Cracked Ice and Chrome

New Job, New State, New House . . . Same Me

Jen — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 14:45:48 +0000

Happy New Year! As I sit at my kitchen table in my new-ish house (new to me, anyway), I am full of pensiveness on this New Year’s Day. A year ago, I was deeply unhappy in my teaching job and desperately searching for answers: what career could I go into? Did I have enough skills …

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Hi, I’m an instructional designer

Jen — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 14:25:50 +0000

Yes, that title means that I GOT A JOB. I have tried twice to write a blog post in the past couple of months. I even had the same title for the last two attempts: Free Fallin’. That is how I felt this past summer as I worked to get a job and was getting …

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LIVE from the cesspool that is LinkedIn

Jen — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 09:36:37 +0000

Ok, not really live, but my thoughts are live right now if that makes a difference. Prior to this year, I had not job hunted in 17 years. My job hunts have always been fairly easy. The last two interviews I had resulted in jobs. I posted last time about the murky waters of LinkedIn …

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School’s out . . . forever.

Jen — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 01:34:11 +0000

I have spent the past month cleaning out my classroom and sorting through 23 years’ worth of stuff. Teachers tend to be hoarders for the same reason children will grab a handful of candy instead of taking just one piece; in the world of education, resources (especially free ones) are fleeting, so we tend to …

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Metamorphosis

Jen — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:57:58 +0000

It has been a hot minute since I have posted anything. It’s not for a lack of having anything to say; it’s just a supreme lack of TIME. My last post should have been an omen. I was starting to have an awakening in my career. I actually made another LONG post in December but …

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A ticking time bomb

Jen — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 13:12:27 +0000

Silly me. I thought that the longer I was in education, the easier things would be. This is year 23 for me and I have never felt so slammed by expectations and pressure to make sure that everyone passes – no matter what. I won’t get into the specifics of it all, as you never …

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It’s a scanning weekend

Jen — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 13:33:20 +0000

After my last post, I decided to scan in the Hilex catalog and something I picked up a couple months ago, a House Party Book sponsored by Webcor. If you’d like to peruse them, here is the Hilex catalog, and here is the House Party Book. Enjoy!

School Year #23 is now in session

Jen — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 14:42:53 +0000

I have almost been back at school for a month now, and it seems surreal. After last year, which was chaotic and stressful and, therefore, not much remembered since I was in survival mode, I was determined to return to school this year with renewed energy and a positive spirit. And, for the most part, …

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The deafening roar of silence

Jen — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 09:35:24 +0000

That’s it. I’m officially an empty-nester. My husband and I were heading down to Memphis for Elvis Week a couple weeks ago, and on the way, we dropped off my son at his new apartment that he will share with his brother as he starts college. (He does drive, but his car is in the …

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Randoms from a Tuesday

Jen — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 18:20:46 +0000

After a few years’ worth of use, my phone has finally started to tell me that it’s running out of space. I figured that it might — just might — be the dozens of videos that I had on my phone from all the various Elvis gigs I’ve gone to, so I started to sort …

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