I seemed to get a lot done yesterday. I made salsa, red food. I worked on my cross stitch, red floss. I went to Long Now to hear about kinetic art, red theater seats, and today I tasted the salsa, too sweet. This got me seeing red. I spent a lot of time working on the salsa yesterday to only mess up one thing. I did not cut the sugar amount in half when I halved the recipe. I guess that is what happens when you should have really eaten lunch but waited until your canning was complete.

Overall, I got some really great pictures though. I loves how red these tomatoes are. They were super ripe, so it made for easy slipping of the skins.





They were super fragrant and wonderfully juicy. I did not have to squeeze them at all for extra cooking juice for the vegetable mix of peppers and onions.



The cooking went well and did not take up much time. Like I said, all was well except forgetting to cut the sugar in half. After all the work, I only ended up with two full pints and one filled three quarters of the way, so it had to go in the fridge.



This takes me to what I am going to do to fix the problem. After some quick consultation with Dan for some ideas, I have decided to get four more pounds of tomatoes from the market on Sunday and make another half batch with out the sugar. Then I will open up the jars and pour them in and bring the mix back up to boiling for a few minutes. Then it will go back into clean jars and into the canner for reprocessing. Hopefully this works out for a better salsa. I also found that there was no heat to the salsa despite adding three full jalapeno peppers, seeds and all to the salsa. Now, I am not a big spice person, so this was a real shocker to me. I am going to add three more peppers to this half batch, and hopefully we will get some heat back into this.

Today up in the Etsy Store I am listing some new red gerbera daisy hair flowers. I really like them. They are a beautiful crimson shade with dark brown to black middles. They also have the same sturdy silver bobby pins for maximal placement possibilities.





Today I am determined to sew up a new pair of black sari pants for the store. I have had them cut out for a long time, but I have been too busy with canning and housekeeping to get to them. Today is the day. I also have the last of the tent adjustments to make at 826 Valencia. Hopefully I can squeeze in some muffin baking as well. Tomorrow I will post my thoughts on the Long Now talk from last night. For now the thoughts are still marinading.

Yesterday it was a contest between digging though books at the library to expand my jam and jelly recipes or to make cookies. Cookies won out hands down. I made white chocolate chip macadamia nut for Dan. Now I know that the white chocolate lovers out there sometimes get upset about the constant pairing of their chips and the macadamia nut, but it really is a winning combination.



I listed up some destashed jewelry making items yesterday. I placed some lanyard clips on the Etsy Store. The current listing is for a lot of 30, but I do have several more lots of them here. If you are interested in a larger quantity, please just let me know, and I will set up a special listing just for you.





Today I am going to finish up the deep clean of the house. There are still the bathrooms to tackle. After all that is finished, I am off to the library for that book hunt and some pants sewing as well. I am still working on the hand sewing and finishing of the elephant and peacock belt. It is finally coming along. I am still finishing off the tassels for it and need to hang them out before their final trim. Only eight more of those to go. I am also working on some hairflower listings today once I sign off of the blog. I will post the pictures here of the newly listed ones tomorrow. Check back to see them as they are quite lovely.

Last night I got the cooking bug which meant I spent two hours cooking and amazing dinner. I made 40 garlic clove chicken for the first time. I used a Cook's Illustrated recipe that was to die for. I am still trying to find all sorts of new ways to use the massive amounts of garlic we bought at the Gilroy Garlic Festival a few weeks ago. I think we will be set with garlic for the year still! I made a brown rice with fresh herbs from the balcony garden and broccoli to round out the meal. We finished off with a fresh peach cobbler.



It was one of the best ones I have ever turned out. I guess practice makes perfect on this one. I used the left over peaches that would not peel from the canning day. When they wouldn't peel I, in frustration, just cut them into slices thinking I would find something to do with them. This was it, and it really hit the spot.

The summer film festival continued in the living room last night. We are trying to watch all sorts of movies this summer that we have missed out on when we were too busy with college or work or that we just have always wanted to see but never got the chance. It has been a fun way to spend evenings and a good way for Dan to unwind.

I am posting late because I wanted to capitalize on the early morning sunshine coming through the windows to take product pictures. Usually the mornings are foggy, so when I get a sunny one, I want to take full advantage. Here are two unedited pictures of some hair flowers that I will be listing next week:





The medium purple ones are similar to the current purple pair in the shop, only they are a tone darker. The red ones are a wonderfully stunning tone of scarlet. They look amazing, and I almost want to keep them for myself. I also have a great pair of magnolias but the sunlight had shifted too much for me to be able to photograph them today. Hopefully I will get a chance early next week.

Today is the final approach on the skirt repairs so that I will have it in time for class tonight. I would love to also get my new black choli done, but I am sure that is pressing my luck seeing as I did not get all my letter writing done yesterday and there is laundry and house sprucing up to do today. I will, however, keep my fingers crossed.

I had a little time yesterday to take photos of the new hair flowers I have put together. I even got one set listed today on the Etsy Store. They are beautiful brick red dahlias that I think would look great either on stage or out on the town this spring and summer. I love their spiky petals that turn from red to yellow to a green at the inner most points.



Today is really busy. I have a lunch meeting today with a friend followed by tutoring at 826 Valencia. Then I am leading a choreography session at Ariellah's studio. Needless to say, not much is getting done on the quilt order today. I hope to get a ton done tomorrow while I tackle the laundry. I have no other plans to go out on Friday, so hopefully I can get this accomplished. I need to pack up all the stuff for my various trips today still, so I better hop to. It will be time to leave for SF before I know it!