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Turning 42; life as a 41-year-old

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.

Turning 41; life as a 40-year-old

Aug 12, 2024| yearly, review

2024-08-10-03 Life as a 40-year-old #annual #review

Text from sketch

Cargo bike: I love the way the Load 75 makes it easy to go to playdates and on family adventures. A+ rides in it for quick trips or when she's tired of pedaling. I can tow her bike with the Bakkie bag. Glad to bike more.

Since playdates are now 15 minutes away instead of 60, it's much easier to bring hot chocolate or popsicles to share. I used to bring store-bought popsicles, but now that the fruits are in, we've been making our own. (We've even gone fruit-picking!)
Crafts: I sewed a lot this year, from outdoor projects with Sunbrella fabric (covers for the awning, pizza oven, and grill) to handsewn drawstring bags and zippered pouches. I crocheted a few gifts, too.
Code: I automated more of EmacsConf and made a presentation about it–my first in years. In consulting, I wrote some code to support events, and I've even been able to write tests.
Curiosity: I've been slowly learning more about myself and us. I still worry, I still feel unsure, but this feels like a possible path.
Looking ahead: In some ways, it feels like we're taking two steps forward, one step back. Some things that were hard are now easier: cooking, sewing, reading together… Some things that were easy are now harder: playing with friends… I think we might be getting better at figuring out what works for us, though, so that's good. Looking forward to more experiments!
Topics: declarative language, co-regulation, nonviolent communication, competent/intuitive eating; testing and automation; Minecraft scripting; biking and exercise; working with what we've got

Text from sketch

40 by month

Aug 2023: ramp, etc.; swimming; pizza party; quilt, ukulele bag, grill cover; harvest
Sept: pizza parties; grade 2; consulting events
Oct: EmacsConf presentation prep; automation; tried cargo bikes; Mathalon medals; synchronous exemption
Nov: cargo bike!; skating
Dec: EmacsConf; one cat died; skating
Jan 2024: Tried livestreaming; lots of tweaks; Minecraft with cousins; consulting event
Feb: P52; Star Wars party; skating; other cat died; COVID booster
March: skirt, cloak, dress; rock-climbing; crepes; A+'s anxiety; maple syrup festival
April: first 3x3 comp; drawstring backpack, rose, journal cover, machine cover, 5-stone, basket; more decluttering
May: A+'s surgery; PS3 controllers & PC, PS Vita; cat carrier pad, skirt, poop emoji, vest pockets
June: strawberry picking; crochet gifts, swim skirt, flowers; big kid bed; homemade popsicles; garden
July: pouches; Pixel 8; swimming; blueberry & raspberry picking; bitter melon
Overall: cargo bike, crafts, automation, figuring things out
Next year: exploring more of our interests

Last year, I hoped to spend a lot of time playing outside with A+. Investing in a cargo bike has definitely helped with that, as we can more easily go on family bike adventures or head off to playdates. I've been learning more about playing inside with her as well, exploring Minecraft and figuring out how to work with the Minecraft Bedrock scripting API. This year A+ got into Star Wars and Harry Potter, so there's been lots and lots of reading, conversations, LEGO, Minecraft worlds, and pretend. I enjoy spending time with her. I think we're slowly starting to figure each other out.

We simplified the garden this year, and I feel like we've been able to water it more consistently. The bitter melon plants have been very productive, and the cherry tomatoes have been more than enough for our regular consumption.

If next year is much like this year (plus, of course, the things we'll experiment with and learn along the way), I think that'll be all right.

Blog posts

63 posts aside from Emacs News.

Sketches

59 sketches this year, down from 93 sketches the year before. I haven't made as much time to think through things.

Time

Category	% 39 years	% 40 years	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Business	1.8	3.4	1.6	5.7	2.7
Sleep	33.4	34.2	0.9	57.7	1.5
A-	39.6	40.0	0.5	67.5	0.8
Unpaid work	4.0	4.0	-0.1	6.7	-0.1
Personal	10.1	9.3	-0.8	15.7	-1.4
Discretionary	11.2	9.1	-2.1	15.3	-3.6

Even though I put a fair bit of work into documenting and automating more of EmacsConf (I put together a presentation this year, yay), I actually ended up spending a little less time on Emacs (-1.5 h/wk, averaging 5.3 h/wk) and other personal coding projects (-0.9h/wk, averaging 0.6 h/wk). That was probably because the previous year involved building a lot of infrastructure so that we could run multiple tracks, and this year was just about making it smoother so that we could run it with minimal prep. Things paying off!

