Making the mashed potatoes, or things I should have paid attention to when I was younger

So Saturday night I decided to make my 2 days after Thanksgiving meal, or 363 days before, however you look at it. Next year is a leap year.

I've never made real mashed potatoes before, so I thought this would be a great time to start. Besides, any chowderhead with half a brain can make mashed potatoes, right? Not so fast, Charlie. I found that the art of the potato that is mashed is indeed an intricate science.

First thing I needed was a recipe. I needed to know exactly how much butter and milk to use and I didn't want to just throw a bunch in willy-nilly. I googled mashed potato recipes and was pelted with about 8 billion different recipes and picked what I thought was the easiest one. Anything with sour cream or cheese was summarily ignored.

First trick was to peel the potatoes. I had chunks of potato missing the wastebasket and flying all over the floor. And true to my nature, I had to pick up each piece before moving on.

With the potatoes finally peeled, I threw them into the water to boil. 10 minutes into the boil, I remembered to add in some salt. Cooked for a bit, and pierced with a fork. All good for now.

First mistake: I do not own a potato masher, only an electric mixer which I'm still getting to know. It's a good thing that Cindi wasn't watching me mix this up or she would have had a field day. As I'm mixing, I'm seeing small bits of butter and potato hit my shirt and the kitchen wall. A good CSI detective would have been able to tell you exactly where the work space was from the splatter. The mix is lumping up like crazy on the beaters, and what I'm looking at looks nothing like the mashed potatoes Mom still makes.

The second problem is that I have no clue as to how long I'm supposed to be mixing for. It looked like it needed more milk, so I poured some more in and ended up dumping way too much in. At this point, it appears to me that I've created a solquid (solid/liquid) mess that no one would eat.

I took a bite of my creation and it needed to go back on the stove to warm. In what seemed like forever, they finally heated up and were ready to eat along with my cornish hen and some corn.
They actually weren't that bad but never would have beat my Mom's in a blind taste test by Scott and Laurie, two mashed potato connoisseurs.