Week 5: RSS & Feed Reader

I have signed up with Bloglines. I subscribed to Quote of the Day and an RSS feed to the blog of Pete Earley, author, mental health advocate, and my old college friend. I do like to check in on his website every once in a while and noticed he has an RSS feed so I thought this was a good opportunity. I think the true test will be on how it all goes-to see if I like this method. Time will tell.

Week 7 Microblogging

I have signed up on Twitter. My url is: http://twitter.com/Vikkismericle. I have signed up to follow Chef Jamie Lauren and may sign up to follow Chef Jasper Mirabile. I wanted so bad to follow Calvin Trillin but could never quite figure out how to get him. I do not think I will be a big fan of Twitter.

Reflections on Photo Sharing


It was fun to do the blog about my cats. It is fun to share something that you are really proud of - like my cats. However, it was a hard assignment. I did set up a Flickr account. But I couldn't get my photos from Flickr to go on my blog so I took them from my computer.

It is kind of disappointing to me that more people haven't commented on my blogs. I hope people are visiting. So I thought like in any meeting if I brought food maybe they would come. So I have brought cake-well a recipe anyway! I did bring this cake to work a few weeks ago and told Kelli I would bring the recipe-so Enjoy!



Buttermilk Cake with Caramel Icing -originally in Taste of Home magazine Aug./Sept. 2007
1 cup butter softened
2 1/3 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk

Icing: 1/4 cup butter cubed, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream, 1 cup powdered sugar

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition (batter will be thick).
Pour into greased and floured 10 inch fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 for 45 - 50 minutes until toothpick
inserted comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely.

For icing, in a small saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar and cream. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; cool for 5 - 10 minutes. Whisk in confectioners' sugar. Drizzle over cake. Yield: 12 - 16 servings.

Photo Sharing

This week our assignment for 23 Things Kansas is Photo Sharing. I have started a Flickr account and my info on that is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vikkihoran.

This week I am going to blog about my three cats! and hopefully share photos.

Daisy Photo taken by Allison Horan

This is a picture of my cat Daisy. She is a Love. Daisy is the cat that sits on my lap every night. She truly knows she is a very special cat. She loves to be outside. We have woods in the back of the house and she spends a lot of time there. She is a great tree climber. Although one day this fall she did not come for her morning feeding. I was frantic when she didn't come for her evening feeding when we got home from work. I was out searching in the back yard. My cat Mugsy was out looking with me. Mugsy communicated with me to go to the front yard. We found Daisy high in a tree not able to get down. She had been in that tree all day! My sweet husband got her down with a ladder.

Blaze

Photo taken by Molly Horan on Christmas morning 2009

Notice in this picture the present that Blaze is sitting by is torn. This explains Blaze. She is full of energy-all of the time! Blaze had a so much fun this Christmas whenever presents were wrapped-she was in the middle of it. Whatever activity was going on-she was in the middle of it. It is fun with Blaze because she follows us around all of the time just so she doesn't miss any of the action. Her claim to fame is that she can fetch! I don't know how it started but it is an activity that we must do every day. We take a crumbled piece of paper and throw it. Blaze rushes to get it, puts it down beside me, and starts to purr. Over and over again.

Mugsy
Photo taken by Molly Horan

I used to think that my Mugsy had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She turns in a complete circle at the door before entering the house-every single time! But really what she is doing is rubbing her fur on the brick of the house. And she rubs herself on whatever she is walking by. I now have it figured out that she is just combing her long, fluffy fur. It really is weird though. She does have the very softest fur of any cat I have ever had. She is pretty obsessed about getting brushed every day. She does seem to be so proud of her black fluffy coat.

Week 3 Online Meetings

This week in our 23 Things Kansas class we were to watch a webinar and blog about it.

I listened to Tom Peters, Opal Coordinator, interview Michelle Boule, librarian and blogger extraordinaire. It was billed as a casual conversation. That it was. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a great activity for a cold, wintery Friday afternoon in Kansas. They had this interview back in Feb. 2008 when Tom had a noticable head cold and Michelle was very close to leaving her job at the Univ. of Houston and very pregnant.