I shifted much of that time to consulting (+ 2.8h/wk, averaging 5.6 h/wk), which let me help with some of my clients' time-sensitive project ideas. It's nice being able to take the time to write tests for my prototypes, which makes it easier to use little snippets of time without worrying too much about breaking things.

I think I'll be spending more time with A+ instead of less. I'll keep my expectations for focused time low so that I can enjoy this time with her. This is the time to do it!

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

Turning 40; life as a 39-year-old

Aug 10, 2023| review, yearly

2023-08-10-03 Life as a 39-year-old - summary #yearly #review

Last year, I figured that life as a 39-year-old would be about adapting to grade 1 and A-'s developing capabilities, and hoped to continue spending time outside.

We successfully navigated virtual grade 1, turning in the required homework every day. We mostly treated homework as practice in emotional regulation and figuring out how to work with our brains. A+ liked it when I took on the role of grousing about homework, broke it up into sections followed by Minecraft segments, translated the math homework into Cantonese, or set timers. Sometimes it was challenging to get through the work, but it helped to point out that homework was a way for us to stay out of in-person classes. I hope we'll be able to have a similar arrangement in virtual grade 2 next year.

Friendships were a big priority for us. We took advantage of our exemption from synchronous learning to spend most weekday afternoons playing with friends at nearby parks, even through winter. The kids loved playing dress-up, dolls, and kitchen, and they had plenty of special moments together. I like the grown-ups in the group, too, and we've been putting our heads together trying to help the kids learn about friendships and fun.

Thanks to A+'s friendships, we've been exploring lots of new interests. We let her explore Minecraft this year because many of her friends play it. She's really taken to it, and I'm slowly learning to have fun with it as well. I even set up Minecraft Realms Plus subscriptions so that we could play with A+'s cousins. Fortunately, it hasn't completely taken over our lives. Friends were also good reasons to go skating in winter and swimming in summer. (We started braving outdoor pools.)

A+ continues to be a bookworm, yay! She's watched a good number of videos and followed up with lots of book tie-ins, particularly around Minecraft and Disney Descendants. I'm learning not to worry too much about her eyesight and let her enjoy it, with the occasional reminder to check in with her body in between books.

As a result of A+'s growing independence when reading on her own and when playing with other kids, I've found a little time here and there to work on my own things. I wrote some code to recolor my Supernote sketches and extract the text, and that helped me write about more of my thoughts. I managed to figure out how to run multiple tracks for EmacsConf, which was awesome. I often bring hand-sewing projects to playdates so that I can work on them while chatting with the other grown-ups. I set up the sewing machine in the living room, and that made it easier for me to work on dresses, skirts, and even some outdoor covers.

I've been able to tend to the garden almost every day. I'm getting more comfortable starting seeds, propagating cuttings, and rescuing tomato branches. We grew lots more bitter melon and cherry tomatoes this year. The potatoes were interesting to experiment with, although that might be something I'll get from the grocery store going forward. I enjoyed eating lettuce, radishes, and beans from the garden. People have been stopping to take pictures of the zinnias, and the kids had fun making flower crowns with the marigolds.

I've been drawing daily moments on my SuperNote A5X as part of our bedtime routine. A+ likes to flip back through them, and they've made my monthly review process easier. I'm looking forward to building up a good archive of them.

It's been a good year for learning more about the world and learning more about ourselves. Thanks to all that practice dealing with homework and interactions, I've learned that I lean more towards sharing reflections and offering carrots rather than using sticks. I'm getting more comfortable with the idea that I can't just tell A+ everything. Some things she just has to experiment with for herself. I'm looking forward to getting better at keeping the long-term goal in mind without also catastrophizing and worrying too much about long-term effects. W-'s really good at thinking through things, and I'm glad I get to learn from his wisdom.

Let's see what next year is like. I hope we can work out a similar arrangement with A+'s virtual grade 2 teachers so that we can spend the afternoons outside. I'm looking forward to exploring more projects and developing more skills as she plays or reads. When she wants to spend time with me, I'd like to get better at playing with her, and Minecraft seems like a good avenue for that. Onward!

