Love is spelled B-O-S-C-H

Sometimes true love is shown in your kitchen appliances. 

This is actually a romantic story, but first, here's a little back story for you about a girl learning how to make bread. (Exciting, I know...you can skip this part if you want.)

Sept: My friend Marcie taught me how to make her "2 hour from start to finish" wheat bread. I told my father in law Stan about it, who is getting REALLY into baking bread with natural yeast. He started explaining to me the health benefits of baking your own bread and I decided I wanted to get into it.

Sept: I started asking for loaf pans for Christmas. (I only had one?!) Didn't really make any bread in the meantime.

Christmas: Steve's parents gave me loaf pans, a wheat grinder, and a natural yeast cookbook for Christmas. (Thank you!!!)

March: Stan brought me out a natural yeast start for making bread. (It's kind of like sourdough, only not sour. You feed it regularly and keep it in the fridge.) He showed me how to use it in place of instant yeast, and we made a batch of bread in my Kitchenaid.  He was worried that my mixer wouldn't be able to handle it. I had gotten my Kitchenaid  as a wedding gift. Because it was refurbished, we were worried about the warranty and any potential problems with the motor. Stan encouraged us to start saving for a Bosch--a 400 DOLLAR bread mixer. Yeah, not going to happen anytime soon.

April: Kitchenaid mixer starts FREAKING out first when making bread and then making other, less dense recipes. I did NOT want to ruin the motor on that appliance. Bosch's are expensive, but SO are Kitchenaids!! Bread making started becoming stressful.

Stressful bread making night...but still fun :)

Okay, back story over. Here's the romantic story now (at least to me).

So the start needs to be fed twice a week, which is usually when you make bread. I usually only make it once a week, because we don't go through that much bread around here. While Julie was here, we had a failed attempt at getting the bread to rise. Steve had been my "kneader" and had beaten that poor dough for like a half hour. It had taken forever and when the dough didn't turn out, it was kind of frustrating. So a few days later, when it was time to feed the start again, I was NOT excited to make bread. Not to mention it was like 9:30 at night. We were sitting in the living room, trying to gear ourselves up to make it, when Steve told me he had an early Mother's Day present for me, and wondered if I wanted it now or wanted to wait. What kind of question is that?! Of course I want it now! :) So he left the room and came back with a box, apologizing that it wasn't wrapped yet. I opened it and was SO surprised to find a BOSCH!! My first thought, was HOW DID YOU DO THIS? Second thought, WHY DID YOU DO THIS?! Because I KNOW how much they cost and I KNOW we cannot and should not be affording that kind of purchase right now. But this cute boy I'm married to and his dad had been researching them, calling their helpline and everything, to find something that would work for me. This Bosch is actually a compact one, so it's smaller and NOT the $400 mixer. Apparently it should work for the size of recipes I'm doing though, even though it's small. 

Anyway, when I opened it, I totally teared up. Yep, cried over a Bosch. See the glimmering eyes? :)

                                           

So why is this story romantic? I'll tell you why with another quick story. (Wow, I'm in a story telling mood I guess.)  When my parents were building their house 20 something years ago, my mom REALLY wanted an ironing board in the laundry room that would fold up into the wall. But those were expensive, and they were trying to cut costs, so they decided that it just wouldn't be wise to spend that much money on something like an ironing board. But THEN one day my dad surprised her with the nice one, and she totally cried over it because she was so grateful that he would think her wants for the home they would make together were important enough to spend the money on.

As soon as I opened my Bosch, I thought of that story. I know that Steve loves me--he tells me and shows me all the time. But sometimes it's nice to know that you're really worth the investment, you know? That your wants, which you set aside all the time to put the wants and needs of your family first, really matter to someone else. That he's willing to sacrifice some of his wants in order to make you happy, too. 

That's why this story is romantic. This Bosch, even though it's a silly kitchen appliance, is a symbol to me of my husband's love for me and how he wants me to see my worth as a person. Developing my talents is important to him, so I can feel okay about making it important to me. And even though I teased him by telling him that he only bought it so he wouldn't have to knead bread for me anymore, he insisted he had ordered it way before that stressful night, so it really was altruistic. :) 

Jaden says "Mama's Bosch" every time he sees it. Funniest thing ever!

So thank you, Steven. Thanks for showing your love for me with a Bosch. It's not the mixer so much as it is the gesture that I'm grateful for. This just makes me love you even more. And props to you because now you get to benefit from this:

Hooray!! Eat up! :)