I haven’t shown you a photo of the flowers recently, mostly because I forgot.  But in the intervening weeks I’ve had more red roses, and pink and yellow lillies.  Here are this week’s white gerberas.

And here’s how to blow out the white balance in your white gerberas.

Painful, isn’t it?

Side note: see how the stems are wired and the top of the wires pokes out from some of the flowers?  The first time I saw that, I was like “holy crap, my flowers have HORNS”, until I realised what it was.  You shouldn’t let me near any sharp objects.

Second note: I’m sorry nobody loved my photos of the mushrooms below.  I thought they were pretty cool!

The weather in Melbourne has been mental in November. We suffered through two weeks of 35deg+ weather, but this weekend it’s cold and raining. It rained so much I discovered these little things growing in my front yard!

I don’t think we’ll be eating them for dinner.

I have been promising Jan that I would join in Photo Friday for I don’t know how long now, and finally I have got my butt into gear to do it.

The theme for this week is Thanksgiving.  We do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia so I thought I’d show you something I give thanks for

Shallow?  Yes.  Am I bothered?  Not really.  I am lucky enough to be able to buy these kinds of shoes and I am very thankful for that!

This is the top drawer in my bathroom cabinet.

All those little bottle and jars and tubes are sample sized moisturisers, cleansers, toners, and scrubs.

I’m addicted to buying the full sized deal, but only when they have a “gift with purchase”.

How much of this stuff does one person need?

Last night the boy and I decided to go to the movies.  Well, he decided to he wanted to go and I said yes.  We looked to see what was playing at our local and found only two movies that we’d even heard of: New Moon and 2012.  We went with 2012 because I didn’t think a teenage vampire flick was really to the boy’s taste.

This movie was made by the same man who did Independence Day, which is one of my favourite world-is-ending disaster movies, so I had high hopes for  2012.  Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed.

The basic premise: divorced father-of-two Jackson Curtis is spending the weekend camping with his two children, in an attempt to reconnect with them.  They travel to Yellowstone National Park to find the spot where Jackson used to camp with his former wife, but discover a fenced-off government installation in the same place.  Scientist Adrian somebody-or-other is there testing the temperature of the earth’s core, which apparently is turning liquid (first flaw: the earth’s core is actually liquid right now).  This liquification is caused by some type of neuron thing being sent out from solar flares from the sun, which are becoming bigger and bigger.  A scientist in India discovered it because the water in his well is now boiling.  The government decides to not tell the world, and meanwhile build four enormous “arks” for people to take refuge in when Armageddon happens.  In China, in the Himalayas, because obviously that’s the best place for them.

So yadda yadda the worst happens, faster than anyone predicted, the hero and his kids and ex-wife and her new boyfriend all drive to Las Vegas airport where they find a Russian tycoon and his Antonov 500 plane which just happens to be the only plane that can fly and they head toward China and the arks.  The plane crashes, they are rescued by a local monk whose brother works on the arks and has a plan to get them secretly on board, disasters happen, people die, there’s a moving speech by the scientist when one of the arks breaks and 100,000 people are about be left behind, the ark crashes into Mt Everest, our hero survives, and by this stage I just wanted everyone to shut up already and just DIE!

Honestly, the only good thing about this movie was that it eventually ended.

That’s nearly three hours I’m never getting back in my life.

I don’t know if you’ve ever bothered to go and have a look at The Pioneer Woman’s website.  Having only recently discovered it, I now read it daily.  Ree is funny and smart, and a great cook.  She’s even recently launched her own cookbook.  I don’t usually bother trying recipes I find on other people’s websites or blogs, they often don’t interest me.  But ages ago I bought some tortillas and they’d been sitting in the cupboard for a bit, waiting for me to get inspired and use them.  When I saw Ree’s recipe for White Chicken Enchiladas, I knew I had a winner.

Then I got all inspired to try and be a food photographer, because you know, I don’t take enough photos every day as it is.

So here is my chicken, bubbling away merrily to cook the chicken and make the required broth:

And here are my chopped onions, and chillies, except they weren’t chillies they were capsicums (peppers) because apparently I can’t read, so pause for a moment for an emergency trip to the shop to buy a heap of chillies.  That pause also gave me the chance to stop crying after chopping all that onion.

Here are my two-and-a-half cups of shredded chicken.  At least, I think it’s two-and-a-half cups.  It’s hard to know exactly what two-and-a-half cups of shredded chicken looks like.

After that I forgot to keep taking photos, so all you get to see is one semi-eaten plate of the most delicious chicken enchiladas EVER.

There were so good, we ate them again the next night.

Ree used green chillies in her recipe, but I don’t like THAT much heat in my food so I went for the safer option.  Next time, I might be a bit braver and use half green and half red chillies.  Because there will definitely be a next time!

And if I’m going to keep up this food photography lark, I need a bigger kitchen, more appliances, and better lighting.  Just saying.

I have had these shoes for a while, I can’t even tell you what brand they are but I love them.  They are the only white cream shoes I have in my collection and they are perfect with a summer skirt.

