I’ve used googledocs for a couple of years to communicate with the members of a committee I’ve been chairing (Ezra Jack Keats Awards).
At first, some of the committee members had trouble figuring out how to open the docs, but they seem to have overcome that. It’s easy for me to make spreadsheets (of the titles submitted, for example) and to keep them updated. It’s easy to make corrections, etc.
One of my sons was putting together a resume and we found googledocs was a useful tool for suggesting revisions. I imagine it’s a wonderful way to do collaborative writing projects.
So, I’m a fan of googledocs, but my current FAVORITE feature the clever people at google have come up with is the ability to “undo” a sent email message when you realize that you hit “send” too soon. You know–like when you realize you locked your keys in the car just as you hear the click of the door closing? or when you feel that Cheerio under your foot on the kitchen floor, but it’s too late to pull back? Click “undo”!!!
What will they think of next?
My mother’s 90th birthday is New Year’s Day and my sister-in-law has instigated a major knitting project–an Aran Isle afghan in which each square is different. You can see all the squares at: http://theraineysisters.com/?page_id=319
It’s keeping me off the streets!
Happy 2009, everyone!
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon genuine almond extract
1 quart Italian prune plums
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup of sugar and cream together thoroughly. Add eggs one at a time and beat until mixture is light. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into the butter/egg mixture until well-blended. Stir in almond extract. Spread the batter into a deep, buttered, square pan. Cut the plums into halves, lengthwise, remove the pits and place the halves–skin-side down–in rows over the batter, pressing them slightly into the dough. Combine cinnamon with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and sprinkle over top of the cake. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Cut into squares and serve with whipped cream or–my recommendation–high quality vanilla ice cream.
Notes: I tripled the recipe for the Children’s Services meeting last Tuesday. Usually I double it and bake it in a 9×13″ dish. Italian prune plums have a woefully short season. You can find them for about two weeks every Autumn. (I actually made the cake ahead of time and froze it, when it dawned on me that the plums wouldn’t be available the night before the meeting…) I have tried making the cake substituting small Bosc pears. I cut them in half, lengthwise, cored them, and alternated the necks and rounded bottoms to fit them into the pan. I used 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon allspice with the sugar in the topping. It was pretty good, but not as good as with the plums. Use butter, not margarine! Use real almond extract, not imitation! (I hate it when people don’t follow the recipe and them blame me because it doesn’t taste right…)
that'll make a lotta latkes
John Sexton says it’s a good thing just to play with this blog, so that’s what I intend to do.
But what to play? Scrabble? Hangman? Music? Films? I don’t even know what the capabilities of this software are. I guess if I work up my nerve to experiment I’ll find out…
