This morning I slept in, gloriously, until 9am. Or rather, I lay in bed until then, before finally giving up because cats view the slightest cracking of the eyelids as a sign of weakness and then begin, in approximately ten to fifteen minute intervals, to walk across my pillow (Rosie and Zucchini), demand to burrow under the covers (Azzie and Checkers), or simply sit on the end table beside me and whine (all of the above). The only reason Sebastian wasn’t part of the whole ‘pester Jennifer until she gets out of bed’ event was that, as I discovered once I *did* finally haul myself out of bed, he was still firmly ensconced in my computer chair, where I had left him the night before. As for Tangerine, well, she is the sole cat in the house who does not feel duty-bound to be near me / on me at every opportunity (because the minute she laid eyes on Richard eight years ago, I was reduced to nothing more than chopped liver) so she was curled cutely into one of the sofa pillows upstairs and taking no part at all in the festivities.

For breakfast we had gingerbread bagels, picked up at Panera on the way down to visit the in-laws yesterday, and they were surprisingly tasty. I’d pondered going to the farmer’s market, but most of the groceries we needed weren’t going to be available there, so instead we headed off to Safeway. This required a slight detour in the route, as there was a run going on downtown, and some of the roads were blocked off by police cars and a whole lot of people waving flags and playing very loud and energetic music.

One of the reasons we needed to go to the store was to pick up eggs, because the Meyer lemons in our backyard have been ripe for a few weeks now and this meant it was time to make more lemon curd. And lemon curd, being such an oh-so-healthy recipe (uh – *not*) requires eggs. It also requires a whole bunch of butter and sugar. But the key ingredient, and the reason I was looking forward to making it, is that it uses up a whole pile of those cute little Meyer lemons our tree produces. Even with a double-batch of the stuff, though, once again I have barely made a dent in our lemon supply. Not to worry – I’ve been bookmarking some likely recipes for other ways to use up large quantities of lemons, and still leave enough left to foist, whole, on unsuspecting friends and relations.

Richard hosted the End-of-Nanowrimo party at our house this afternoon, so in preparation we did a little bit of cleaning, and then dragged all the Christmas decorations down from the attic. There’s still the tree and the lights inside and out to put up, but the house already looks a bit more festive, with all the nutcrackers placed carefully on the ledges over the doors, and all of our little nativity sets lined up on top of the piano (note to family – piano is full, do not need *any* more nativity sets; well, okay, if you find one that has either Cthulu, gargoyles, or daleks, we can discuss it).

People started to show up for the party, so I retired to the computer room with a cat and a book until it was time for me to head back to the church for the second concert. We made a few changes, mainly to our entrance and exit for the first half, which worked out extremely well, and overall, I think we did a fantastic job. But I have to admit that the very best part about the concert being over is knowing that I do not have to worry about music or singing for the rest of the calendar year.

We ate a pretty light lunch, since we knew people would bring food for the party, so by the time I got home this evening I was very, very hungry (not having had access to pot luck party food like Richard). So I took advantage of the fact that we actually have eggs in the house, and made myself an omelet for dinner, just because for some reason it sounded good. In case you were wondering, a teensy bit of homemade Meyer lemon curd on top of a plain cheese omelet is a very good thing. Dipping tiny little chocolate cookies into the remains of the lemon curd, followed by a dollop of whipped cream, is even better.

Tis the season for Holidailies!