Text from sketch

Life as a 39-year-old

Aug 2022: Recoloring sketches, connect the dots, library script
Sept: Eye checkup ok, new scleral shell, EmacsConf sched, porch railing
Oct: Wonder Woman, OpenAI whisper, OBS in the cloud
Nov: Snowman, Ethernet, EmacsConf prep
Dec: Emacs Conf tracks, skating, campfire
Jan 2023: Twiddler, skating, forts
Feb: Party for A+! Skating, sledding
March: Minecraft, Mineclone, atropine, glasses, tooth extraction, taking turns
April: Minecraft caving, laptops, garden
May: Minecraft Realms, cavity, booster seat, loose tooth, sewing during playdates
June: finished grade 1! biking farther, Minecraft worlds
July: swimming, pizza, sewing covers

Compared to when I was 38:

Stopped/reduced: LEGO Technic, house organization, cubing
Continued: outside time, SuperNote drawing
Started/increased: Minecraft, videos, playdates incl. 1-on-1, skating, swimming, container gardening, EmacsConf

40:

Stopping/reducing: worrying
Continuing: outside time, play, moments, drawing, crafts, garden, EmacsConf, consulting
Starting/increasing: playing with A+

Sketches

93 sketches this year versus 43 sketches during the previous year.

Blog posts

104 posts this year versus 96 the previous year. I didn't do as many weekly reviews, so this was more learning and sharing. Yay!

Time

Category	% 38 years	% 39 years	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive	6.4	9.8	3.4	16.4	5.7
Personal	7.3	10.1	2.8	17.0	4.7
Discretionary - Family	0.5	0.9	0.5	1.6	0.8
Business - Build	0.2	0.1	-0.1	0.2	-0.1
Discretionary - Social	0.1	0.0	-0.1	0.0	-0.1
Business - Earn	2.0	1.6	-0.3	2.7	-0.6
Discretionary - Play	1.0	0.4	-0.6	0.8	-1.0
Unpaid work	4.6	4.0	-0.6	6.7	-1.0
Sleep	35.7	33.4	-2.3	56.1	-3.9
A-	42.3	39.6	-2.7	66.5	-4.6

Less childcare, because sometimes she's lost in a book and I can do something else like sewing, drawing, coding. Less sleep because I've been setting an alarm so that I can water the garden before I wake up A+. W-'s been doing more of the cooking because we're often out at playdates, although sometimes I shift things around so that I cook lunch. I feel good about how our days generally go, especially when we're out for playdates.

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

Turning 39; life as a 38-year-old

Aug 3, 2022| yearly, review

2022-08-01d 37 to 38 #yearly #review.png

2022-08-01b Life as a 38-year-old #yearly #review.png

This might be the earliest I've written an annual review in years. Now that A- is becoming more independent, I've been slowly reclaiming time for myself. We'll see how it goes!

I feel like we grew so much this year. We've shifted to spending a lot more time outside, trying to slow down the progression of A-'s nearsightedness. It's been easy to do that with fine weather and plenty of playdates. A- enjoyed playing with dolls and tea parties with her friends at the playground. I'm happy to keep them well-stocked with chalk and flower petals for colourful potions and soups. We had a lot of flexibility thanks to her virtual kindergarten teacher, who was all right with us pretty much spending the whole day playing outside. A- continued to have fun reading and doing math, diving into graphic novels such as the Wings of Fire series and the comic guides of Beast Academy Level 2. She also enjoyed using math to explore entrepreneurship, setting up her first lemonade stand. (CoVID-safe: she sold bottled water and powdered juice packets.) She's also starting to get interested in typing and in writing cursive. (So fancy!)

We finally gave her the go-ahead to watch movies on weekends and other special occasions. Cinderella, Tangled, and Frozen have been her favourites. She loved the floor-length gown I sewed her. We've been memorizing song lyrics, and doing a lot of pretending. It's all good.

W- has taken over most of the cooking because we're usually out playing in the afternoon. A-'s interested in helping in the kitchen, so we do some of that together. She also enthusiastically helps with W-'s house projects. We're all picking up practical life skills. She's growing so much. I need to remember to keep challenging her!

While supporting this whirlwind of learning, I've been able to squeeze in a bit of consulting. I learned more about automating things with Python, and I also enjoyed being able to hand over my Javascript prototypes to other team members who could deal with things like meetings or fiddly CSS.

I also really appreciated working with a larger team of volunteers for last year's EmacsConf. We managed to get most of the videos captioned in time for broadcast, which was neat! I'd like to try that again this year. I see all sorts of inspiring posts in the process of compiling Emacs News each week, so I'm sure there'll be plenty to talk about at EmacsConf this year.

I've been working on few other tech improvements here and there. I upgraded my Lenovo ThinkPad X220T to 16GB of memory, so it feels a little snappier. I got a SuperNote A5X mostly for drawing on, and I love it. (In fact, I wrote this on the A5X.) I included A-'s interests in the typing website I made for her. It's nice to be able to make these little improvements.

For fun, we picked up cubing last October–even A-, who can often solve a 3x3 cube faster than I can. It's a compact way to exercise memory, spatial thinking, and fine motor skills, so I'm all for it. I average about a minute for a solve. If I practise, maybe I'll get to sub-45 seconds.

