jenn schiffer's live laugh blog

weekly retro #81: inventing time management

this week i tried scheduling out my entire week in my calendar, down to the times i go to the gym or read. normally i wing that or have it scheduled in my mind, but i had a busy weekend and i wanted to make it to and through it without dropping the ball on my routines. who would have thought that time management would help one better manage their time. what helped is going in knowing that i will have to move things around or skip things and that's just life, not failure.

i put out a lot of updates on jennschiffer.com as far as design, art portfolio content and link curation. i'm really trying to make the website a place someone could spend more than 30 seconds perusing and finding interesting things i've made, enjoyed, etc. btw, i've been using imovie to make my 3-minute videos, 48 whole minutes so far! if you edit videos, what software would you recommend i graduate to? i would prefer something that wasn't subscription based and runs on a mac.

a photo of my 3-legged black cat pumagreg laying on the light kitchen floor

photos of pumagreg laying down look like ai since his fur has almost fully come back after his surgery. it's not been 3 months since he lost his leg, and he's doing so, so well. a couple of folks have asked how he's doing, so i figured i'd give you's that update.

A photo of three of my glazed pottery pieces on a shelf, ready to go into the kiln. In addition to my pot and enclosed vessel there’s a teapot that appears to have the same cream colored glaze around it with some white pasty spackle like glaze on the top half. you can see a whisper of horizontal lines underneath the cream glaze.

i have 5 pieces pieces glazed and probably (hopefully) in a kiln right now, and 4 pieces being bisque fired. the studio is doing a deep cleaning after next week, so any greenware i have then will need to come home with me, so i think i'm going to pause wet clay for a week or so and focus on designing future work. i have lots of ideas but i'm very much open to more if you've got them.

zoomed-in photo of a sign that says "LEAVE GARGAGE HERE"

we hosted robot karaoke on friday, shouts out to the fine folks at boshi's place. speaking of cool creative technology communities, i got accepted into a course at the school for poetic computation this fall which i'm very excited for. it will start pretty soon after my final ceramics class ends, so i'll get to continue the routine of having a weekly set time to have to show up to.

photo of a lantern fly in brooklyn about to hit a vape that looks like a wooden pipe being held up to it

andy and i (and "our adam") went to atproto community day for a bit. it was cool to meet a bunch of online pals irl for the first time and talk to people who build the apps i've been using lately. i couldn't stay the whole time, though, i was exhausted from the show the night before and i needed to reserve some energy for working out today and another show night tomorrow. my friend asked me if we normally have clusters of events like this and it's absolutely how it always ends up being, but not on purpose!

things i enjoyed this week

  • sometimes in the afternoon i want to have an almond milk iced latte but sometimes it's a bit late, even for me. lately i've been making matcha almond milk iced lattes instead and it hits the spot without keeping me up.
  • i had listened to parts of phoebe bridger's new album and really enjoyed what i heard so i listened to its entirety while on the treadmill today and, yeah, it's a very good album.
  • anil made and released a very cool, open source touch id button

planning out my entire week helped me get a lot done on my own while also showing up with others. this is me trying to lay the foundation for a productive fall season, and i think i'm doing a pretty good job so far.

xoxo jenn

p.s. tomorrow (monday) night we're hosting robot karaoke at wonderville. it's fun and free 😈

this was published August 23, 2026 under living art tech weekly-retro ceramics jersey-city brooklyn robot-karaoke atproto meetups pumagreg

weekly retro #80: hematomas and hope

we've finally reached the halfway point through august, where "back to school" signs make a lot more sense to see and i check the weather app every day to see if the temperatures are starting to trend downward. right now it is a *cooler* 80F just in time for this 80TH weekly retro.

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weekly retro #79: just an italian girl from new york

my doctor told me to get bloodwork done on the second day of my period and i scheduled it for tomorrow in hopes it would work out so i wouldn't have to miss ceramics class on tuesday, and can you believe that my period *started today just in time*. it's important to call out and celebrate one's wins and also add a disclaimer that the following was written and edited throughout a series of cramps. ciao amici, and welcome to the weekly retro.

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weekly retro #77: blue skies and painted pixels

after a week of smoke in the air and severe thunderstorms and heat, we got to see a week of blue skies and an atmosphere that doesn't burn one's nose more than it usually does around this car-dominated hellscape. this week we were all outside and it ruled.

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weekly retro #76: hazy shade of whenever

this week was one of those weeks where i felt like i was just going through the motions, living in the moment but feeling a bit out of body. i think it was a mix of the heat, the wildfire smoke, my period, and the windup and down of the world cup.

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what i made during my fourth ceramics class

technically i had scheduled myself to spend this hour in the ceramics studio, but i didn't want to go all the way there and find that my bisqueware isn't ready, so i've decided to push that time to tomorrow and instead publish the latest in the *what i made in my ceramics class* series.

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weekly retro #75: bingo

this week began in recovery from the heat wave and being outside so much in the direct sunlight the few days before. i said i didn't want to see the sun for at least 48 hours and it obliged, although we could have done without the massive amounts of rain.

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weekly retro #74: heat dome

it is presently a cool 84 degrees (F) out according to my laptop as i type this in a well air-conditioned room. don't be mistaken, though, your beloved princess of hating the heat (me) spent a lot of time outdoors despite, and in spite of, a three-day "heat dome" bringing over 100 temperatures to the metropolitan area throughout the 4th of july weekend.

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