Bread, You Beautiful Carb-acious Beast you!

I made bread for the first time today.
I've always wanted to make my own bread. I love the way bread smells when it's cooking and the way it tastes. Not to mention the fact that I get an inordinate amount of pleasure anytime I eat something I made myself (beyond things like sandwiches and such. They don't count). It's a giddy feeling almost, like a five year old showing off a finger painting. The painting might be, objectively, nothing more than a few squiggles of color and maybe a dash of paint that suggests the family dog or possibly an airplane, but to the kid and to the mum for whom it was made, that painting ought to be hung in the Louvre. Move over Van Gogh!
Even something as simple is bread evokes a similar feeling in me. I know bread is simple. Well, I suppose I could make it complicated, but the recipe I just tried was for a basic loaf of bread. There is nothing special about this bread, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unique about it, except for the small fact that I made it. And I am fairly certain that it will taste better for that fact. To quote a favorite writer, Neil Gaiman, "The world is always a little brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before." True statement, Mr. Gaiman, and I think the same applies whether we're talking about a novel, a loaf of bread, or a fingerpaint masterpiece. We are, essentially, creative beings and creativity is satisfying on a level that is hard to explain.
Right now my bread is in the oven, little more than a few mounds of squishy squishy dough. But in a bit it will be delicious, warm, edible bread. Assuming this turns out all right (here's hoping), the next step is experimentation, tossing in ingredients that I hope (and wish and pray) will taste good.