Mary Kay's Blog

Shaffer Quilt Challenge 2008 Version

2009-08-10T17:04:00.001-07:00

All four quilts and their creators were finally in the same place. You might not guess that we all started out with six of the same fabrics. Some of us liked the fabric choices better than others. :) Once Carol finds her fabric for this year's challenge, the pressure will be on again. We've been taking it easy this summer so far.

www.wolframalpha.com

2009-05-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

Decided to check out this new "computational knowledge engine" for the weather on E's and Z's birthdates--then got adventuresome and checked out Mark's and mine--we were all born on cloudy days. Mark and I were born under waning crescent moons, E under a full moon, Z under a waxing gibbous moon.

RA (readers' advisory)

2009-05-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

NoveList May 2009 RA News: Here's teacher David Carr on the importance of reading books that are outside your comfort zone:
Throughout the term, I estimate that at least half of the class was reading in a genre they had not encountered before. The importance of this exposure in their experience was emphatic: the value of a class in RA or popular literature is not only about the books we read, and the tastes that require them - it's about the breaking-through (giving up snobbery, forgetting English Literature, remembering how to read like a child) that even enthusiastic readers may require in order to pick up something new and challenging to our assumptions.

One of the novels his class read was The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton. That's a choice sure to be applauded by someone in my family who shall remain nameless but who is stuck in the western genre.

Mysterious

2009-05-19T14:43:00.001-07:00

IMG_2870, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Here's the reflection I found on the ceiling in the bedroom this morning.

Azalea reflection

2009-05-19T14:33:00.001-07:00

IMG_2873, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Here's the azalea that's outside our bedroom window.

Rhododendron, close-up

2009-05-17T16:25:00.001-07:00

IMG_2865, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Now if the rain will only hold off for a few days these blossoms should stay nice and fresh. Nothing ruins them faster than a lot of rain and that's what we've been used to lately.

Rhododendron

2009-05-17T16:09:00.001-07:00

IMG_2864, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

On Mother's Day there were only two flowers in bloom at the very top of this bush (tree?)--now look at it one week later.

BooksForKidsBlog: Size Matters: Heavy Equipment Up Close by Andra Serlin Abramson

2009-05-15T06:51:00.001-07:00

Memo to me: remember this series because you have so many great-nephews!

BooksForKidsBlog: Size Matters: Heavy Equipment Up Close by Andra Serlin Abramson

Mr. Toad

2009-05-13T18:14:00.001-07:00

IMG_2810, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

This little guy was keeping Z and me company this afternoon when we were transplanting ferns so that I could get close enough to the living room windows to wash them.

Pioneer Woman Photography - Ree Drummond

2009-05-12T16:04:00.001-07:00

This is a post that totally breaks my heart and I am so guilty of this “foolish pride”.

Pioneer Woman Photography - Ree Drummond

Mark in Mohnton--watercolor version

2009-05-11T19:18:00.003-07:00

IMG_0870, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Mark in Mohnton

2009-05-11T19:18:00.001-07:00

IMG_0852, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Z used this picture for inspiration when he needed a subject for his watercolor project.

Brontosaurus Mark

2009-05-11T19:04:00.001-07:00

IMG_2339, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Apatosaurus, including the popular, but obsolete synonym Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period.

The Great Canoe

2009-05-11T18:57:00.001-07:00

IMG_2310, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Your friendly guide at the American Museum of Natural History points to an extraordinary dugout canoe--the longest of its type still surviving--which was made around 1878 by Native people from the Northwest coast.

Spooky

2009-05-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

IMG_2304, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Erin and Alex don't look too worried about all the supernatural beings in the case behind them at the Museum of Natural History.

Mother's Day Flowers

2009-05-11T12:30:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day Flowers, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

This is the most unusual dahlia in the bunch. Hope it doesn't appeal to the squirrels--remember last year they kept chomping on my Gerbera daisies.

Dahlias

2009-05-10T17:53:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day Flowers, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

These dahlias are this year's Mother's Day flowers. They're planted in special moisture-retaining potting soil so should thrive in this flower box on the deck.

Finished Top

2009-05-03T15:22:00.001-07:00

IMG_2284, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Here's the quilt top and that's as far as I've gotten. The next step is to get brave and go rent the longarm quilter at the store in Aberdeen.

Quilt Pieces

2009-05-03T15:20:00.001-07:00

IMG_2077, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

and cut all 585 pieces that make up the front of the quilt!

