Happy Thoughts

Well folks, I'm back from the sourdough wars...I fought the good fight and was thwarted by a rookie mistake at the first turn. I won't even go into details except to say that my compost heap is now growing by leaps and bounds...and my sourdough starter? My beautiful mature sourdough starter? It is no longer with us. I'd like to take a moment of silence to mourn the 8 days I fed and babied that puppy.

But never mind about that! Let's talk about something happy!

How about magic?

Or better yet, how about my newest love?


My unpaper towel dispenser from Made In The Red Barn on Etsy! It's beautiful, it's made from upcycled wood and it makes my crunchy heart sing! I didn't even know what upcycled wood was until I stumbled across this beauty, but my heart went 'a pitter patterin' and I knew it was love.

I was so excited when it came in the mail (Did I mention the sellers live in WA?) I opened that box with uncontained giddiness...to have everyone in the house give me some version of Audrey's "whats 'sat?" "Huh?"

To her credit, Karen at least tried to give me some enthusiasm, but it's probably because I opened the box in her presence. I imagine it's like trying to get excited about your Aunt Bertha giving you socks for Christmas.

Actually, I get excited about receiving socks as gifts so that's probably a bad analogy.

Maybe Aunt Bertha's socks smell like moth balls.

Moving on!
To my original point: baking. I am not the world's best baker-maker as I had originally assumed. Does that mean I will stop trying? Heck no! Until I'm there, I'll continue to support our local bakery from the farmer's market. The owner and I had a long talk Friday about sourdough. He suggested I come work the night shift for a week or so just to get my technique down. I passed. I'm awake enough at night as it is.

All recent baking catastrophes aside, I did have some mild success with making my own burger buns yesterday. This recipe is absolutely phenomenal. All I have to really work on is getting my second rise perfected; it's all about timing. And I'm guessing my burger buns went from perfection to rising out the yin yang about the time I was attacked by two small children and pinned to the floor in a wrestling match.


Life happens.