Drawing is lots of fun too. I've been really enjoying exploring thoughts and doodling stuff around me. Maybe I'll end up blogging more as well!

So yeah, all in all, a pretty good year.

Last year, I wrote that I wanted to:

support and document A-'s learning: This worked out really well. I reused the spreadsheet I made for junior kindergarten so that I could organize my journal observations according to the four frames used in Ontario's kindergarten program. Grade 1 will be more subject-oriented, and I look forward to figuring out how to keep following A-'s interests while organizing the observations in a way that would be helpful for the teachers.
plant more flowers: A- has loved being able to pick flowers pretty much every day for giving to us or making pretend soups. Dahlias, dianthus, marigolds, mums, poppies, alyssum, bachelor's buttons… so many to choose from!
read and draw: I've been able to draw during some of A-'s playdates and while waiting for her to wake up. Progress is being made.
keep my priorities straight: having a bit more me time makes it easier for me to focus on A- when she wants it to be her time.

Next year will probably be all about adapting to grade 1 and A-'s developing capabilities. We'll continue to focus on spending time outside, and we'll see how that goes.

Blog posts

Aside from emacs-news and weekly reviews:

Sketches

Time

Category	2020-2021 %	2021-2022 %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Sleep	31.9	35.7	3.8	59.9	6.4
Personal	5.6	7.3	1.7	12.3	2.9
Discretionary - Play	0.3	1.0	0.7	1.8	1.2
Business	1.8	2.2	0.4	3.7	0.7
Unpaid work	4.5	4.6	0.1	7.7	0.1
Discretionary - Family	0.4	0.5	0.1	0.8	0.1
Discretionary - Social	0.1	0.1	-0.0	0.1	-0.0
A-	45.1	42.3	-2.8	71.0	-4.8
Discretionary - Productive	10.3	6.4	-3.9	10.8	-6.6

Huh, that's interesting. We shifted to being outside more often, so I haven't been bribing A- with screentime in order to have some coding time (Discretionary - Productive time down). She's happy to read more independently now (A- time down), so I've been able to set a bedtime for myself and start settling down for sleep at a reasonable time (Sleep up), and I sometimes have breakfast by myself while waiting for her to finish reading (Personal - Routines up). From time to time, I can even do a bit of reading myself (Discretionary - Play up). W-'s handling almost all the cooking since we're out on playdates, but I've shifted more chore time towards picking up, cooking, and doing errands, so the time I spend on household stuff (Unpaid work) is still about the same. This year has felt pretty good.

It would be nice to have more time for working on personal projects, but I don't know how that would fit into our current rhythms. I don't want to stay up late, and A- doesn't want me to be on my laptop while waiting for her to wake up. So I'll probably focus on writing and drawing for a little while, since I can do that early in the morning. I just have to pick coding projects that pique her interest, like when I made a typing practice website based on her favourite books. Other things can wait.

Let's see what the next year brings!

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

Turning 38; life as a 37-year-old

Aug 12, 2021| review, yearly

Despite the chaos and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year was actually pretty good. We easily adapted to staying home with the occasional playdate or masked trip to the playground as A- became more interested in other kids.

We chose virtual learning for A-'s junior kindergarten, which turned out to be just right for A- and me. I loved seeing what the kids were up to and learning from how the teacher taught them, and A- enjoyed being able to mostly follow her own interests. I had fun incorporating A-'s obsession with Numberblocks into lots of playtime. We read hundreds of books together (both print and electronic), and I even got to read some grown-up books while waiting for her to be done reading at bedtime. I learned how to document her learning and organize my observations according to Ontario's kindergarten program. I was even able to help the class with tech support, materials, and donations. We've chosen virtual learning again for senior kindergarten. I hope it will be just as fun.

It was a good year for learning domestic skills. We enjoyed growing cherry tomatoes, bitter melon, and basil last year. This year, I added peppers, and I planted flowers in one of the boxes in front of the house. We've been enjoying a bounty of cherry tomatoes all summer, although I'm dealing with some powdery mildew. We learned more about preserving food, and we tweaked our kitchen layout to accommodate new tools and facilitate A-'s participation. I continued baking a loaf of bread every few days, trying out different recipes until we settled on a slightly modified version of this sourdough sandwich recipe. I learned how to make yogurt, too. Building on A-'s interest in Pride and Prejudice, I sewed her a bonnet, gloves, and many long dresses. I even sewed her a gown of bathing suit fabric that she wore to the splash pads. She was curious about knitting because of Numberblocks. I showed her how to knit and purl, and we worked on some hats and scarves.

