Hmm, perhaps a2-a4 immediately was better, now Black can play e6-e5 nudging my Bishop away then maybe b5 is finally playable

Well never mind.

A Knight on the rim is

captured!

twice!!!

And now I was hoping for a long-term plan of moving d3-d4 and e4-e5, so then having adjacent diagonals attack the King

Oh well....

cxb4 was maybe also playable, the only difference is the c-file would be fully open and White would be first to have a Rook on it

Just securing an open file

However, this Rook was better on c8