Fabric

2009-05-03T15:16:00.001-07:00

IMG_2079, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

So what could I do but order the fabric from two online fabric companies and four quilt shops . . .

Erin's Quilt

2009-05-03T15:14:00.001-07:00

IMG_2084, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Erin gave me this book for Christmas and mentioned that she LOVED the quilt on the cover . . .

Trip to Salisbury

2009-05-03T11:24:00.001-07:00

IMG_2541, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

Here's the sunrise on the way to Salisbury last Saturday. We had to leave by 5:30 (ugh) in order to get to Mark's meeting on time.

Heron in Salisbury - a set on Flickr

2009-05-03T11:20:00.001-07:00

I spotted this heron in Salisbury last Saturday and spent 30 minutes taking pictures. It was surprisingly calm given all the people and dogs coming and going along both sides of the stream. A poodle barked and sent it flying; I was only able to keep track of it for so long, as you can see on the video.

Heron in Salisbury - a set on Flickr

BooksForKidsBlog: Bear-y Welcome Back: Paddington Here and Now by Michael Bond

2009-05-03T11:13:00.001-07:00

A brand new Paddington Bear adventure—read all about it on one of my favorite blogs—booksforkidsblog—written by a retired school librarian who just happens to be Instapundit’s mother.

BooksForKidsBlog: Bear-y Welcome Back: Paddington Here and Now by Michael Bond

The Pioneer Woman - Ree Drummond

2009-04-30T15:59:00.001-07:00

I have become seriously addicted to this blog since I followed a link from Rachel Lucas’ site for a recipe. Ree is a fabulous writer—her description of meeting her husband-to-be (Marlboro Man) and their courtship (Black Heels to Tractor Wheels) is riveting AND she has wonderful pages on photography, cooking, gardening, home dec—it’s all good. All this and she frequently gives away prizes in various contests.

The Pioneer Woman - Ree Drummond

Pandora Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

2009-04-30T15:46:00.001-07:00

Z got me to try this and I’m loving creating a new radio station every day. Started with Herb Alpert (just as I did when I started buying records)—right now I’ve got George Michael as the starting point.

Pandora Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

Posted Using Zoho

2007-09-04T09:16:00.001-07:00

Zoho is easy to use, has all the features (and many more) that I would require in a word processor (including ), and allows sharing, publishing, emailing, exporting all with the click of a button. AND it's free--how can that be??

Technology

2007-09-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

I like being able to access all the information from any computer, for example, Bookmarks are computer-specific, Yahoo Bookmarks are portable, but del.icio.us is portable AND easy-to-use. Flickr is ever so much nicer to use for sharing photos--beats attaching photos to e-mail by a mile.

Future of Libraries

2007-09-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Read Rick Anderson's article about "icebergs" that he perceives are threatening libraries' future success. While I agree that more and more patrons want everything available on the internet, a significant number still want to be able to check out a book and I don't see that changing anytime soon. The challenge has always been to tailor a book collection to a specific local population's needs while staying within a budget and librarians will continue to meet that challenge and, to use his metaphor, sail around the icebergs into a happy future.

Wikis

2007-09-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

I think the most helpful library wikis are those such as St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides--they provide information that's extremely helpful to patrons in an easy-to-update format. Librarians have to go where the patrons are because more and more patrons are going directly to the computer and bypassing the reference desk. For example, the SJCPL's subject guide topic Biography includes such helps as Biography, Memoir, what's the difference? , as well as links to related topics which include keeping a journal, blogging, photoblogging and scrapbooking.

In Conclusion . . .

2007-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

The items I most enjoyed learning about were Flickr, Library Thing, and online productivity tools. The items I appreciated being encouraged to re-discover include downloadable books [had never been too interested (beyond what I needed to know to help patrons) because we only have iPods but now that there's an MP3 player in my future--yipee!] and Web 2.0 awards--hadn't checked them out since last year. Also delighted to see how interactive most of the sites are--once you're in Blogger, so many other possibilities open up.

Thanks to our library system for encouraging our continuing education. I've learned so much and have in turn shared sites with interested friends and family members. Looking forward to see what's next . . .