I had a bit more discretionary time that mostly came from staying up late. I helped organize EmacsConf again, and I wrote some functions to help automate the things I needed to do. I also set up a calendar of Emacs events. Having developed a greater appreciation of captions and transcripts while trying to speed-read my way through more videos than I could fit in my focused time, I started editing captions for the EmacsConf recordings. That got me interested in possibly live-captioning EmacsConf and other things like it someday, so I ordered a Georgi keyboard and I've been teaching myself stenography with Plover. I mostly use it to write journal entries. I migrated my blog from Wordpress to 11ty because I wanted to use a static site generator that could be extended with Javascript, as it's a little hard to juggle different programming languages if I don't have much focused time. I ended up picking up more Python anyway, since I also wanted to extend Plover. I considered upgrading my laptop so that I could do streaming or video processing, but I'm still more constrained by time and energy than by hardware. Speaking of hardware, I've been learning more about mechanics. A- loved watching videos of Lego Great Ball Contraptions, so I learned how to build a few by following tutorials. I'm beginning to be able to figure out how to make do with Lego Technic, adapting the designs to the parts we have (and our desire to have as many modules as possible running simultaneously).

Last year, I wrote that I wanted to focus on:

Managing energy:
- Sleep and managing my own plans: I slept less this year because I stayed up to do more consulting and personal projects. Fortunately, A- has learned to let me sleep in a little.
- Enthusiasm: I like gardening and cooking, and A- often joins in. I like working on Lego Great Ball Contraptions while A- helps or reads, and she loves to watch the results. Learning stenography also makes it easier for me to patienty read lots of books since I can practise steno-ing parts of words while I read. Now that A-'s a good reader, we can take turns reading too.
- Low-energy times: We have some screentime in our afternoon routine so that I can do household chores and get dinner together. That helps us get through some of the low-energy times.
Taking small steps: I did a pretty good job of learning about things in the small chunks of time I have, although I've been falling prey to revenge bedtime procrastination. If I get better at taking notes, it might be easier to convince myself to alternate days when I stay up with days when I go to bed early.
Making learning visible: My journal helped me capture lots of observations. I organized my notes and shared them with the teachers, who found them helpful when writing report cards. It was fun being able to review A-'s progress, too.

We're continuing with virtual learning until at least February, so next year will probably look somewhat like this year. We're figuring out quick dinners and other sanity-savers in case W- returns to working in the office a few days a week.

Over the next year, I want to:

Follow A-'s interests, document her learning, and learn how to support A-'s learning in key areas: Virtual kindergarten seems to mostly focus on literacy and math. A- is pretty comfortable with reading and math, but she's less keen on writing and drawing based on the teacher's prompts. I'll look for more ways to incorporate writing into the sorts of things she likes to do. We'll probably also need to focus on outdoor playdates for social interaction, since it's hard to connect on-screen. I'm learning more about helping her develop emotional self-regulation. She's pretty level-headed, but sometimes she's definitely five years old. That's okay! I'm learning too.
Plant more flowers in another front yard planter box: A- enjoyed picking flowers to put into a small pitcher on the table, so it might be fun to grow more flowers for cutting.
Take advantage of A-'s independent reading time to read and draw: A- usually likes to stay up another 15-20 minutes, so that's been a good time for me to read. If I take sketchnotes or I draw my thoughts, that will also help me feel like I've had some time to think. I can also get back to drawing moments. Those were fun.
Keep my priorities straight: It's tough having limited time to focus. I get tempted to stay up late because I don't have much time to myself during the day, and because it's easier to keep going when I have some code in my head than to figure it all out again the next time I get a chance. I'm less patient when I'm sleepy, though, so the price of feeling a little brilliant is feeling less than awesome as a parent. Reframing it might help. I'm choosing to be able to model self-regulation. I also want to have the energy and enthusiasm to learn from A-'s pretend play. Sure, it's fun geeking out and coding, but I can do that later on. A-'s availability and interest in helping me learn how to play is time-limited.

Sketches

Blog posts

Aside from emacs-news and weekly reviews:

Time

Category	% 36 years	% 37 years	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive	6.0	10.3	4.4	17.3	7.3
Personal	4.8	5.6	0.8	9.3	1.3
Unpaid work	4.4	4.5	0.1	7.6	0.2
Business - Build	0.2	0.2	0.0	0.3	0.0
Business - Earn	1.5	1.5	-0.0	2.5	-0.0
Discretionary - Social	0.6	0.1	-0.5	0.2	-0.8
Discretionary - Family	0.9	0.4	-0.5	0.7	-0.9
Discretionary - Play	1.3	0.3	-1.0	0.5	-1.6
A-	46.7	45.1	-1.6	75.6	-2.6
Sleep	33.6	31.9	-1.7	53.4	-2.8

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

Turning 37; life as a 36-year-old

Posted: Aug 12, 2020 - Modified: Aug 13, 2020| review, yearly

This year looked nothing like last year. COVID-19 had a huge impact, of course, and then there's life with A- (now 4.5 years old) and all her growing capabilities.

