Terrific Taters

It's Mother's Day. I've had a lovely day and thought I'd blog a little. I had been meaning to post about baked potatoes for a while now. I don't know why, but baking potatoes always intimidated me. That, and making rice. Thanks to my crockpot, and my beautiful electrified rice cooker, I am now a rice and potato goddess. I discovered about 2 years ago that I can make baked potatoes in my crockpot. Since I have the "Big Mama" of crockpots, I can make 7 humdinger sized potatoes with no problem. Awesome!!

The details?

Wash your taters and scrub them clean. Or, if you like to eat dirt, and I've heard that there are those that do, then just skip that step. Next, I take a fork and poke each one about 5 or 6 times. I'm not sure why, but that's what all the recipes I've seen tell me to do. I have visions of potatoes exploding and covering my kitchen ceiling, so I don't mess with this part of the recipe. Always poke the potatoes!! Then, I take a stick of butter and I smear it all over the potato. Now, if you're not going to eat the skin, or you like the taste of dirt, I don't suppose you need to do this. However, it makes me feel a little bit gourmet when I drench them with butter...and I know how much you love butter! Who doesn't I'd like to know!! I plop those babies in the CP and cook on low for about 8 hours...or high for about 4. They come out steaming hot and fall-apart delicious. Then, you can put MORE fat on them... butter, cheese, sour cream... mmmm. I'll take two. After all, they ARE vegetables.

Out With the Ugly, In With the Pretty!

In my effort to get myself together for the beginning of our new school year, I dutifully decided I needed to clean our carpet. Have you ever had new carpet? If you have, you probably remember how wonderful it felt under your feet. And, I always make the sweeping proclamation, "By order of the Queen, there shall be no eating or drinking in the royal family room!" But, what do you do when the King decides to eat his nightly bowl of cereal in said family room? Or, he makes popcorn for everyone watching the movie while the Queen is at Walmart? Anyway, I was an IDIOT for choosing light colored carpet when we built this house. Anyway, as I tried to clean it, I became progressively depressed. It is truly disgusting. Do you see those dark places that look like shadows? They're NOT! They are stains. When we built the house, we chose the carpet at a local carpet store that is now out of business. Unfortunately, we have no idea what kind of carpet it is...or the maker. So, we don't know if there's even a warranty.

These are pictures of our family room. The lighter patches by the wall, that has been hidden under the couch, are what the carpet is SUPPOSED to look like..
Here is a picture of our school room. That large dark patch is where every one's feet go as we sit at the computer. Ugh!! The light spot in the corner is what the carpet is SUPPOSED to look like. What was I thinking!!??

It was with great trepidation that we decided to recarpet the family and school room. I chose a darker color of carpet. I ordered it 3 weeks ago, hoping against hope that it would be here before school started. Naturally, it wasn't. So, after many painstaking hours of cleaning, planning, organizing, and moving stuff around, I had to completely undo everything I had done and moved everything out of the school room, as well as the family room. Well, the carpet was installed on Friday, and it is lovely. It only took them about 2 hours...it took me 2 days to put everything back where it belongs...but it was worth it.

I got it on sale at Lowe's and then signed up for a credit card for an extra 10% off. I would have loved to have done the stairs too, but the budget wouldn't allow it right now. It's a light, slivery blue. It looks darker in the school room because there's not as much light...just one window. The family room has lots of light, so the carpet looks lighter. So, we're going to try to go at least one week without eating in either room... wish me luck!