I say I’m a writer, but I almost forgot today is Slice of Life Day! Good grief!

#yousirneedaschedule

I’ve been “planning” to make sourdough bread for a while now. Mr. Bubbles was created a while back, and I left him in the sun. He died a quick, hopefully painless death. He was far too young to die.

#sarcasmisanartform

For those of you who don’t know, for sourdough, you have to “create” the yeast yourself. You put in a certain amount of flour and water, mix it, then let it ferment. The wild yeast and bacteria in the flour will because to create this bubbly, kind of gross mess that will be the basis of your sourdough starter. Personally, I think it’s kind of cool you can do this, my wife was not impressed with the starter at her breakfast table!

#whatsthatawfulsmell

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, so I created another Mr. Bubbles, and have feed him religiously for a while. I kept getting the “aren’t you going to make bread” question and honestly, I really wanted to. But I was scared.

#what

Yup, failure paralyzes me. I know this about myself, that fear of looking stupid, like an idiot, or worse unprepared will keep me from doing a lot of things I could be good at, like making sourdough bread! Finally, Sunday morning, I got going. I watched the video my daughter sent me, I did everything that the little guy on YouTube said to do, and I got this:

20200525_193838

I had a better picture I’d snapped my kids, but this will do. The bread was (and still is) delicious. It did everything that the YouTube video said it would and just went smoothly. So, what was I afraid of? Creating bread that I wasn’t proud of, that would be made fun of, or just wasn’t edible. But something struck me was I was watching the instructions for the 75th time. The cook made the comment, “If yours doesn’t look like mine, don’t fret it. Just enjoy the process.”  I heard that over and over again, but I guess the last time made it stick, because we powered through and the final product was amazing.

I’m 49, and I wish I could say I’ll enjoy the process and make something terrible, but I also know myself too. I also know what my students go through as fear paralyizes them too. It sucks, period. How do we get past that? Listen, learn, watch, and try to enjoy the process. I’m making this again in a few days to send to a family friend and my dad.

The second time will be much more enjoyable even if I screw it up.

Enjoy the process my friends, we have to in times like this or we go crazy AND hungry! 🙂