Morning. I hope your Sunday is beautiful.

I’m enjoying my coffee with a side of baking fresh sourdough bread. I just popped the first of two loaves in the oven to bake so my house should smell amazing pretty soon!

I baked so much bread around the holidays but haven’t since. My freezer stash was dwindling (which is not good with how much I’m loving all things bread) and my starter was getting pretty sad in the fridge so I pulled it out last week and started bringing it back to life.

I can also tell you that I’ve reached a new level of sourdough craziness. When you want to bake it, you prep the loaves the day before in a process that involves a three-hour proof where you have to fold the dough halfway through. Well, the only way I could make the timing work to get bread dough prepped was to do it yesterday afternoon but I had to go out to teach teacher training so I brought the dough with me so that I could fold it during training and it wouldn’t over-rise. What can I say, I’m committed to my bread. 🙂

Here is my full sourdough bread tutorial. I have been so pleased to see so many of my fellow blog friends and readers try it and also get hooked on baking bread!

A few other “coffee chat” kinda things to share today.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I’m loving the Winter Olympics…and that they scare the crap out of me! 

I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics each night and I’m just blown away by them. I’ve always been a fan of the Winter Olympics but I feel like this year’s games are at an all-time high level of insanity! I think my jaw was hanging open for most of the men’s snowboarding halfpipe finals. And this skeleton business? NO THANK YOU! And when did “slopestyle” freestyle skiing become a thing? I’m also loving all of my old favorites, especially figure skating. It’s been a nice change of TV pace here lately.

If we were having coffee, I’d excitedly share that baby boy weighs THREE POUNDS! 

I had an ultrasound appointment last week to follow up on the echogenic focus of the left ventricle that was on baby’s heart. My US tech also checked tons of other measurements and let me spend some time watching baby boy wiggle around in there. I’ll tell you all about the appointment in my 29 week update on Tuesday BUT I will share that he was measuring exactly one week ahead and she estimated that he weighed right around 3 pounds! I can’t believe he’s getting so big in there. Grow, baby, grow. I’ll share some ultrasound photos in my next pregnancy post!

If we were having coffee and you were a fellow dog mama, I’d tell you about Zoey’s extra velcro-ness and ask for ball suggestions. 

I have always jokingly referred to Zoey as a “velcro dog.” She follows you from room to room and always wants to be close. Here she is sleeping under my desk while I worked.

And here she is in the bathroom with me. I rarely have unaccompanied trips to the bathroom…which I hear is good practice for having a toddler…haha.

Lately, she has been EXTRA velcro. Like, wanting to be in my lap and by my side all the time. I don’t know if it’s baby related or anxiety related or what it is but we’ve been spending a lot of time cuddling.

One day she got so out of sorts that she chewed up her favorite green ball. Y’all, she had this ball for years and it was her absolute favorite. It was super bouncy and very squeaky. I’m so sad for her that she destroyed it.

I ordered another one on Amazon but they have changed the way they are made and it wasn’t nearly as bouncy, squeaky or constructed as well. She chewed it up in one day.

So…HELP ME friends! Zoey is the biggest ball freak. I would love your suggestions for durable bouncy, squeaky balls so I can make this girl happy again. 🙂

(In addition to being a little overly passionate about sourdough baking, clearly I am also about my pups…but that’s no secret!) 

If we were having coffee, we’d chat about books. 

Okay, I had to take a pause on Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller. I got about three-fourths of the way through it but it was not making for restful or relaxing evening reading material. It’s a great book and I am not in denial of the horrendous things that happened during WWII but it was just to heavy for me at this point in life.

Reading is the only way that I can quiet my mind at night so I swung into Barnes and Noble and picked up something a little lighter. Still Me is Jojo Moyes’ newest book and it’s a continuation of the story of Louisa Clark from her very famous book (and movie) Me Before You. So far, it’s exactly what I was looking for. Much lighter and very easy to read. (Apparently there was another book in between, After You, but I skipped that one!)

Your turn…

Favorite Winter Olympic sport? 

Do you have a velcro dog? 

Any ball suggestions for Zoey? 

What are you reading?