India In My Dreams

With sweet Guiathrie and precious, precious Rukmini

We are still camping on the Oregon Coast. This morning I woke up at 6am, which was better than the night before, when I was awake at 1am until 3:30. But I knew I did not want to stay awake, and I certainly did not want to awaken my sleeping children (too early for action) so I finished watching a movie about children going to school in India (5th attempt because I get so sleepy when I watch movies!),in preparation for doing Sonlight Level 5 in homeschool for some of my kids. Then I laid quietly until I went back to sleep for another hour.

During that hour, I had the privilege of going back to India "on my way" to somewhere else (?!!) and WITH MY GRANDMA! When awake, I have wished my Grans could see the Happy Home. Since she is no longer able bodied enough to go there with me in real life, I guess getting to see her be there, even in a dream, is an answer to a prayer.

Me with my Lil Gramsies, 2009

Doesn’t she look like she’d ooze love and grandmotherliness to the kids?

I loved seeing the look of surprise on each of the children’s faces when they saw I was back so soon. Some yelled "Tiffany Aka!", and some cried out "Mommy!". They were bright eyed with interest at seeing my grandmother.

I just stood there hugging and holding -- and I cried the entire time because I knew I could only stay one day. You know, since I was "on my way" somewhere else (?!!).

It was a sweet dream, although I was so overcome with emotion that I was struggling to remember, associate, and say their names. This is a real fear of mine since I would never want even one of them to think I don’t remember them.

Well, I am awake now, and so is the rest of this little trailer. So I best get moving along. But I’ve got India and some really precious kids on my mind today…

Menu Plan Monday, August 16-22, 2010, Camping In A Trailer

If you are just popping in to look at my menu, I'd love it if you joined my SoupFest starting in October. Find out more by clicking on my button below.

MENU PLAN MONDAY

Since we’re camping, I figured I’d share with you one meal per day from my trailer style camping menu for this week’s meals with you. You will notice that I use my crockpot and rice cooker. When you have electricity, both of these items come in handy to save time in the kitchen and/or space in the cooler.

In addition to some of our main meals, I use the crockpot to make desserts using fresh produce I find in the local area where we are camping. This week I have pre-measured and brought with us the dry ingredients I need for both Nutty Apple Streusel and Black and Blue Cobbler and I will decide which to make when I see which ingredients I can find most cheaply have most readily available. (To skip my ramblings about cooking in a dutch oven or over a campfire, scroll down to menu plan).

Another thing I love to do for my family is to make food in my cast iron dutch oven with charcoal briquettes. I dig a small pit (or one of my menfolk digs it for me) and put some heated briquettes on the bottom of the hole and on the lid of the dutch oven. This week I plan to use it to take advantage of fresh peaches. I will rub a cube of butter all over the inside of the pan to help prevent food from sticking too badly. Then I will throw into the pot about 12 peeled and sliced peaches, some tapioca beads, and a little cinnamon. I learned about tapioca from my aunt a few years ago, when we were having a family campout. It was the first time I attempted to make anything in a pit in my dutch oven and it turned out very juicy and wet. The tapioca helps to absorb that peachy goodness. Then I dump a (partial) box of yellow or butter cake mix on top of the peach mixture and at least an entire cube of some butter, cut into pats and evenly distributed over cake mix. I find cake mix to be very sweet, so I only add enough to cover the top, and I don’t add sugar. Cooking time varies, depending on which dutch oven I use, how many and what kind of briquettes, etc., so check it often as you are first trying it. It’s done when the peaches are tender, but not too mushy.

At the campfire, we will be roasting biscuit dough. If you buy the pre-made biscuits in the pop open tube, roast half a biscuit at a time by stretching it all around your roasting fork, pretzel style. It takes some practice but you will eventually get the hang of it. After it is roasted, we dip it in melted butter, then cinnamon and sugar. We love this tradition!

If we make S’mores, we often use Reeses instead of chocolate bars. I don’t like marshmallows, so I roast my Reeses over the fire for just a few seconds so it gets gooey and then I put it between two graham crackers.

Do you enjoy camping? Do you have any shortcuts or tricks you use to save time cooking while you are at the campground? Do you have any favorite camping or campfire recipes? I’d love to use them! I am especially interested in recipes which call for cooking on, in (foil packets, etc.) or above a campfire.