With our day settling into reasonable routines, I'm slowly getting to work on personal projects again. Our babysitting experiments pre-COVID sometimes gave me 2-7 hours of focused time. What luxury! A-‘s pretty attached to me, though, so it was the rare babysitter who could keep her interest for a long time. When the pandemic curtailed babysitting sessions, I settled into a routine of snuggling A- into bed and then staying up for 2-3 more hours. I'm still figuring out the trade-off between getting sleep and doing stuff. I learned how to use ReactJS to add all sorts of things to my journal system (dark mode, pictures, sketches). I made a font based on my handwriting. With W-‘s help, I was able to co-organize a virtual Emacs conference. I checked out resources on early childhood education. I started drawing again. Whee! I still have a lot of technical debt from things like using an old version of Rails, but I've shoved a few services into Docker containers and tried to limit their access. I hope things will hold for another year.

We got A- used to mostly sleeping in her own room, so I sleep a bit better now. A- got her own library card and proudly checked out her own books. We started giving her an allowance too, which she saves up for snacks and subsidized LEGO sets. I share some of my earnings from consulting with her if I work on client requests during the day. Sometimes she asks me if I can go and work some more so that I can give her more money.

A- still prefers to play with me, but she's starting to figure out things that she can do independently while waiting: usually LEGO, Khan Academy Kids, RelationShapes, or reading. That gives us a little more time to do stuff around the house. W- shifted to working from home because of the pandemic, and he does most of the cooking. For my part, I learned a better technique for making pizza (broil in a cast iron skillet and then finish on the stove), and I've been making sourdough bread every other day or so. (Nothing too fancy, just a basic recipe.) We've been making do with our toaster oven, as the regular oven is out of commission. Homemade popsicles have become a household staple, too.

We started regularly spending time outside: sledding in winter, biking in summer, and afternoon snack time when the weather is good. It took a week or so of holding A- by the armpits or the bicycle seat, but she figured out how to ride a pedal bike without training wheels.

We had plenty of fun at home. A- can read now! We like to take turns. We experimented with starting plants from seed, and we added more plants from home improvement stores and from friends. Tomatoes and basil flourished in the garden, and the bitter melon did okay too. We bought balloon-twisting supplies and learned how to make various animals. We picked up a Snaptricity kit that the neighbours had left out, and we played with circuits. We moved from building with cardboard to building with LEGO. In particular, the LEGO Heroica board game fired up A-‘s imagination. In addition to her usual pretending to be a baby, she pretended to be a wizard, a golem, a goblin, a barbarian, a ranger… She pretended to be lots of other people (complete with names) and things too (she was a little baby prosciutto at some point).

A- grew more social. Before COVID-19, we regularly had playdates. A- also happily played with her cousins and her Lola when we visited the Philippines last year. Of course, COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in the works. We've settled into a daily ritual of video-calling my mom, and I occasionally make PDF slideshows or mini-books to share during our chat. While playing, A- often mentions her Lola or her friends. I'm her main play partner these days, and we're figuring out more about playing together and playing separately.

A- still has tantrums, naturally. She stomps around like the fiercest baby golem there could be. But the tantrums pass more quickly now. She's better at communicating what she wants, we have more ideas for ways to help her cool down, and she's very slowly learning how to manage her own emotions.

Plans for next year

I wrote last year that kindergarten was just around the corner. Hah! It looks like we'll be homeschooling A- for junior kindergarten. We'll see about returning to school when things settle down. In the meantime, I plan to spend the next year digging into play-based learning. I'd like to get better at improvising stories and role-playing adventures. I figure A- will naturally peel away from me and become more independent, but while she's interested in playing with me, I'd like to take advantage of that and look for ways to make play more fun for both of us.

Here are the things I want to focus on this year.

