Merry Christmas

I hope Christmas was a wonderful day. It was very quiet and relaxing here. Slept in this morning. After reading my email, I fixed breakfast. Christmas morning is the only day of the year that I plan to fix breakfast. I usually have a muffin and some orange juice for my breakfast. Gerry will fix himself pancakes or eggs and sausage sometimes. Usually its a bowl of cereal for him every morning. I found a recipe online for a bacon, eggs, tomatoes and cheese casserole. It was easy to put together, however, took longer than the stated 35 minutes to bake. It was ok, nothing very exciting.

Dinner on the other hand was very good. I fixed a top sirloin beef roast with some red potatoes. It was so good, tender and could cut it with a fork. I preheated the oven to 425, smoothered the roast with sea salt and a combination of garlic and black pepper. I think it's made by McCormick's. I use it on everything. Anyway, I then roasted it for an hour, shut off the oven and let it sit in there for about 30 minutes while the fresh asparagus steamed. I took the roast out and let it sit for a few minutes before Gerry sliced it. It was a perfect medium rare, just like we like it. The roast was about 3 and a half pounds, so there are leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow. With the potatoes, I cut them in half, salt and peppered them with the garlic/pepper mixture then sprinkled olive oil all over and placed them around the roast. They were kind of crispy on the outside and nice and soft in the middle. My blog friend, Jalna, always takes pictures of the meals that are fixed in her home. Unfortunately, I didn't think ahead and do the same thing. Just take my word for it, it was absolutely ONO which is Hawaiian for YUMMY!!

After I got the kitchen cleaned up, we bundled up and went for a ride to see Christmas lights. First we drove over to Orangevale to Dove Court. All the homes on this court have been decorating their homes for years. I don't remember when it first started, my daughter was in high school when we first visited. You can either drive through or park and walk through. We have done both. Tonight we parked in the parking lot of a church across the street from the court and then walked over. The traffic is always very heavy and lots of people walking through. Even with the economy like it is, the homes were beautifully decorated. We then drove over to Folsom and Granite Bay to look at more lights. We drove through one area in Folsom that overlooks Folsom Lake. The bike club Gerry belongs to rides through there. There was one home that was absolutely huge. There were lights completely surrounding the roof line of the home and all kinds of cut out figures and lights covering the entire yard. It was just breathtaking with all the lights.

We then drove over to Rocklin in Placer County. There is a street there that goes all out with decorated homes. We parked and walked the entire street. It is quite long and goes around in a circle. I couldn't believe I actually walked the whole thing. The last part of it I was fading fast. I have some back issues that make it very difficult to walk long distances. Some homes had animated things and music coordinated with lights. Of course, I didn't think to take a camera.

Oh, I asked for a Bind-It-All by Zutter with some accessories for Christmas. Gerry bought me the V.2 of the machine with the carrying case and a corner rounder punch made by the same company. This machine is used to make altered books with the spiral binding. I've wanted one since they first came out. So now I need to get some of the wire combs and some clipboard and play with it.

I have some projects to post and will try to do that tomorrow.