Downloadable Books

2007-09-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hadn't checked the Project Gutenburg page in quite a while and was interested to see what can now be downloaded (in addition to books):

Categories: Audio Book, computer-generated Audio Book, human-read Data Music, recorded Music, Sheet Other recordings Pictures, moving Pictures, still

The Data category includes the Human Genome Project as well as square roots of various numbers(!?).

Also of interest:

Languages with more than 50 books: Chinese Dutch English Finnish French German Italian Portuguese Spanish Tagalog
Languages with up to 50 books: Afrikaans Aleut Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Czech Danish Esperanto Frisian Friulano Galician Gamilaraay Gascon Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Iloko Interlingua Irish Iroquoian Japanese Khasi Korean Latin Lithuanian Maori Mayan Languages Middle English Nahuatl Napoletano-Calabrese North American Indian Norwegian Old English Polish Romanian Russian Sanskrit Serbian Slovak Swedish Welsh Yiddish

Re Maryland's Digital eLibrary Consortium, didn't expect to see downloadable IMAX films! Also enjoyed browsing the Education and Study Aids category.

Podcasts

2007-09-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I don't understand why podcast.net doesn't have any podcasts from 2007. Secondly, I found many podcasts concerning books and libraries, but the topics were all over the place and I didn't see one that consistently had entries that were of interest that I wanted to put on my Bloglines feeds list.

YAHOO podcasts did return search results that were up-to-date presented in a more appealing format.

BELLAGIO FOUNTAIN SHOW - CON TE PARTIRO TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

2007-09-03T10:44:00.001-07:00

I chose this video because it's the fountain show that we saw when we were in Las Vegas last month.

Selected Web 2.0 Award Winners

2007-09-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

upcoming.yahoo.com allows you to choose events according to type, date, location

www.backpackit.com--online organizational tool--keep lists, reminders, plans available no matter where you are

www.zillow.com Find out what the houses you’re interested in should cost and browse listings nationwide

colorblender.com free online tool for color matching and palette design

www.swivel.com Swivel's mission is to make data useful.
Explore and compare data, graphs and maps.
Share insights via email, blog or data downloads.
Upload the data you care about.
If you're curious about data, Swivel is the place for you

Posted Using Google Docs

2007-09-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a revelation. Had no idea that this was possible--love the share and publish aspects. Spreadsheets also--what more could we want??

Technorati

2007-08-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

There are four searches possible when you go to the advanced search page:

Keyword Search
Enter a word or a "phrase in quotes" to see all blog posts that contain your word or exact phrase
URL Search
Enter the URL of a website to see blogs that link to it and what they say.
Tag Search
Enter a category like sports or books to see posts, photos, and links on that subject. Separate tags with "OR" to search multiple subjects.
Blog Directory Search
Enter a category like Photography or Technology to see blogs about that topic.

Del.icio.us

2007-08-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

I've used Yahoo Bookmarks for years to save useful sites that can be accessed from any computer. Del.icio.us just makes the process a bit more streamlined. Instead of copying and pasting addresses, I can just click on the add to Del.icio.us button and Bob's your uncle.

Rollyo

2007-08-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Don't think this is an application that I'll put to much use, but I did set up a search of quilting sites:

LibraryThing

2007-08-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

I already use Novelist Lists to keep track of books but love this site for the social data and ease of adding titles.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=mkherzog&shelf=list

Avatar

2007-08-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

This was the closest I could come to the real me (except for the balloons) and it's me 50 pounds and 20 years ago!! Very sad.

Favorite Library Blog

2007-08-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

The blog I like to check regularly is BooksForKidsBlog, written by a retired elementary librarian. I've read and enjoyed quite a few of her recommendations in the J, Y, and YA categories since I first started to read this blog last spring.

Favorite Flickr Web Application

2007-08-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite Flickr web applications is retrievr, "an experimental service which lets you search and explore in a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch." The rough sketch may also be colored and the images which are retrieved are just beautiful.

Zion National Park

2007-08-22T11:39:00.001-07:00

IMG_0022, originally uploaded by mkherzog.

On the Lower Emerald Pool Trail looking up at the Upper Emerald Pool Trail. That's about the point when I was telling the rest of the family to call for the park rangers to airlift me out!

Flickr

2007-08-22T11:34:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

7 1/2 Habits

2007-08-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

Good habits to practice. The two which I intend to concentrate on are 1) determining goals and 3) viewing problems as challenges.

June 21

2007-06-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

First day of summer, first post to my blog. Thanks to Ann K for her help in getting this set up.