Life is like making rolls

I have been talking with my aunt lately about food and things we eat. I've also done some research of my own. I read that real food is better for you than eating processed food. My aunt agrees. She talks about the evils of high fructose corn syrup and specific types of artificial sweeteners in sodas. She makes a good point. I've read items that talk about the same thing.

Really, I am going somewhere with this. Lately, I've been making a real effort to make my own food. Many things aren't hard. I'd rather make biscuits from scratch than buy them. To me it's easier and tastes better. I do the same with cornbread, spaghetti and chili. Have I noticed a difference? Maybe. That's the best answer I can give. Does it stop my pursuit? No.

Yesterday, I saw some yeast at the grocery store and thought it would be easy to make some bread, pizza crusts, something. Today, I started a roast in the slow cooker. After one time of cooking it on low for many, many hours and tasting it; I told myself I'd never cook it on high again. It was so tender and delicious. I decided it was time to put my yeast to good use.

Now let me explain that I have made homemade bread before, but that was many years ago and I was much younger. I found a good recipe for "Old Plantation Rolls". The photos looked good and the directions, not too hard. I pulled out the ingredients noting that I was getting low on sugar. Real low. I mean I scrapped at the bottom of my canister to get enough. So I just followed the recipe doing this and adding that. My clean kitchen became a mess of flour and dough parts, but that's just part of the fun, right?

And I sort of patiently waited through the rising process. Yeast is so finicky. When I got to the kneading process I started with gusto. I mean I wasn't a newbie when it comes to kneading. Four minutes of effort and my arms start aching. I mean I was feeling it good. I chalked it up to being old and out of practice. But I'm supposed to do this for 8 whole minutes. Crap! Surely those other bakers don't work as hard as I do. I did as much in 4 minutes as they do in 8. Nonetheless, I kept going. After that rising and rising.

As I'm typing right now half of my rolls are in the oven while the other half is waiting in the freezer until the day I decide to break them out. Will my rolls be good? Yes! What have I learned? Well, our lives are like making rolls. There's planning, preparation, just the right temperature, but the most important part is just plain hard work. So what are you going to do with your life? Are you putting in the effort to become the beautiful final product you were destined to be? Or is it too much work? Everyone has problems. Are you giving them to God to work out and concentrating on what you can change? I'm slowly learning many new things, but the most important one is to worry about what I can change and that's my attitude. God be with you!