Monday: Taco Soup - I brown the beef before we leave home. Today, before we leave for the lake, I will throw all of the ingredients into my crockpot. When we come back to our little trailer, it will smell good, and dinner will just be minutes away from being served.

Tuesday: Sausage Skillet Supper – I brown the sausage before we leave home. In the morning ,when I first get up, I start the rice cooker. Once again, I throw all of the ingredients into the crockpot, and set it to low, before we leave for that day’s activities. This recipe was originally found, years ago,in one of my Taste Of Home magazines. I substituted brown rice for white and made it my own:)

Wednesday: Burritos and Taco Salad – I have already browned and seasoned the ground beef, so all I have to do is heat up the beef and refried beans then put out a whole bunch of other choices and let everyone build their own.

Thursday: Turkey Wraps – I like the pre-made jalapeno artichoke dip from Costco spread on a tortilla with turkey added, then heated. When it comes out, I add tomato and a few Kettle BBQ Chips (Kettle does not use MSG). Little kids or those who don’t like spicy food can substitute cream cheese or cheddar.

Friday: French Dips with grilled onion and mushrooms, served with melted cheese on toasted bun (we use our trailer oven for this)

Saturday: Chili Haystacks: Premade or canned chili, topped with Fritos and cheese, then melted.

Sunday: Clean out the ice box!

I hope you can squeeze in at least one more camping trip this summer. Well, unless you are like some of my friends who "don't camp" and "prefer 5 star resorts". In that case, I hope the bedbugs don't bite.

You totally know who you are.

Homeschooling: Year 16, Picture Week

Yes, that's right. I said it. Year 16. What of it?
Since all who know me know I am 29 and full of bologna, that means I was 13 when we started on this particular journey.

As of a couple months ago, I have TWO (2) graduates.

My eldest, Mr. Linguistics, will be beginning his last year of studies at university to earn his B.A in Linguistics and is debating whether to go on and earn his PhD. Right this minute he is working at a mission in Zimbabwe and loving it. I think he wants to stay there...

Photo by Tyler Gould

My second son, Mr. Economist, recently graduated high school and already has one year of college under his belt. He will finish up his Associate’s Degree at community college then transfer to a 4 year, probably to earn his B.A. in Economics, with an eye heavily on the alternative energy field.

Photo by Kyle Kennedy

So, ya, I don’t homeschool them anymore.

But I do have four additional children, three of whom are school aged and who stay here at home, with me, and expect some sort of an education. Other than the one they are giving me, I mean. For reals, you who homeschool – and even just anyone who is a parent! Don’t you totally feel like you are getting just as much of an education as the one you are facilitating for your kids?


My third son, Mr. FunGuy, is a sophomore this year. He will be doing Sonlight Level 300, along with a bunch of other stuff. He loves most things with engines and being hyperactive, and astounds me with his physical ability. Not to mention, his 24 pack. Geesh.


Mr. Congeniality is living through The Year of the Teeth. He is never quite sure how to smile. So he is shy about letting me take pictures. I took some great ones today but we are camping in our little trailer and I forgot to pack the card reader to upload them. So this cell phone picture of him (below), with Person, will have to suffice for the time being. We’ll be doing Sonlight Level 5 (my favorite level!) along with his other subjects. This boy loves to fish and can’t wait to hunt. He also loves his little brother and sister and teaches them all sorts of things, mostly good.



But ya, we are camping, so I don’t have access to the beautiful pictures I took today, just for this post. But this one was taken just a couple weeks ago, at the county fair, of my one and only daughter, Mimmers. She also is doing Sonlight Level 5, along with other subjects, including math from Right Start. This girl is a mini-mama. She thinks everything her little brother does is adorable (“but Mom, he’s so cuhyute”), even when it is naughty. She bakes a mean loaf of bread all by herself, from scratch, in my breadmaker and knows how to cook a couple of main dishes already too!

We call my little man The Person. His main subject is distracting everyone else from getting their stuff done.

And he is the youngest of six, so I guess he’s been rewarded in his attempts pretty much every time he’s tried. Ferocious Beast. I’m camping. In the dark woods. I should never have looked at these

pictures right before bed.

Hmm, funny how I happen to have so many pictures on hand for this kid…

Did I already he say, um, he’s the last of six kids?

He’s quite a strategist. In more ways than one…

To see more proud moms brag tell you about their kids, go to this blog hop. This week is picture week. Moms are sharing pictures of their kids for the beginning of the school year. Like I just did.

