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.