Managing energy:
- Sleep and managing my own plans: Sleep is a big one. I stay up because it's easier to focus on things in 2-3 hour chunks and I don't have babysitting time at the moment. The trade-offs might not be worth it, though, so I need to get better at planning, prioritizing, and making myself go to bed earlier.
- Enthusiasm: A- is strongly influenced by my energy level, so it's useful to tweak things so that I enjoy them a lot.
- Low-energy times: We have a bit of an afternoon slump, and that's okay. She almost always resists napping. Sometimes she wants to still stay close, and sometimes she wants to play separately. When she wants to stay with me, we read or play outside. When she wants to play separately, there's LEGO or Khan Academy Kids.
Taking small steps: I'll probably have ~1 hour of discretionary time a night, so I want to get better at breaking projects down into really small steps and prioritizing tasks so that I can make the most of that time.
Making learning visible: A- is learning so much even without us deliberately following a curriculum. I want to get really good at making her learning visible so that she can feel great about learning and build on what she's curious about.
- Capturing: My journal system is getting pretty good at handling pictures and sketches. I can work on including videos and portfolio items.
- Reflecting on what I see: This raises my notes from anecdotes to pedagogical documentation.
  - What could A- be thinking?
  - What does that make me think about?
  - How can we build on that?
- Showing A- her learning: I want to take advantage of daily touchpoints with Lola and with W- by telling stories about what A- is learning, since that makes it audible and visible. I also want to organize longer-term stories to show how A- has grown over time and to prompt her to revisit old interests. I'd like to involve her in planning, too.

Lots of things to learn!

Sketches

Blog posts

Aside from emacs-news and weekly reviews:

Time

Category	% 35 years	% 36 years	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
A-	42.7	46.7	4.0	78.7	6.6
Business	1.3	1.8	0.4	3.0	0.7
Sleep	33.8	33.6	-0.3	56.6	-0.4
Discretionary	9.7	8.8	-0.9	14.8	-1.5
Personal	6.3	4.8	-1.5	8.1	-2.5
Unpaid work	6.1	4.4	-1.7	7.4	-2.9

Hmm. It looks like childcare has actually taken more time than last year: an extra 6.6 hours a week. I've been able to do a little bit more work, too. I felt like I had a little more discretionary time, but I actually had a little less. W- worked from home, so he handled more chores. A- happily took all the extra time. I'm getting better at squeezing in a little bit of housework, though!

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

Turning 36; life as a 35-year-old

Posted: Aug 29, 2019 - Modified: Sep 1, 2019| review, yearly

On the surface, this year looked much like last year did: drop-in centres, playgrounds and field trips, trips to visit family, and a little bit of consulting and Emacs. It felt so different, though. Of course, A-‘s a whole lot different at 3.5 years instead of 2.5. But since this is my yearly update instead of hers, I’m going to think about how I’ve been growing and what changed.

Last year, I said, “Bring on the ‘why?’ stage!”, and it turned out to be amazing. I’ve learned more about science thanks to her questions, and I’ve learned more about engineering thanks to watching How It’s Made videos and building cardboard machines.

There were many moments when I found myself thinking, “Wow, I like spending time with A-.” It’s great watching her grow. We can talk about so many things. She’s slowly becoming more independent. Sure, there were also times when I thought, “Darn, she has to learn about this the tough way,” but I’m getting better at setting my own boundaries and taking care of myself, and I’m getting pretty good at embracing the tantrums.

I’ve also gotten better at accepting the limits of this phase. I add more things to my list than I can cross off, even with focused time from the babysitting experiment that we restarted on A-‘s request. I often pick sleep instead of working on my computer, because I get grumpy if I’m tired. It’s okay. There’s next year (kindergarten is just around the corner!), and there are other people who can do things too. For now, I’m learning how to be here.

Or there–we squeezed in a trip to the Netherlands to visit my sister and her family, and another trip to the Philippines to see everyone. A-‘s becoming quite a seasoned traveller, although she still doesn’t sleep much on airplanes. It was good to spend time with people. A- had lots of fun playing with her cousins and with Lola, hooray!

Last year, I wrote:

I’m also looking forward to learning more about pedagogical documentation, drawing, taking pictures/videos, and other ways I can share things with her and with other people. Making books for A- is fun, so I’d like to do more of that too.

I really like the way my journaling workflow makes it possible to capture lots of little moments. I’m still not good at taking a step back and seeing trends over time, and my weekly review often falls by the wayside. It was nice remembering little moments in the process of doing this yearly review. Hardly any drawing, but I came to terms with that being a low priority for now. I started categorizing photos using albums in Google Photos, but it’s not quite as smooth or as regular as I’d like.

I made a few more children’s books for A-. “I Am Turning 3” organized highlights from her first three years. “Let’s Make Popcorn” was the sequel to “Let’s Make a Smoothie.” “Going on an Airplane” helped us get ready for the trip, and she loved that I illustrated it with her favourite stuffed toy. For my sister, I drafted a book called “Magic Books”, but I haven’t illustrated it yet. I improved my workflow, so now I can theoretically make longer books with better layouts. I look forward to trying that out as we move into more complex stories.

