After many, many attempts at making bread-items, I finally realized that something was amiss: although everything I made tasted as it should, nothing was light and fluffy! Now, I'm not making fun of you if you happen to enjoy dense, heavy-as-a-brick bread. I'm just saying it isn't really my thing.

Not long ago I made some cinnamon-raisin bread… And sadly, it was more like one giant, flat cinnamon roll. The cinnamon at least made it enticing, so it didn't all go to waste. Here you see it before it was baked.

After my sorrowful sobs over my butchered bread, Michael said, "You know, I wonder if you are heating up the water too much." 

BOOM.

Everything made sense. I was actually killing my yeast by putting it in near-boiling water. Oops.

Happily, I've definitely remedied the problem. Look for yourself! (you might also want to laugh at reminisce about how my first pizza ever looked).