If you want bread, you have to follow the instructions....

One of my favorite presents that S and I received for our wedding was a bread maker. I envisioned loaves and loaves of warm bread on cold winter mornings. I pictured giving loaves of bread as gifts to loved ones and family for Christmas. I imagined sumptuous meals served with just the right side of a home made baguette. Life was going to be perfect with all of this homemade, yummy bread, right?

Wrong.

When I opened the box that the bread maker came in, I noticed the instruction manual, but paid no mind to silly little details in the front. Instead, I arrogantly flipped to the back to the enticing sounding recipes. I snapped the bread pan in place, loaded it up with the ingredients listed, and punched the appropriate buttons and settled in to wait on this fabulous first loaf of bread that I was sure to be eating in just three hours.

Do you know what I had in three hours?

Hot flour.

Apparently, it helps if you attach the little blade that stirs the ingredients together. I would have known that if I had read the directions, fully...and followed them. After three hours of waiting and listening to the machine make lots of fun noises, I was certain that yummy bread was inevitable.

It turns out that the adage: "If you want what we have, do what we do" applies to bread, as well as life, in general. If I wanted to have the yummy bread that I was hoping for, I needed to follow the instructions - all of them. I couldn't just flip past the parts I didn't want to be bothered to read and focus on the fun stuff (the recipes and results), and honestly think that I was going to be rewarded with the end result I was hoping for.

In order to make bread, I had to use all of the tools offered to me. If I want to have a life more like the one that a friend has, I have to do all that she does...not just the parts that come easily, anyway. I may not be as interested in the "boring" stuff like reading the directions, but if I want the good stuff, like yummy bread or better fitness or whatever goal I am hoping to achieve, I need to read them and follow them.

I am still trying to master the art of bread making. I've had some great results - when I remember to follow the instructions!