Day 255 of 365
I wrote last night about the tragic wasting of our eggs right now. Thankfully, we have just a couple of days to go, so I am hopeful. Still, I had a very rough night tonight when three loaves of bread I had been workin on all day failed. I have never had such an epic fail of bread, and it’s so tragic because of the time and resources that go into that much dough.
The loaves just didn’t rise properly on the second rise, but I put them in the oven anyway, hoping for a miracle. It didn’t happen. I had planned to use one loaf of bread for dinner, and my son had orchestra rehearsal tonight, which meant I had little time to make something else. Thankfully, I have a very sweet husband and son who ate the sad bread and pretended like it was great. They are very kind. It wasn’t too terrible to eat, but it was surely sad.
After Ron tried to help me figure out what happened, I realized I had let the dough get too warm in the oven proofing–and it proofed for too long. I was working with my son on homeschool, and I let the dough go way too long. My son and I had fun though. The state requires some focus on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so I was going to show him PowerPoint today. My son has never used it, but, somehow, the software was so intuitive to him that he ended up showing me a few things about PowerPoint. Sometimes, I wonder who is homeschooling who.
Anyway, the failed bread hit me hard because I was just saying that I was becoming a good baker and was making two of the three loaves as gifts to go with a meal for my neighbor and her family. Ron gave me a pep talk about being too hard on myself, and I had this epiphany about how, though I try so hard to be patient with myself, I can be pretty hard on myself, which sets an example for my children that I really wish to not set. Both of my children can be hard on themselves, but my youngest takes it to the next level. I worry about him. I want to do better for myself and for my children. It’s such a process though, isn’t it?
But I also learned how much I am loved that my family will eat the sad bread and tell me it’s just fine–just because they love me so much. I am very fortunate to have people who are so very much on my side.
I am also writing this with a Great Pyrenees head in my lap. Yes, I am very fortunate.
photo credit: Victoria Shes, Unsplash
Farmer-ish 