We’ve been using some babysitting time to work on household projects and useful skills. W- taught me how to use the sliding compound mitre saw and the table saw. We repainted and trimmed the insides of the upper kitchen cabinets, replaced the drawers, and built organizers and shelves. We decluttered and organized, and we even donated old bicycles. In terms of cooking, we’ve been shifting more towards fresh food instead of cooking in bulk, more towards vegetables and other recommendations of the new food guide, and more towards higher-quality groceries. We’ve been learning how to work with a sourdough starter that we brought home from my sister’s neighbour in the Netherlands.

Babysitting freed up some time to work on some personal coding projects for continuous improvement, too. I wrote functions to make it easier to prepare Emacs News by getting feed items, checking for duplicates, and assigning categories with a few keystrokes. I started hosting planet.emacslife.com after the server at planet.emacsen.org went down. I finally got around to setting up SSL. I moved my sketches from Flickr to my own sketches.sachachua.com, and I wrote a tool that rewrote most of the links in my old posts. I started using Docker to contain some of my services, including a new version of my library renewal script. I contributed patches to Org Mode and to Termux.

I got into sewing again. I experimented with a custom-printed headband that had letters, numbers, days of the week, and other useful things for preschool education on the go. I found out that W-‘s old jeans fit me quite comfortably, so I hemmed and patched them. I serged cabinet liners and washcloths. I made fuzzy hats in winter, and shorts and underwear in summer. I started to feel more comfortable sewing. It was even fun.

So yeah… A- grew a lot, and so did I.

Posts

Time

Category	% 34 years	% 35 years	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
A-	46.7	42.7	-4.0	71.8	-6.7
Sleep	31.2	33.8	2.6	56.8	4.4
Personal	6.2	6.3	0.1	10.5	0.2
Unpaid work	5.4	6.1	0.7	10.3	1.2
Discretionary – Productive	3.5	3.4	-0.2	5.7	-0.3
Discretionary – Play	0.7	2.8	2.0	4.7	3.4
Discretionary – Family	3.3	2.8	-0.5	4.6	-0.9
Business – Earn	1.1	1.1	0.0	1.9	0.0
Discretionary – Social	0.9	0.8	-0.1	1.3	-0.2
Business – Build	0.3	0.2	-0.1	0.3	-0.2

Huh. That’s interesting. Actually, most of the time change this year was about me getting more sleep. I like having more sleep. And I gave myself permission to play Borderlands 2 with W- in the evening, since it’s good to hang out as a couple too. I did a smidge more tidying, too.

Babysitting helped me shift consulting from late-night sessions to daytime (more alertness! occasional chats with clients!), improve my sewing, coding, and woodworking skills, and check off actual projects. That was worth it, although I’m not going to scale it up too much because A- prefers to spend time with me. She wants to have a babysitter once a week instead of twice or three times a week. If I can count on 6-7 hours of focused time a week, then, I’d like to spend an average of 2 hours a week on consulting, 2 hours on household prep, and 2-3 hours on continuous improvement. I’m not entirely sure how that time budget works, but we’ll figure things out. It might be more household prep until we can get things running smoothly, which should free up more time and energy for other things.

36 to 37: Looking ahead

A- will be old enough for kindergarten shortly after I turn 37. Big changes are up ahead! I’d like to stay flexible and be involved in the school community, since that seems to make a big difference. That’s for later, though. For now, I can focus on making the most of this phase and what I can do to prepare for the next one.

I want to make a children’s book about microphthalmia that I can share with A-‘s kindergarten teacher. I hope it will help answer questions and demystify things.

I want to put together a session for the Emacs conference in November, and to help with facilitating and following through. I also want to continue posting Emacs News.

I’d like to continue consulting, since I like my clients and I like solving the kinds of problems i do. I’ll probably focus on prototyping, robotic process automation, and analytics, since those are things I can squeeze into small time windows.

A- is starting to show interest in reading, socialization, and how the world works. I also want to help her develop physical literacy and emotional regulation, and I want to involve her more in preparing food and tidying up. I’ve got my work cut out for me in terms of doing preschool at home. It will be fun!

I want to learn more DIY skills so that I can help improve things around the house. I’m not sure how the time budget works out, though. Learning woodworking is definitely more of a nice-to-have compared to the other things we need to do to keep the house running smoothly.

I’ve got an even longer list of ideas. As always, priorities: sleep, self-care, taking care of A-, and so on. Let’s see how this year goes!

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