Breadmaking and Quilt Displays

So I made my first loaf of home-made, not by machine, bread on Wednesday. It was really quite fulfilling. I am looking forward to baking bread more often, becoming more refined at it, and learning to make many different kinds of bread. I started a sourdough starter yesterday, and today it seems like it is already getting frothy, which is exciting, because I thought it was going to take like a week. I want to try making baguettes, and french bread, because they are some of my favorite types of bread. I do also enjoy a good foccacia, and I'm looking for a good recipe to try out for that. Breadmaking is quite exciting.

Last night was our quarterly enrichment meeting. We were having a Relief Society birthday, the night entitled Ohhh Pioneers. So we gathered a lot of quilts (many came from my home), and had quilts as table cloths, and then also as displays. We also had pioneer pictures. I think the decorations ended up really nice, and put us all in the right mood. My sister commented that I should have taken pictures. I really should have, because some of the quilts were really just stunning, and the displays altogether ended up really nice. It was a really fun night, and very rewarding for me. I am enjoying my calling. Next for me is my desire to start different enrichment groups. I have been contemplating a storytelling group, which I think would be really fun, and might have some interest. I've also contemplated just an informal singing group, just getting together to sing things for fun, kind of like Carolyn and I do. I'd also like to get a sports group together, just to get together and play different sports, though that would require more equipment, and so may be more difficult to plan (more especially a basketball one, but hey).

I've been practicing the piano pretty much everyday, and I usually play for an hour and a half to two hours. I really can't believe how much I didn't want to practice when I was younger, and I think I am beginning to realize why. It was because I really had no purpose in wanting to know the piano. I wanted to take lessons, because in some way I wanted to know how to play the piano, but I really had no reason to know how to play. Now I want to play to accompany myself and others in singing. I want to learn how to sight read so that I can pick up and play things. It is amazing to me, because I can see how much difference just the short bit that I have been playing has made. I feel so much better at sight-reading, particularly different keys. I read on one website that an important aspect of sightreading is learning the scales and chords in each key, but I've found that what really sinks it in for me is just learning a song the normal way with that key signature. Like I am fine with songs with 5 flats, because I am working on a song with 5 flats in it.

Work is fun. I am making friends at work. Calls are slower, which makes the day go by pretty slow, but it gives me time to research things, like substituting honey for sugar, and to talk to my co-workers. The girl who sits closest to me and who I've gotten to know the most has moved up to data entry, and I'm sad that she is gone. There is someone new in her place, and so I'll probably get to know her, but I will miss Megan too.

I want to start exercising, but haven't found people to play basketball with yet. I will still continue my search, but it will probably take some time. In the mean time, and probably then still as well, I want to try water aerobics. Not that I am going to force myself to do it. I just want to try it out, and if I like it, could make it a regular part of my exercise program. If that doesn't work out, I'll probably start walking in the mornings, if I can get myself to bed early enough to be getting up to go on walks in the morning. I just love walking while the sun in rising, being out there in nature; it is so gorgeous.

It's funny how families work. All growing up, it was always about how different I was from my sister, but now that I am not living with her, and we both have our own husbands from their own very different backgrounds, it is amazing how similar we seem. I wonder what other siblings would have been like if we had more. Would they have been as much like us? Like are we just similar as being in the same family, or more similar than is usual in families as well? I guess we'll never know. We are still really different, but just compared to how different we are to our husbands, we are so similar.

I picked up Emily from the airport tonight, and we talked forever into the night. Janardan was going to go to bed shortly after I left for the airport. I came home, and the bedroom light was on, and so I went in there, and he had fallen asleep with the lights on. He always looks so peaceful, and comfortable when he sleeps. So relaxed. I hope one day he'll learn how to carry it into his daytime. He deserves it. It makes such a nice end of the day to come home and see my husband sleeping peacefully.