If you had told me a few years ago that I would someday be a mom of two, a Realtor, and the kind of person who checks on a jar of fermented flour before checking her email, I probably would have had some questions.
And yet, here we are.
My life is basically a rotating schedule of school drop-offs, real estate, PTA, laundry that I swear multiplies overnight, and asking my children to put their shoes on approximately 47 times before we leave the house.
And now there’s bread.
So. Much. Bread.
I Didn’t Exactly Plan This
I love being a Realtor. I love houses, I love design, and I genuinely love meeting people and helping them through one of the biggest decisions they’ll make.
I also love being a mom more than anything.
But both motherhood and real estate have something in common: absolutely nobody cares about your schedule.
Your kid needs a very specific water bottle that hasn’t been seen in three days? Emergency.
A client wants to see a house that just hit the market? Emergency.
Someone can’t find their other shoe?
Apparently also an emergency.
So naturally, I decided what my life really needed was a hobby involving a living jar of yeast that also refuses to follow my schedule.
Enter sourdough.
Then I Got a Little Obsessed
At first, I just wanted to make a good loaf of sourdough.
Very normal.
Then I wanted to understand fermentation.
Still reasonable.
Then I started researching flour, hydration percentages, proofing temperatures, scoring techniques, bannetons and whether my starter had “peaked.”
This is when things started getting questionable.
Before long, I was making different flavors, experimenting with ingredients and thinking about bread at completely inappropriate times.
I’d be driving somewhere and suddenly think, I wonder if caramelized onion, beer and cheddar would work in sourdough.
Turns out, it does.
And it is delicious.
Somewhere Along the Way, I Found Something I Really Loved
The funny thing is, bread brought me back to something I’ve always loved: creating.
I have an art and design background, and there is something about sourdough that scratches that same creative itch.
Every loaf is a little different.
You can experiment with flavors. You can score designs into the dough. You can make something rustic and imperfect and beautiful.
And then you get to eat it, which is a significant advantage over most other art forms.
There is also something incredibly satisfying about making something completely from scratch and handing it to someone.
It’s simple.
It’s useful.
It’s comforting.
And watching someone tear into a loaf you made and immediately go back for another piece is a pretty great compliment.
Bread Is Supposed to Teach Patience. I’m Still Working on That Part.
People talk about sourdough as this slow, peaceful process.
And sometimes it is.
Other times it’s 11:30 at night and I’m staring at a bowl of dough thinking, Can you please just finish fermenting? I would like to go to bed.
Sourdough does not care.
You cannot negotiate with it.
You cannot send it a calendar invite.
You cannot explain that you have school drop-off in the morning.
The dough is ready when the dough is ready.
Which is probably a good lesson for someone like me, even if I occasionally resent the lesson while standing in my kitchen in pajamas.
And Then Somehow I Started a Microbakery
This wasn’t really part of the plan either.
I started sharing bread. People liked it. Then people started asking if they could buy it.
And eventually my little bread obsession turned into Grateful Bread.
Suddenly there were orders, flavors, packaging, photos, menus and a refrigerator that increasingly looked like it belonged to a commercial bakery rather than a family of four.
And I loved it.
There’s something really special about making food for people in my own community.
Sometimes I still look around my kitchen and think, Wait…am I actually doing this?
Apparently I am.
The Best Part Might Be My Girls Watching It Happen
My daughters have been part of this adventure too.
They’ve helped me stage bread for photos, move fruit around a loaf until it looks “just right,” give opinions on flavors and generally treat my bread photography setup like their personal creative-director opportunity.
And I actually love that they’re watching all of this.
Because I want them to know that becoming a grown-up doesn’t mean you’re finished discovering who you are.
You can be a mom and still start something new.
You can have a career and still find another passion.
You can be responsible and practical and still randomly decide you need to learn how to make beautiful sourdough bread.
You don’t have to fit neatly into one box.
I’m a Mom. I’m a Realtor. And Apparently I’m a Bread Lady Now.
I still love real estate.
I still love walking into a house and immediately imagining what someone could do with it. I love helping people find their place in this community.
And being a mom will always be the biggest and most important part of my life.
But now there’s this other piece too.
Bread.
Something I didn’t plan. Something I didn’t know I needed. Something that started as curiosity and turned into a genuine passion.
Life doesn’t always have to follow the plan we made for ourselves.
Sometimes you just follow the thing that makes you curious and see where it goes.
And sometimes that thing requires you to own an unreasonable number of proofing baskets.
I’m okay with that.
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