spread-itis no more!

Yay! Thank you! After much research and tips and narrowing down the problem (via videos from King Arthur flour and seeing their dough in each step), I figured out that I wasn't kneading it correctly in the bulk fermentation step. I was doing the push-down and quarter turn method. No folding or stretching, because I wasn't even aware of that at all! Interesting how even the end result in bread can point to a problem much earlier in the process. With just folding and stretching, the dough became dramatically different, and the bread held its nicely curved lofty shape during baking! yay!!!!!!!

Now on to invest in a thermometer...