I hope you are squeezing out every last drop of summer!

Soup's On Saturday! III

Sorry to interrupt your summer and all but, since today is Saturday, I thought I'd announce the upcoming Soup's On Saturday!, Edition III. Because it's coming up sooner than I'd like to think!

If you have read my blog for awhile, you already know what S.O.S. is. If you have not, you can read about it here. This year, I thought it would be nice to also suggest that you may also comment about your favorite store bought or ready made soup and/or share links to articles about any given theme.

I LOVE soup! If you love soup too, you will want to 1) Participate, 2) Tell your friends, 3) Grab my S.O.S. button from my sidebar for your blog too, 4) Look on my sidebar to check out the great links I have posted from the last couple of years!

Below is my tentative schedule of each week's soup theme. I have tried to make each theme coordinate with what you might be doing or enjoy at that time. I am hoping to throw a contest or two in there as well!

October 2: Soup, The Basics

October 9: Freezing and Canning Soups

October 16: Tasty Veggie Soups

October 23: Dry Soups and Mixes

October 30: Sides for Soups

November 6: Soups with Toppings

November 13: Soups for a Crowd

November 20: Soups Using Poultry

November 27: Soups With A Theme

December 4: I’m Just Stewing

December 11: Soups With Tradition

December 18: Ham Soups (or any Pork)

December 25: What A Crock

January 1: Diet Soups

January 8: Soups For Sickies

January 15: I Am Wild and I Got Game

January 22: Gettin’ A Little Chili

January 29: Beef Soups

February 5: CONTEST: Using Leftovers For Soup

February 12: Cream Of…

February 19: Spring and Summer Soups

February 26: Comfort Soups

March 5: Best Of

You may now return to your regularly scheduled summer already planning for fall!

Homeschool Room, A Work In (a little bit of ) Progress

If you came over from Heart of the Matter, please tell me you stopped in! If you didn't, you might want to check it out! This week is schoolroom week...

Several years ago we decided to add on to our house. One of the rooms we planned to add was a homeschool room.

We had always used our home comfortably, but it sure sounded nice to have a room dedicated to all of the books and crafts, etc. which come along with homeschooling. That way we’d have everything all in one place. Especially since, at that time, we had 5 school-aged children. That’s alot of stuff.

So build we did. And we made glorious plans for all of the wonderful things we’d include. Ohhh, the sheer joy of envisioning everything we’d learn, and all of the crafts and projects we’d do there. It was gonna be gooooddd.

Then, a certain worldwide business machine company my husband worked for changed their mind about something pretty important. And the effect on us was alot of money. NOT in our pockets. Which had been promised.

So, the addition was built and we were pretty far along, but we simply. ran. out. of. money. $$$

HALT.

Since then, that room has been a storage room, a garage sale prep room, a rabbit dormitory and a homeschool storage area, among other things.

Disclaimer: Let me be clear, I am not complaining. I am grateful that I have the space and all of the beautiful things it already contains. I am grateful I even get to stay home with my kids, not to mention homeschool them. I know that many are struggling now. And we’re okay, we just have an unfinished addition. And I know there are many of you who would just like to pay your light bill.

This year, it is my hope to use it, as is, for it’s originally intended purpose. Because we built it. And, hey, the kids are not getting any younger (Drat those kids!!).

So, today, I am swallowing my pride, and I am going to show you some pictures of the room in pretty raw form. Then I am going to tell you a few of my ideas and inspirations and invite you to help me make it be the best it can be, in it’s present form, for little to no money.

Basic idea, view from door. To my left, about 2 feet inside the door on the same wall as the shelves you see here, is the plumbing for the farm sink.

Some of the high points (dreams come true) are:

~ The old time light fixtures that came from the same molds as old schoolhouse light fixtures. I adore those!

~ In the big box against the wall is our 30” Porcher Farm sink. Waiting. And our plumbing fixtures are in the box on top of it.

~ All of the big windows and french doors, allowing us to enjoy the views, inviting us to participate in all of the warmth and greens and nature and natural light.

~ Soft, yet bright, yellow walls. I love yellow!

The two main basic things that are still missing are the flooring and the trim around the floors. You can see the sub-flooring has also seen better days!