Since I watched this on a Friday I knew that where my mind went concerning the webinar during the weekend was what the important parts of the webinar were. The jest of the webinar was that Michelle knows a lot about libraries and technology. There was a lot of chat about dream jobs, finishing jobs, writing projects, virtual participation, moving on etc. Information wants to be free was one of the main things I got. There was interesting talk about how libraries can make more non-tradional jobs. And how technology can change the way we work. Michelle is evidently a person that likes to think outside of the box.

Michelle talked about how one librarian at a conference she was at talked about how she had a facebook page and was so surprised when people at her new job went and looked at the facebook page. We should not be surprised. That is going to happen. So beware of what you put on that facebook page. Good advice!

The webinar definitely picked up as the interview went on. I thought Tom was a great interviewer and asked very interesting questions. Michelle talked about how she learns about new technologies were basically from other people. Other people will blog about it and send her information. She said that something new must be integrated with other things she is using, meet a need of hers, and be able to access it from anywhere.

Michelle Boule has several blogs but her main one is one that she has had for about five years. It is A Wandering Eyre, traversing life with words http://wanderingeyre.com/. Check it out! I know I will.

On the whole webinar experience- I still think conferences, in-person meetings, etc. are the very best thing. But I think in these times, webinars are great. We can definitely learn from them and that is what we want. I felt that on the format of the webinar I would miss words and then they were just lost to me. What are mebos, millenials? See? I don't even know how to spell them! I really did like this assignment. And there are a lot more webinars we can still watch.
I am really liking 23 Things Kansas and think this is just a great opportunity.

Facebook
Oh me, oh my! I feel like I have come into this Facebook thing kicking and screaming. I don't know why I am resisting it so. It just feels so ---- out there! I don't feel that I have as much control on this as the other technologies. Do I really want to have old high school friends, college friends .... contacting me? Something about it all doesn't set well with me. It is probably just resisting change. Communication is changing so much. I just finished Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks last night. It was so good. If they wanted to communicate with someone, they walked to the home, knocked on the door, and if the other person wanted to communicate the door was opened. If they did not want to chat they didn't answer the door. Was this the seventeenth century way of defriending a person? My friends and daughters I am sure are grateful for this class to help nudge me into the 21st century! Anyway, for this class I am giving it the good old college try. My info for Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?v=info&edit_info=all. We will see how it goes.


Quote of the Week
In honor of Martin Luther King Day this week (that really was Monday, seems like a long time ago) one of my favorites:
"The Ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King

Recommendation
So I had a really bad ache in my neck, shoulder area this week. Oh it hurt! It felt like it was in the muscle. So I didn't sleep with a pillow thinking I had slept on it wrong. That helped but not entirely. I knew if I swam it would work it out. So off to the Y I went. That did it! So, my recommendation this week is: for those aches and pains--swim it out!


Thanks again for stopping by!

Introduction

Hi fellow Librarians! My name is Vikki. I work in the Red Carpet department at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. So I do outreach to people's homes, gather books and deliver and present programs at four assisted living facilities, work at our public service desk, work in talking books, do a display... I love working at the library. I was fortunate to attend K Place graduating in '93. So I may even know some of you from way back then.
My friends understand that I am not technologically savvy. I do not even own a cell phone. So the purpose of our 23 Things Kansas program fits me well. It won't be hard for me to S T R E T C H and learn other ways to communicate. But I still like writing letters! So here we go with a new adventure of blogging.

Books
The book that I am presently reading is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.
The last few books that I have read are:
People Like Us by Dominick Dunne ( I wanted to read this before Too Much Money comes out.)
The Christmas Jar & The Christmas Jar Reunion by Jason F. Wright
The Laws of Harmony by Judith Ryan Hendricks
The Help by Kathryn Stockett ( I absolutely loved this book)
The Diary by Eileen Goudge
Touched by Angels by Eileen Elias Freeman
A Place Called Home edited by Mickey Pearlman (essays, loved it!)
My Life in France by Julia Child
Out of her Mind by Rebecca Shannondouse (women writing about their madness, essays)
What are you reading?


This week's Recommendation
I saw a great movie this week. It is "Young at Heart" produced by Sally George. It was on public television although we have it at the Library. It is a documentary of a chorus group with the average age of 81. They have toured Europe. They sing kind of punk rock music. It is a beautiful story that is sure to touch your heart. Has anyone seen it?


Quote of the Week

" Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. " Hazel Rochman


Thank you for stopping by!