hydration question?

Hi:  I am having quite the time with making sourdough bread.  I have sucessfully grew my yeast using the sourdough ladys recipe.  It is now 3 months old.  I do not know much about hydration? This could be my problem.

My first recipe was the recipe for the sourdough ladys recipe.  I followed it exactly and it did not want to raise.  So I got frustrated and put it back in the fridge.  2 days later I noticed that it had grew a bit in the fridge, so I took it out again and it took 8 hours for it to raise and it was not too bad.