Thank You King Arthur

 Someone is trying to teach me patience.  I can feel it in my bones.  It's bad enough to have problems with people you have to figure out, but to have even MORE problems with baking ... that's the worst!!

Thanks to King Arthur however, I think I'm making progress.  Wow ... they have every type of flour in the world.  I didn't know there was a different variety for every single thing you want to make.  I thought flour was flour. 

This is the crock I did NOT buy, but the little 2" tall glass container holding 38 grams of starter, I did.  When I opened the lid and it wasn't even 1/3 full, I said WELL ... this isn't going to work!

BUT LOOKY HERE!!  YAY!  In the last three hours of the 24 hour day, it began to rise.  I HAVE STARTER!!  I thought maybe the heating mat would be too warm, so I just set the jar beside it and away it went.  It feels rather wasteful, but I now have to dump out all but 50 grams and feed it again.  If that works, I should be baking in two days.

This is the same barely 25 grams I got from my friend.  I had stuck it in the fridge because I could not get it to work.  Might as well give it another shot.  I stirred it up, fed it, and looky here.  It finally started to rise too!  

OH GREAT ... Now I'll have TWO of these things I have to keep going.  I'm not sure this one will make the grade, but I might as well try.  I'll only be out a few cups of flour.

The only recipe I have seems rather difficult to me, mostly because I don't understand all the terms they use, so I sat down and wrote it in my own words.  You mix the leaven up, you mix the flour and water together, and it all has to sit for an hours before you mix those together.  That is followed by lots of beating and whacking ... actually folding and stretching ... before you let it rest.  Fold some more, rest some more.  It's a very long process.  The second day you actually get to bake it.  I think I should look for an easier recipe.

Though I was tempted to just sit on the couch the entire day, I really needed to accomplish something.  I knew I needed propane for the rig and had received a smog notice in the mail.  Really?  It's not even two years old and I have to smog it?  That's California for ya!

Two of my RV friends recommended this gas station.  So off I drove to Smileys Shell, only now they are a Marathon station.  VERY nice guys work there.  

The bad news is the van failed miserably.  WHAT?  How could that be?  It's brand new!!  I asked them to explain it to me, but the only thing they knew was there was a very old code that had not been erased.  

So anyone know what an OBDII is?  Or NOx/SCR Aftertreatment?  Or PM Filter?  How frustrating.

And so I had to make an appointment with Mercedes 45 miles down the road.  Big sigh!  Yes they will fix it all for free, but I'm paying for a lot of diesel to get there and back.  And what if it STILL doesn't pass?  These stupid California regulations are ridiculous!!

Back home, I should have just watched the next rodeo, but I received an email about the kitchen problem.  THEY had decided the kitchen would close at 8:00 no matter what we said.  THEY are not in charge, so I had to spend two hours writing an appropriate response stating that we were appointed by the Board to handle kitchen problems, and that is what we are doing.  We will close at the regular 8:30 time.  If the BOARD wishes to discuss the matter, we would be happy to meet with them.  

I let the email sit for five hours before I read it again and finally sent it out, you know, so I didn't say what I was REALLY thinking!!   The only response I received was a nice one from the Bingo Chairman.

I celebrated with the last of the cheap frozen pizzas I bought two months ago.  There's never enough cheese, so I added quite a bit more.  

Not exactly what I would call gourmet, and much lacking in pepperoni, but I ate it like it was from Silly Al's.  I'm hopeful that soon I will be eating grilled cheese on homemade sourdough!!!

I'm not sure if it's lucky or unlucky, but I've got a dinner tonight at the Boys and Girls Club, followed by a dinner tomorrow night with the Court Appointed Special Advocate group.  Follow THAT up Sunday with a meeting an hour and a half away at 9:30 in the morning at an Elks Lodge.  I'm going at the request of our long time officer, which I'm sure will irritate someone else.  So yeah, I'm a rabble rouser!!

My plan is to attend the first of three meetings, then magically disappear into the restroom before sneaking out the back door.  I know, Bad Nancy!

For now however, I'm going to feed Charlie and his twin Charlese with King Arthur flour.  Let's hope they like it as much today as they did yesterday!!!