live laugh blog | jenn schiffer

weekly retro: june in bloom and gloom

i always blamed my preference for cold weather on my norwegian maternal side, everything just feels harder when it's hot. by the time i got to the lab to get my bloodwork done, i was drenched in sweat.

photo i took of a bicycle store banner that someone wrote "POOP FUCK" on

who would have thought the results of the blood test would arrive to me minutes later on the walk home, in the form of graffiti on a bike store banner. i'd been feeling exhausted and brain foggy, so it was kind of a relief to verify that my thyroid medication had lost its efficacy at my current dose, versus it just me being a baby in the heat. this is a fairly easy and inexpensive thing to manage. regardless...poop fuck.

crop of a screenshot of a video someone got of a squirrel hanging from a tree off its hind legs

a friend sent this squirrel to me, captioned "jenn goes to aerial". that's pretty much what goes on. i've already felt myself getting stronger as i increased my practice to 3x a week, and i hope for quicker recovery once my thyroid meds are figured out again.

photo of my little paint sketchbook where in april i painted some tomatoes

i've been working a lot on the bugs rock website, although it doesn't necessarily look like it from the public view. i converted it from plain html to an eleventy app (much like this blog) which near-future me will be thanking me for. i've finished the product photography, gathered my inspiration art to share, and finalized all the copy. i'm waiting on the nj division of treasury to help me out with some paperwork i need to file soon, but i'm feeling good about launching in days and not weeks.

photo of my black cat pumagreg tucked into the bed like he's a human

if you've been joining me on my glitch migration livestreams and either of us have wondered what pumagreg's is up to, the above photo is 99% the answer. we started using the air conditioner this week, as the temperatures have been in the high 80F's. pumagreg doesn't mind the heat, but he - like me - loves the breezes that come from fans, air conditioners, and air purifiers. unlike me, he doesn't have to pay the electric bill.

photo of a bouquet of sunflowers i got for andy, sitting in his workspace so they're surrounded by tools. one of the flowers has petals growing out of the center of it

here are some flowers within our walls - a rare sight because pumagreg is a plant goblin. it was andy's birthday last week and i got him this mutant sunflower bouquet (notice one of them sprouting petals from its center). don't worry, it's sitting safely from pumagreg in a room he's not allowed in.

photo of a bunch of purple pansies

here's a flower box that i pass on the way to coffee every day, full of pansies. i'll never not be in awe of the purples and blues that come from nature, standing out among the greens, grays and browns of downtown jersey city.

photo of an arrangement of red and white flowers and black leaves to make a poke ball in the park

speaking of the city, pokémon go fest was here this weekend! our park welcomed the thousands who came in from all over the world with this adorable poke ball arrangement. it was nice to see so many out-of-towners walking around and getting to enjoy our city - it filled me with immense pride. jersey city is a sanctuary city - one of the most diverse cities in the country at that - and all of our eyes have been on the protests in los angeles and the cruel, violent response from the government and police.

here are 8 things you can do to stop ice. a 9th thing is to support the protesters, regardless of what level of violence they bring to the streets. authoritarians are going to respond with violence regardless of how peaceful protesters are. friction and chaos slows their violence down and gets media attention. be safe, take care of yourself and your neighbors, and look inward if you are bristled by the acts of those on the right side of history.

things i enjoyed this week with one less vial of blood within me

i don't know if i could stand being mere feet away from amerie performing 1 thing live on tiny desk, i started to respectfully sweat when it started playing just in the video.
the internet phonebook has a dial-a-site in case you can't find a copy. dial 122 for a good time!
i've been using nova as my editor during my livestreams and i may be biased because i've been a Panic girlie since the early coda days (almost 20 years ago wowowow) but i'm really enjoying it (i'm using it right now to write this retro) and have the peace of mind to not be supporting microsoft.

xoxo jenn

this was published June 9, 2025 under living laughing working health weekly-retro jersey-city flowers

weekly retro: blog birthdays, blood and buds

i'm coming to you and this retro with one vial less of blood and having been up since the crack of dawn to have said vial taken. this kicks off the bi-annual celebration of seeing if my thyroid has finally joined me on the quest to be hotter and smarter or not.

five years of living, laughing and blogging

in the early spring months of 2020, i half-jokingly started tweeting about my goal of becoming a "lifestyle blogger". it was impulsive, public, and - i think those who were around to witness my process - pretty funny performance art.

weekly retro: one of those winding road kinda weeks

it's a new week, although the "holiday weekend" still if you're in the states. during my workaholic corporate era, these holidays were more like a working vacation where i still logged on to get stuff done, but didn't have to talk to or answer to anyone (ie. no zoom calls). well, here i am technically working by writing this and planning to do candle work after. it's a good thing i only left corporate, not therapy as well.

on 'important changes coming to glitch'

today the news is out that [glitch is basically shutting down](https://blog.glitch.com/post/changes-are-coming-to-glitch/). i knew this was coming in some form because gossip has always been fastly’s greatest export, with speedy and non-vague communication usually coming in at, generously, 10th place.

weekly retro: spider feet have hydraulics

i just got back from a dentist appointment where i found out, unfortunately but not surprisingly, that i'm going to have to spend about 5 billion dollars to take care of a tooth infection. enough about this week, though, let's talk about _last week_.

weekly retro: the 'late because i went to boston' retro

this week's retro is late because i was out of town for the weekend and am, today, finally able to Go On The Computer™ and Blog™ - you know, *the two things i was born to do*.

weekly retro: crunchy flowers and interesting feline shapes

after a week and a half of weird joint paint, i was starting to accept that this was perhaps the moment every person who has sat for 4 hours in an endocrinologist's waiting room is told may happen (rheumatoid arthritis), but as of today i've been 5 days without any pain.

weekly retro: the one where i became a walking weather stick

this week was one of those week where i made a point to not do much outside of my scheduled obligations, so to give my body a rest. my knees were SCREAMING in a voice i never heard before, but joint pain is a pretty common symptom of hashimotos. this is the first week in 7 months where i did not go to the gym!

figure drawing session - april 16, 2025

last week i went back to jc print room for a live model figure drawing session. this time the model was male. we don't know what kind of models we are going to get until we show up which keeps the experience fresh. i get super bored drawing the same body type, especially when they're similar to my own.