We have the trim all stained and ready to go. The flooring we chose is made of cork and cut so it looks like planks, similar to this:

It is a highly durable material, and is made with renewable resources. This guy has some interesting information about cork flooring.

I have talked about painting the floor while we wait to save the rest of the money we need for the flooring. But we keep thinking we are close, so just haven’t yet.

North and east facing windows

Current reading area

I envision having a reading area. We use a literature based curriculum. And we read alot anyway. I hope to find some kind of comfy couch and/or chairs on Craigslist or at the Goodwill to place here.

We already had the area rug, so it is there for now. We already had the pillows too. The reverse sides are animal prints. I am thinking of recovering them. Or I may just move them back to the family room.

The little 60’s cart was my grandparents. It is brown and getting beat up looking. I may repaint it. Because the books we read change all of the time, I thought this would be a sweet way to keep our current books handy to our reading area. It also holds my youngest son’s coloring lap tray, and can hold other learning things to keep him busy. It’s also a good place for our file box. It holds chore cards, memory cards and cue cards to study for tests.

East facing door and west facing wall, which adjoins our living room. The big bump contains our chimney. The picture was hung when something taller was there. I don’t usually hang art very high.

All three of the desks were given to us by friends who were moving out of state. They are not exactly what I had in mind, but free is a very good price and I am grateful I have these desks for now. I had grand ideas for built in custom counters, cabinets and desks, and shelves going all the way up to the ceiling in this area, to take advantage of the vertical space (you can’t tell here, but it is a very high ceiling), which we would access via an old (or old looking, safety first!) ladder.

(Note: Regrettably, not my room. Just a great example of what I’d like.)

This picture, that I just now found in a great feature by Country Living, is ALOT like what I had in mind, down to the look of the plank wood floors and the farm table (in fact, there is lots of other fun inspiration in that piece!). Ours would include low counters or wide sills for ant farms, butterfly cocoons, and other small animal habitats, our interactive globe, microscope, etc.

I’d love cabinets like these:

Those cabinets (above) are very close in color to our bathroom cabinets, and I love it. But I think we will eventually go with white cabinets since the doors are white and the walls are yellow. I’d love butcher block tops too, but it depends on what else we settle on and when. We may go with black. The picture above even has a farm style sink. And I love the lower counter right next to the sink too!

My little desk area (I found the sweet old chair at the Goodwill for under ten dollars)

I am trying to decide if this area should be for school related work only, or if I should find a way to store other items such as stationery, bill paying center, etc.

Right now I have some contraband naked bottom photos of my kids. Those are the six 8X10 pictures you see above.I had each child photographed in the same pose between 6-7 months, laying on their tummy, bare naked. They are very sweet and innocent. But one of my older boys decided recently that it was time for them to disappear. So I am trying to honor his wishes while still being able to enjoy something I love. I doubt he will even notice they are there. At least not for a long time.

The other piece of “art” is a dream board. I recently participated in a Bible study based on the book of Ruth. One of the assignments was simply to dream, and to make something where we could visualize some of our dreams. That might sound simple, but it was quite an undertaking for me. I will talk about that in another post. Under the dream board, hanging on a hook, is my literal, written (but still partial) Bucket List, inside a little bucket.

Because, where else in a house do you put something like that? I also plan to hang some precious photos I took in India somewhere in this area. And, obviously, I need some kind of shelving and storage. Oh, and do you see the cute blue file folders on my desk? Take note, because I am going to bring them up again.

Here is the current storage solution. The shelves were free, from the same people who gave us the desks. Just to the left of these shelves is where the plumbing is for the farm sink.

I prefer not to have all of the clutter exposed. I am working at tidying it up but, eventually, I hope to have more enclosed cabinets. I am searching for some solutions on how to store notebooks too (you have any ideas on this?). Because their shape just irritates me as they don’t line up nicely on the shelves. And I have set a goal to use up alot of those craft items on the bottom shelves before the school year is over!

A piece of art I love (you can see in picture above where it is hanging). I found it at the Goodwill a few years back and thought it would be perfect for a homeschool room.

Since I think the light prevented you from being able to see in the picture above, I thought I’d show you our homeschool security system, Boris. If you look closely, you can even see where he slimed the window. LOL.

As I have mentioned before, I recently took a trip to India. And, yes, part of my heart stayed there when the rest of me flew home. I have been wanting to come up with a way to include that beautiful, bright, Indian blue you so often see there. So far, I have not worked it into our house.

