Christmas Eve is also Verna’s birthday. So, to give her a good early start for it, I fixed one of her favorites for breakfast - country-style biscuits and gravy.

Here’s to having a great birthday, baby!

Tonight we’re watching a football bowl game - the “San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.” I guess that bowl game sponsorship is important these days, but could we just have them call it the “Poinsettia Bowl” and mention all the sponsorship stuff in a subtitle? It probably won’t happen, but it would be nice.

Meanwhile, take a look at this nice poinsettia growing on the front porch. Image credit, Verna. Click to enlarge.

This pretty flower is growing next to Mom’s front porch. I’m not sure about the ‘Christmas Mum’ designation, but why not? The colors are right and ’tis the season . . .

Click on the image to enlarge.

It took me a couple of hours with the electric chain saw, but I managed to get the first cut at removing this fan palm. It took root there several years ago, just after we had the Brazilian Pepper tree removed (it was rotting and messy). At first it seemed to be a nice little palm, but it quickly got out of control as you can see from the ‘before’ panel on the left (click image for larger).

California Fan Palms are like weeds in our part of the state. You can see them growing everywhere - between the cracks in the sidewalks or in vacant fields and even in between the railroad ties along the seldom used spurs.

Eventually, I’ll get these completely removed. In addition to the major trimming I gave the one in the photo, I also dug out a stump from one I cut back a few weeks ago.

Ahhhh . . . the joys of home ownership . . .

Continuing with our Chinese-style weekend cuisine, we prepared this delicious beef broccoli dish. We started last night by cutting up a pound of lean strips of choice top sirloin beef into strips two to three inches in length. The beef goes into a zip lock plastic bag with a mixture of soy sauce, cornstarch and dry sherry to marinate overnight.

The day of the meal, cut up a pound of broccoli into florets. Heat up a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a medium wok. Place the florets in the wok, stir for about 30 seconds, add water, reducing the heat and cover to let the broccoli steam for a couple of minutes then set florets on a plate so they won’t overcook. Return the heat to high, add some more oil to the wok and put in the whole mixture of beef and marinade. Cook another couple of minutes until the beef is almost done. Stir in the florets and continue heating until thoroughly heated and well-mixed.

Meanwhile in a separate pan, prepare some white rice according to the package directions. Serve by placing a scoop of rice in a bowl and top with the beef broccoli mix.

This is delicious and heart-healthy, too.

We just love to prepare meals at home. It’s been a long time since we went to a restaurant.

The last time we ate in a restaurant was on our anniversary this past September at the Silver Legacy Casino in Reno. I can’t remember the time before that, but it was probably in Avalon the year before, also for our anniversary.

Today, we prepared pork loin lo mein; we started with a recipe from Rachael Ray and modified it to suit our taste. In the original recipe, spaghetti is used; we chose to use pre-cooked, refrigerated lo mein noodles from the international section of the supermarket. We omitted the eggs, scallions and mushrooms and used chopped onion, minced garlic, savoy cabbage and bean sprouts. We left out the chicken and used pork loin cut into ¾-inch cubes. We prepared the sauce per the original recipe.

And the result is a wonderful, healthy dish where we see every step of the preparation - we know exactly what goes into the food - unlike in a restaurant where you can only hope that they prepare the meals as you might have.

While much of the country seems to be descending into Winter, this daisy and bee have yet to be convinced of the approaching season. It’s business as usual for them - blooming and buzzing.

Click image to enlarge.