Sourdough Hurdles

I successfully made one loaf of sourdough bread.  It was edible.  Not horrible.  Clearly made by a beginner.  Not as many air holes in the bread as there should have been.  It also was baked a bit too long so it had a super hard/firm crust and after eating it for a couple days, it was too hard to eat anymore.

I kept my sourdough starter alive for a couple weeks (at least.  I sort of lost track of the timeline in general).  For that process, I used more flour than I've purchased in over a year - and ended up with so much starter and discard, I felt always overwhelmed.  Made blueberry sourdough muffins that were delicious!  Also loved pikelets and sourdough pancakes.  But really, with just the two of us eating my baked goodies, we gained a couple pounds.  It just wasn't feasible for a family of two.  

I stopped feeding the starter and last night, tried to salvage some - fed what I had but it did absolutely nothing so....officially done with sourdough starter for the time being.  

There are zillions of breads I can attempt and improve my skills so I'm not sad about having the starter die.  It felt inevitable.  It was a LOT of discard and a LOT of starter for just baking a loaf of bread once every couple weeks.  

We made it to Atlantis this morning but the shuttle stuff felt confusing.  People griping that they were left behind yesterday.  The Amador bus was the 'primary' shuttle but then the Atlantis shuttle driver threw his shuttle into the mix as well.  As we were standing there ready to enter - only to have him say 'we're taking this shuttle - not that one' - and have 14+ people scramble to get onto the smaller shuttle, I had overwhelming anxiety about the entire thing.  Honestly, I was anxious about the event from the get go.  I have never enjoyed this one - it's (usually) hot, noisy, crowded.  Add to that today's air quality issues - unhealthy in both Reno and Carson and I really felt it today - I just couldn't do it.  J. said 'it's OK if you don't want to go'.  So I didn't.  He headed out on the shuttle and I went in to play a bit.  The play wasn't good....so I came home.  

I have weird anxiety springing up now and then and the only thing to do is to not do (when possible) the thing that's making me feel anxious.  

J. is on his way home - they stopped flying.  We were both surprised they were flying/racing at all.  He headed back on the 1PM shuttle (to the hotel).  He's using our daily food credit for stuff we can eat over the weekend and he will be home soon.  

I'm super happy to be watching the first episode of the new season of Great British Baking Show on Netflix.