Near Mother Teresa’s Home For the Destitute and Dying, Kolkata

Two beautiful children I love

I will be framing the pictures above, as well as others with blue, above my desk. This brings me back to the blue file folders. And the pillows I might recover. And how I want to tidy up the shelves.

I want to keep the room somewhat farmy and schoolish and traditional, but would like to inject a pop of this color, or similar, here and there.

I have three school aged children and a pre-schooler. I’d like ideas on inexpensive ways to make this room work. Each item I add must be functional, not just decorative. Do you have ideas for me?

Oh, and if you know of any contests to win a free room makeover, I’d make a great contestant!

Jibberish to Me

The timing of today’s post was influenced by my peers. Yep, I give in to that every once in awhile. This time, as I mentioned in a previous post, I just really wanted to be a part of this:

…which I saw going on over at a blog one of my friends writes for. And this week is Curriculum Week. I want all of my homeschool friends to know about this fun resource. If you do participate, or if you learn something really fabulous by reading someone else’s blog post because of it, please do tell me!

CAUTION: Long post. But if you have ever agonized about math, or wondered if you can speak your child’s language, I hope you will be encouraged. There are so many resources out there. You can find the ones you need!

Math has never been one of those subjects that any of us, me included, have just done for fun. But the boys have been fairly easy, if you use the word easy loosely since I do not, nor have I ever, enjoyed math for the sake of math. Now, get me going on how many pounds of beef I can get cut and wrapped for one low price, toss in a bag of rice I can buy in bulk, or a coupon for a Ben & Jerry’s 2fer and I’ll be happily running figures in my head with a dreamy smile on my face. But puhleeze!! Do NOT make me just sit and “do math”.

We’ve used a variety of math curriculums through the years. If you’ve homeschooled for a few years, you understand that, while there is some comfort in using the same thing each year, you also have to be flexible and change what is not working, or what you can see is not going to work for you that year because you had a baby or are moving to a foreign country or what-have-you.

We’ve purchased Dollar Store workbooks, workbooks at learning stores and online print-outs. We’ve done Singapore and Bob Jones, Life-Pac and Switched on Schoolhouse. But mostly, once we’ve passed third grade, we’ve done Saxon in conjunction with the Dive CDs. They’ve all done fine with minimal help by my-math-avoiding-self.

Then came my girl.

Possible Map of Daughter’s Brain

(oops, I forgot to include the part for her pets)

Finishing third grade last year, we had not even yet attempted Saxon or Dive Into Math. I’d tried several different things and she just seemed to get stuck at a certain point each day. This last year, I decided to try Life-Pac because I liked the fact that she could take it in smaller increments, have a sense of accomplishment after completing each booklet, and I had the option to inexpensively buy additional booklets if I could see that she was not mastering specific topics covered within each.

Math took a ton of time each day. As the year progressed, we were continuing to spend upwards of 90 minutes on just 4 pages of math. Not time reading or cooking together, or having mud fights or hiking or learning to knit or paint. Not fun time, but frustrating time. On math and math alone. Time when my sweet girl seemed to “get it’ when I explained it, but she had a hard time retrieving what she knew at a later time.

I describe it this way: While I was teaching her, or as she read, she would seem to grasp the concept. She would put it into her Brain Storage Unit (BSU). The next time that subject came up, she would see the problem or concept and try to retrieve the information she knew she had stored, but it was as if she could not remember how to get to that BSU. So I would give her reminders -- something like “remember when we wrote out all of those hundreds and then you counted by tens until we got to a thousand?”. And she would say “oh yeah!” and I could almost see her thought process taking a little journey on a brain path to the BSU and gathering the info she had previously stored.

But I knew I could not be Mapquest Mom forever. Certainly not in a test situation. And, really, was she learning it if she could not even remember how to get to what she learned? I know she is a smart little cookie, sharp as a tack. So I knew it was I who was missing something about the way she speaks and understands the language of math.

Ouch.

I am aware that there is a shortage of females in the math and science world. I want my daughter to break beyond the typical. I want her to have every advantage. That meant that I, who did not fluently speak my own math language, was going to have to step out of the box. I was going to have to find a Rosetta Stone, if you will, a way I could use what I know, and might not love, to instill in her not only a knowledge, but a love, of math and the concepts needed to really understand it.

