Hi Carin, it sounds like your starter is very close to being mature and ready to start leavening your bread, although it may be helpful to tweak your feeding routine slightly. Ideally you want to feed the starter when it's still at its peak of rising, or just beginning to fall, which will help promote vigorous yeast activity. If your starter is routinely falling significantly between feedings, then this could be causing your starter to be a bit sluggish. Adjusting the ratio of ingredients in your starter can help you find a twice a day feeding routine that lines up your feedings closer to the peak. Keep in mind that temperature also plays an important part in the how quickly your starter ripens, with warmer temperatures causing the starter to ripen faster. On the other hand, a 1:5:5 ratio (starter:water:flour, by weight) will tend to slow down the ripening process because you're offering your starter a relatively larger meal, which it will take longer to consume and ferment. How warm is your house this time of year? If it's generally around 70F, you might want to try allowing your starter to ferment at room temperature (without the heating pad) and simply up the percentage of starter as compared to water/flour you're feeding it. You could try a 1:1:1 ratio first, and see how your starter responds. If it seems like the starter is peaking too quickly, you could scale back to 1:3:3. Again, the object here is to find a feeding routine that allows you to replenish your starter closer to the peak. Once your starter is routinely doubling about 6-8 hours after a feeding and has a pleasant aroma, then you can consider your starter mature and ready for baking bread. At that point you can also start refrigerating your starter. It's best to feed your starter and then let it sit out for a few hours to start bubbling before storing it in the refrigerator. You can feed your starter straight from the fridge, but it may take a few feedings at room temperature to restore it to its normal rising behavior and aroma. Generally the longer it's been neglected in the refrigerator, the more room temperature feedings will be necessary, but if you're feeding your starter at least once a week, it will likely only take a few feedings to revive it sufficiently. For more information on starter care, check out this blog post. 

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