weekly retro: burns, exposed ankles and other horrors

this morning i concluded the two-week dental crown journey (saga? off-screen dramedy?) so i sit at this half-done retro, gums swollen, lip numb and new tooth smooth. let's rock.

selfie in the gym locker room where i'm sticking my tongue out and my bangs are fighting for their lives

last week i was super active. i started doing core work on dip bars at home and i can tell in aerial yoga that it's improving my grip strength. my gums and the weather forecast for this week tell me that i've got a few extremely challenging days ahead, though.

photo of large hibiscus flowers among bags of soil

i learned that these gorgeous, ginormous red flowers that i've seen in only two yards in my neighborhood are hibiscus flowers. i wonder if they're going to make tea with them!

photo close up on my wrist were there's a light red mark where i burned myself

i burned myself taking this baked feta pasta out of the oven. it was delicious and my wrist was fine because the recipe was good and i burn myself in that spot all the time lol. by the way, does "chef john from foodwishes.com" know that his domain appears to be parked?

a bunch of my candles, some matchboxes, note cards and stickers laid out on my table, orders i am packaging to be sent out

i soft launched bugs rock and have been enjoying getting these candles out of my face to make room for new ones. i found a stash of weird eggs so i've been randomly giving those out too. i went live a couple times to build this cool bugs rock order map and learned a lot about svg in the process. i am a multi-disciplinary princess.

plastic basket/tray with 15 small half-sphere red candles that i dipped in green so they can kind of look like the top halves of plum tomatoes

i made a bunch of "plum tomato" candles out of leftover wax to give out to my book-binding workshop classmates. they were a hit, and i have some leftover that i've been putting in orders.

photo of some folded paper with holes in the fold, before i sewed them together in a book

we learned textblocking this weekend, but we had to leave them behind to dry so i only have this in-progress shot. next month is the last session and we're going to be adding a cover and end papers to them. i ordered book-binding supplies for home because i want to make sketchbooks. that would be fun right?

photo of the sidewalk and there's a small skeleton figurine in a pink dress

anyway, gotta go, my mom's here to pick me up.

things i enjoyed this week

isopods eat dill.
the song "who let the dogs out" turned 25 last week and artist ben sisto (who is an expert on the song and i've talked about before) is exhibiting his collection of memorabilia in providence. that page has links to where you can watch his documentary, which i saw a screening of when it came out and it was very good.
i finally found affordable sweatpants that actually come with the long inseam that is advertised. so among my too-short sweats and leggings, i now have normal looking pants from american tall. this isn't sponsored, i'm just sharing a personal win after years of people thinking i dress like THIS on purpose:

photo of my legs in front of a fountain and my jeans are about 4 inches too short, they look like long capris

i'm not even 6 feet tall! okay, my teeth hurt byeeeee 💋

xoxo jenn

this was published July 28, 2025 under living working tech weekly-retro jersey-city book-binding teeth svg youtube bugs-rock