Chopped

GREENERY: What once was a big bowl of green tomatoes is now several jars of spicy salsa!

We chopped up the greenies and wound up with about 12 cups of them.

We used a recipe found online, but changed a couple of things (adding salt and garlic, for instance).

While they didn't come to full fruition (so to speak), we're so happy to have saved the tomatoes we so lovingly raised from mere seeds last spring. It would have been a shame for them to wind up on the compost pile. Instead, they'll be going in omelettes and on nachos and tacos and such for weeks to come!

BRAIN TRAINING: We continue to really enjoy learning about psychology, thanks to, in effect, tagging along with college student CJ's psych 101 class.

This morning we watched an entertaining video about learning, or re-learning, to ride a bike.


HIDDEN HISTORY: Once of the Facebook groups I belong to is Seattle Vintage. It's a treasure trove of old photos and factoids about the Emerald City.

Today, someone posted a link to this video about the Seattle Underground by Geographics. It recounts the Great Seattle Fire, how "seamstresses" were an important part of the Seattle economy, the effect of the Klondike Gold Rush and the bubonic plague on Seattle, and more.

Around the House

NOT SEEING RED: It's cold, stormy, and late October. We have about four dozen tomatoes that are just not going to make it to red this season. 

This morning, I Googled our options, and it looks like some green tomato salsa is in our future. Maybe even a bit of relish. 

We certainly had more than our fair share of red tomatoes this year, so I can't complain.

BALLOON HANDS: Annabelle has a special cake to make this week for a gala fund raiser for Birthday Dreams. Of course, doesn't that sound like the perfect time to start experimenting with a new cake decorating technique? ;)

She wants to recreate the Birthday Dreams logo for a cake topper. It involves a heart (that will be easy), and a couple of balloons (not so easy). 

We'd both heard about making edible 'balloons' for cakes out of gelatin and food coloring, and decided to give that a go on Sunday afternoon.

You dissolve gelatin in water (a 1:2 ratio), add color and luster dust if you want, heat it for 15 seconds in the microwave, and then start dipping your balloons in the liquid. It makes a terrible mess, in case you were wondering.

You hang them out to dry for a day or so.

So attrition can be expected. A couple of our balloons deflated, for instance. However, we used the rejects to practice removing the balloons, and to test how set up they were.

Actually, even our reject ones are kind of pretty, so I think the others will look pretty darn good!

THE FLOOD, PART 2: So, a month or so ago, our basement had a bit of a flood during a storm-for-the-ages event. 

Turns out, it wasn't a one time deal. 

This past Thursday night, another crazy front hit our hill. Lightning, thunder, hail and bucket and buckets of rain, some of which wound up in our basement. Again.

Because we can't really have this become a regular event, we started casting about for mitigation ideas. We quickly honed in on this uncovered stairwell leading down below as the Number One problem when it comes to letting water in where it shouldn't be.

Thankfully, Christian came up with the great idea of building a little roof over it. We started that on Sunday, and as of Monday afternoon it's now all framed in and we're just waiting for some dry weather so we can waterproof the plywood. 

The design even includes a hinge to lift the roof up on the rare occasion we actually use that stairway). 

We're optimistic this will staunch the vast majority of problematic precipitation.