Bread anyone?

So, my brother has inspired me to start my own attempts at bread making and I have already learned one very important lesson... it ain't easy making bread! I decided to start small with a loaf of Italian Bread (very easy recipe... dare I say "idiot proof"?). That may not sound too tough but, seeing as I have never baked a day in my life... and that is no joke... this was a learning experience. I made the preferment Saturday night but forgot one very important part... I was using "dry yeast" which needs to be proofed in water before adding it to the mixture. So I had to throw out last night's batch of preferment and started again this morning. It all went pretty well after that and below is the finished product. It is very dense (probably because I mixed with my hands as opposed to a mixer) but very nice. Not bad for the first try huh?