Wait, I remember, they are Diana Ferrari shoes and I should have bought the same style in all three colours.  Dammit.

Today we start the first in an innovative new series here at May Contain Traces of Nuts.

Proudly presenting: My bathroom!

I should explain that the boy and I have an ensuite attached to our bedroom, but it is tiny.  He keeps his stuff in there, and our toothbrush/toothpaste etc is there, but all my stuff, including my hairdryer, lives in the main bathroom.

So what’s in the cupboard?

On the top shelf, left hand side, is my hair stuff.  Shampoo, conditioner, hair smoothing balm, leave in conditioner, more smoothing serum, hairspray.  Next to that, behind the pipe, are several bottles of sunscreen, plus a bottle of aloe vera gel to treat the spots you miss with the sunscreen.   I live in Australia and we do not leave the house without a bottle of sunscreen.  On the right hand side, 26 different body moisturisers.  I buy them faster than I can use them.  And I get them as gifts from people who don’t know what else to buy me.  I’ll use them all eventually.

Bottom shelf, from the left: foot balms and moisturisers and cooling sprays.  I get hot feet.  A lot.  Next, a couple of cans of Aeroguard.  Australia, remember?  Elastoplast for vicious paper cuts, or nasty scratches inflicted by little Huffle Mawson.  Then some vaseline (no idea why that’s even there, I’ve never used it!  How weird.), nail polish remover, eye make up remover (that’s really old, I should throw it out) floss, nasal spray, strapping tape, ear plugs, and some of my various pain killer medication.

Wow, wasn’t that exciting?  Tune in later this week for more bathroom fun .

Because I am having a quiet week I have been trawling through the archives of some of the blogs I read regularly.  I came across this meme (from ages ago) on Jan’s blog and thought I would give it a whirl here.

1. Do you remember learning how to read?  How old were you?

I don’t particularly remember learning to read, I just know I launched into it with great enthusiasm.  I was probably four at the time.  I remember having the mumps when I was quite young and my mother brought home a copy of The Teddy Bear’s Picnic for me and I loved it and read it over and over.  The Famous Five were my absolute favourite books, and I loved Noddy and Big Ears at an early age.  I often wish I had kept my copies of all those classics, but I gave them to my much younger cousin when she was the right age and I don’t think she kept them after reading them.

2. What do you find most challenging to read?

Biographies, unless the person is exceptionally interesting, and historical books,  because I just find them tedious.  I read to be entertained.  I’m not much into science fiction either.

3. What are your library habits?

I am a librarian by training.  I have excellent library habits.  When I was younger and couldn’t afford to buy books I would borrow a dozen at a time from the library.  I haven’t set foot in a library in years now.  I love to buy books and read them again and again if I enjoy them.

4. Have your library habits changed since you were younger?

Yes very much so.  I never borrow anything any more.  My excuse is I spent years working in libraries, so I don’t feel like visiting one now.  It’s a good story and I’m sticking to it.

5. How has blogging changed your reading life?

Yes indeed!  I read a lot of blogs now!  The thing that hasn’t changed is the number of books I still read.  I love to read for entertainment and I am always looking out for great books to read.  I’ll always listen to others recommendations too.  Deb recommended The Time Traveller’s Wife to me and whilst it is not a book I would have picked up myself, I bought and and read it and enjoyed it a lot.  Except the ending   Someone recommended Snow Falling on Cedars to me many years ago, so I borrowed it from that person and hated every page.  I stopped reading at about page 100 because it was doing my head in.

6. What percentage of your books do you get from new book shops, secondhand book shops, the library, online exchange sites, online retailers, other?

All my books come from new bookshops.  I only rarely buy from online retailers if there’s something I can’t find in a bookshop in Australia.

7. How often do you read a book and review it on your blog? What are your reasons for blogging about a book?

I don’t often review the books I read on my blog because I am not good at giving a short synopsis of a story before giving my opinion.  So a review from me would only include my opinion of the book, and give you NO clue about the actual story.  Having said that, I have talked about The Time Traveller’s Wife in recent times, but if you go and look at that review, I think you’ll agree it was fairly useless to anyone hoping to find out what the book was about   Because I don’t usually read “serious” books, I guess I think people wouldn’t be interested in my opinion of the latest Clive Cussler novel anyway.  And I’m okay with that.

8. What are your pet peeves about the way people treat books?

People who fold down page corners.  Use a bookmark, for crying out loud!

9. Do you ever read for pleasure at work?

Sadly, no.  I work in the environmental field and there is no pleasurable reading to be had.  It’s mostly doom and gloom.

10. When you give people books as gifts, how do you decide what to give them?

I’d probably ask what they like to read, any favourite authors, styles, something they’ve heard about and might be interested in.  I wouldn’t like it if someone picked a random book for me without knowing my tastes, so I wouldn’t do that to someone else.

Because I have no patience whatsoever, I’ve given up on delurking week. I know they’re out there, but if they want to be anti-social, that’s fine by me. On to more important things. Like my fruit trees.

The orange tree:

The lime tree:

The lemon tree:

Exciting, isn’t it?