I make silly errors, and that's okay. I've come to realize that it's not even entirely due to the distraction and time constraints of parenting, and that I like how I'm growing even if it feels less certain.
Freedom – Butterfly Mind (toot)

‘This morning, as I wrote my morning pages, I felt a little fearful. All my life I've yearned to be creative. I frequently think, “If I only had more time, I'd…” All those things I've said I wished I had more time to do — write, draw, learn French, exercise, meditate — now it's time to see if I really do want to do them. What if time was just an excuse? I guess that would be okay. I'd learn what really does matter to me. Maybe it turns out I like the idea of being creative more than I actually am creative. Maybe what I really love is long walks and sitting in the garden reading books.'

This feels like a related thought. I'm glad I did my experiment with semi-retirement. That period of having plenty of time autonomy showed me that I tend to be more of a slacker than a hustler, and that's also okay.

Time

Category	The other week %	Last week %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Business	0.1	2.8	2.7	4.7	4.5
Personal	11.6	12.4	0.7	20.8	1.3
Sleep	32.7	33.0	0.2	55.4	0.4
Discretionary - Play	1.6	1.7	0.1	2.9	0.2
Discretionary - Family	0.8	0.4	-0.4	0.7	-0.6
Unpaid work	6.3	4.5	-1.8	7.6	-3.1
A+	32.2	28.8	-3.5	48.3	-5.8
Discretionary - Productive	14.6	7.9	-6.7	13.3	-11.2

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You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Week ending May 2, 2025: Bike brigade, independence, pottery, visualization

May 3, 2025| review, weekly

2025-05-02-04 Pottery painting class – drawing.jpg

2025-04-28-03 More life sketches – drawing.jpg

A+ enjoyed the pottery painting class at Clay with Me. She painted a small bowl, a tiny dish, and a rainbow.
I let A+ scoot ahead to her class. I didn't even see her when I got there, but I did find her scooter and her helmet neatly put away, so I assume that she made it there safely. Another big step towards independence!
We did a few Bike Brigade deliveries as a family, and I decided to help with their newsletter.
We visited Popo and helped her with tech.
I wrote some code to visualize a specific day or set of days, and I added that to my blog post about time.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category	The other week %	Last week %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive	8.9	14.6	5.7	24.5	9.6
Personal	10.6	11.6	1.1	19.5	1.8
Sleep	31.8	32.7	0.9	55.0	1.5
Discretionary - Family	0.0	0.8	0.8	1.3	1.3
Unpaid work	5.9	6.3	0.5	10.7	0.8
Discretionary - Play	1.2	1.6	0.4	2.7	0.7
Business	4.1	0.1	-4.1	0.1	-6.9
A+	37.5	32.2	-5.3	54.1	-8.9

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You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

April 2025: Minecraft, playdates, Bike Brigade

May 1, 2025| monthly, review

April 2025: ✏🎭🚲👕🤔🌱🎮🩹🏘️🪓🔥🌱🔧🎭🐠✍️🥚🌱🖩🚲🐒🫧🩹☀️🎮🛴🚲✏🍨📚

Text from sketch

April 2025 Minecraft, playdates, Bike Brigade

✏ Pictionary
🎭 Charades
🚲 bike playdate
👕 clothes, shoes
🤔 reflection
🌱 gardening
🎮 Minecraft together
🩹 A+: finger cut
🏘️ set up a village
🪓 trial chamber
🔥 blazes
🌱 nether wart, skeleton spawner
🔧 bike maintenance, park playtime
🎭 pretend Minecraft - park
🐠 aquarium
✍️ writing
🥚 early Easter egg hunt
🌱 gardening
🖩 Easter Monster Math Hunt
🚲 Bike Brigade
🐒 monkey bars
🫧 bubbles
🩹 right-size Band-aid
☀️ another sunny day
🎮 experimented with Minecraft club
🛴 scooter parking
🚲 Bike Brigade, trail mix
✏ drawing with Popo
🍨 ice cream
📚 reading, drawing

I worked on some personal projects. I finally got around to adding side notes and footnotes to my blog. I made space by moving the post navigation to the left sidebar. Along the way, I figured out how to add scroll-based highlighting for SVGs, so I can use a drawing as a table of contents. I added sketches to my On This Day page, and I wrote some Emacs Lisp to visualize a specific day or set of days.

The weather's starting to warm up. More of A+'s friends are emerging from hibernation and having outdoor playdates. Yay!

We planted more radishes, lettuce, peas, cilantro, and spinach. We also started marigolds, petunias, chrysanthemums, jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes (Sweet Million), and mini bell peppers inside. I tidied my basement desktop and I cleared out some more of my old yarn and fabric scraps, and I sewed a cushion for A+'s chair.

I wrote a few long blog posts. It felt good to take time to explore a thought.

I continued to practise fretting less about homework, and A+ managed to catch up with all the things she needed to do mostly on her own. Things really work out better when I back off and let her take responsibility for it.

We played a lot of Minecraft. We set up a 1.20.1 world with Create 6.0 and the Create: Ultimate Selection modpack. We also figured out how to do port forwarding so that other people could theoretically join us.

I finished the intermediate courses in Simply Piano and worked on more songs. I'm at the point where I need to play through things a couple of times at slower speeds in order to get the hang of them. This is good. It means I'm challenging myself.

A couple of Sundays had pleasant weather, so we did Bike Brigade as a family. That was a lot of fun. A+ and I also went to Ripley's Aquarium.

In May, I want to add more plants to our outdoor garden, sew some swimwear for A+ and me, and see about volunteering for Bike Brigade.

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Details

Category	Previous month %	This month %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Business	1.0	2.4	1.3	3.8	2.2
Unpaid work	3.8	4.9	1.1	7.9	1.8
Discretionary - Play	0.9	1.6	0.7	2.6	1.1
Personal	10.9	11.6	0.7	18.9	1.1
Discretionary - Family	0.1	0.5	0.4	0.8	0.7
Sleep	33.3	32.2	-1.0	52.5	-1.8
Discretionary - Productive	17.4	16.1	-1.2	26.3	-2.1
A+	32.6	30.7	-1.9	50.0	-3.2

I had a few client requests I wanted to work on, so W- helped me get some more focus time. I feel a little underslept, so I should get better at going to bed instead of staying up reading.

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You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Categories: review

Turning 42; life as a 41-year-old

By month

A+'s growing independence

More time with W- because of retirement

More predictable focus time

Emacs

Drawing

Piano

Gardening

Fun

Health

Time capsule

Looking ahead

Appendix A: Blog posts

Appendix B: Sketches

Appendix C: Time

Appendix D: Biking

Monthly review: July 2025

June 2025: playdates, splash pads, sewing, Stardew

Monthly review: May 2025

Week ending May 9, 2025: E-mail newsletter, gardening

Week ending May 2, 2025: Bike brigade, independence, pottery, visualization

April 2025: Minecraft, playdates, Bike Brigade