The following days and weeks were filled with Mapquest Mom trying to meet Rosetta Stone in the vast world of Internet Knowledge Gleaning and Talk-It-Around-Town Conferences. I surfed and chatted. I researched learning styles (again) and learning disabilities. I recalled advice given by conference speakers past and friends who are teachers and fellow homeschool parents. I followed one link that led to another. I cut and pasted and perused.

Finally I narrowed it down to two different curriculums/teaching methods I felt would make sense in her language. And I prayed. Boy, did I pray! My child’s life was at stake here.

Okay, now I’m being a bit dramatic. But you know that you know how I felt. Because it’s my child I’m talkin’ about here and the responsibility for what and whether or not she learns is upon me. Squarely upon me.

Enter

(click to go there)

You’ve never heard of it? Don’t worry. I’ve been homeschooling for awhile now, and I hadn’t either.

Their methods make sense. The way they developed their program makes sense. Some of what they said in their information very specifically addressed some of the issues I saw my daughter struggling with. And the simplicity of their ideas appealed to me.

They use an abacus as the base for their learning, for goodness sakes.

So I bought what we needed to make the transition into a totally new way of speaking Math. Well, plus what I thought we’d need to teach another kid or two for another year or so.

We got started the last week or so of April.

Our first day was fun. She kept asking when we were going to start actually doing math. I thought that was a good sign. The second day she asked if we were going to “be able” to do math that day. The third day she asked when we were going to do math and if we could do it longer. And on it went, until I decided to break for summer.

So we are part way through their Transitions book. And, you know, I am not dreading the Tower of Babel (reference to a Bible story) feeling anymore.

I know I can speak her language.

P.S. RightStart is sponsoring a free webinar on August 12th if anyone is interested.

Menu Plan Monday, August 2-9, 2010

For a ton more menu and recipe ideas, check out this week's Menu Plan Monday over at Organizing Junkie.

Who out there does Once A Month Cooking (OAMC)? Do any of you use your own recipes and make them work for your big cooking day? Or do you use a prescribed menu created by someone else? What are some of your favorite meals?

Before I left to go to India (you can read a couple posts where I reflect about that here and here if you are just popping in from MPM and you’d like to), I cooked and froze enough meals for my family to eat dinner each day with leftovers for lunches. However, apparently, many of the dishes had enough for 2-3 meals. So we still have a number of meals in the freezer, which I now get to enjoy as I get caught up on sleep, housework, school planning, family and friends, and work on some other projects I have brewing.

Those meals sure are coming in handy, and I do believe I want to make it a habit to pre-make at least two weeks worth of meals each month. I am looking for suggestions on healthy, yummy, good-for-the-freezer meals to add to my growing list, so please do tell if you have some you really love!

My meal plan this week is a feeble attempt at re-establishing some sort of routine. All three of my older boys will be out of the country at a couple different orphanages. That cuts down on how much I need to make for dinner by half. I am hoping that means I can also cut down on my time in the kitchen by half! Yep, it’s all about quick and easy while, hopefully, still being healthy. Please forgive the fact that I am not including very many recipe links this week.

In addition to meals I made previously, I will be adding some items (frozen) I bought at Costco, some fresh items I buy at Farmer’s Market and some fresh, seasonal, local produce. I love me some grilled veggies! And, ohhh, do we ever love Oregon blueberries this time of year!

Monday - Grilled Nut’N Berry Sausages (locally made with local ingredients)and seasonal grilled veggies (probably potatoes, corn and zucchini)

Tuesday - Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon in Wine Sauce and **Last Minute Addition (see below)

Wednesday – Hamburgers with fresh, local green beans seasoned with local pork and onions, watermelon

Thursday – Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon in Wine Sauce (based loosely on this recipe)

Friday – Pizza from Costco

Saturday - Leftovers

Sunday - Burger Thing at church

Have a great week – and take it easy along with me!

**Last Minute Addition: I clicked on a link I found at this week's MPM, which took me to this cute blog, which I think is dedicated to Pioneer Woman cooking, which, of course, linked me to Pioneer Woman, who I love but don't read because, well, because everyone else does.

So, anyway, I am totally making these on Tuesday night. Because I have not started back on my super strict diet yet since I got back from India. And I am soon, so I wouldn't be able to eat these. And I wanna eat them.

Crash Hot Potatoes