I used to blog! I plan to again. When I did it before, I primarily highlighted unique stories that related to our AMAZING clients with J.A. Laub Photography. I'm an introvert at heart, but one of my favorite things about "doing business" are the people we've come across.
Last year, I tried — and failed — to start blogging again and used the Substack platform. I love Substack and still have an account, but I wanted to own my content on my own site.
So, here is a story that I wrote almost a year ago over there that I'm pulling over here. It's about bread! Enjoy. :)
"A rambling post about sourdough bread and sleep"
(Originally published Dec. 4, 2024)
The only time I bought bread from the store in the last year was for a cookout we were hosting, and I needed a bunch of buns.Other than that, the last year has been a bit ironic as it relates to bread. Collectively, I’ve lost at least a few dozen hours of sleep since Thanksgiving 2023 in my quest to be a sourdough bread person. It's ironic because I realize sleep is vital to health, but in my quest to do one small thing to help make our family healthier with homemade bread I’ve lost time on the pillow. I’ve been left with the hard choice many a morning knowing that if I do wake up when my early alarm is going off, I will miss out on some of the sleep my body is craving. But my loaf of bread that’s been rising overnight, growing like a treasure tucked snugly into a bowl is going to be totally fantastic if I get up right now and bake it.If I hit snooze and sleep for another hour or two, the loaf will be a little disappointing and won’t be done baking in time for me to leave for work. After a year of this baking adventure, I’m still not an expert sourdough person. I don’t have an Instagram account with baking content while I’m in pretty dresses and a clean house. I am pulled in too many directions but am too stubborn to give up. Ultimately, I am glad for a year of occasionally missing sleep and eating disappointing sourdough bread because it’s always interspersed with the great loaves! And the bagels! I had to stop making those.Why all the fuss? My family has always been pretty health savvy, and I think my husband and I do better than most in this area. Our kids think it’s the best day ever if we bring home chips from the store. They think soda is disgusting and only eat cereal about twice a year. Most mornings they eat fried eggs for breakfast, and they know to not bother asking for Gatorade or Lunchables. We are far from perfect and there is much more we can do and want to do. But we try because we know the physical health of our family is paramount to thriving and believe health is a gift from God to be stewarded.Baking sourdough bread is just one of the many things in this journey to help set the kids up for success and improve our own health and longevity. Not because sourdough bread is the key to health. In fact, I know that the carbs and gluten in bread can be a bit problematic. Almost 100 percent of the meals we cook for breakfast and dinner are Paleo-style, and the sourdough in moderation is a fun treat plus so darn convenient to use in kiddo school lunches. We average about one loaf a week. I’ve learned to restrain myself because I don’t want to buy new pants. On my list for Santa is a flour mill so I don’t need to rely on conventional grains anymore. But…hey, it has healthy-for-the-gut bacteria, amiright!? Plus, if you’re my friend or I just think you could use a pick-me-up, I’ll probably give you an amazing, still-warm loaf at some point and what kind of person doesn’t love that? These projects also aren’t limited to bread. We do from-scratch sauces, granola, condiments, etc.The larger point is that baking sourdough bread is still a healthier choice than buying the conventional loaf from Kroger. And the even larger point, I think, is that cooking and baking from scratch and preparing homecooked meals creates a type of legacy these days. So many families are just too busy to cook on a typical night. Do I want my kids to remember me as the mom who thought work or social commitments or even going to the gym after work was more important than cooking them something healthy for dinner? Do I want them to remember countless nights racing from one activity to the next, running through a drive-through to grab some garbage to eat and normalizing being too busy to sit at the table together? I don’t.Of course, we don’t pull this off every single night and a frozen pizza or two have graced my freezer, and the (lack of) gym part is an extra tough pill to swallow as my recent return to full-time work keeps me from going to exercise during the day. I must remind myself often that those days will come back, but the days that will not come back are the ones during which I taught my kids to care about and think about what they consume, how it is prepared and how it’s directly tied to their well-being. Yes, it’s easier to run through the drive-through and buy bread from the store but the principles are bigger.Here's to one year down of baking!