Oh man, I had a buddy who does minor landscaping on the side and he never thought about dump fees. He spent a whole Saturday hauling branches to the county site and got hit with a $45 charge he didn't see coming. Then he had to borrow cash from his girlfriend just to cover it. He said he felt like an idiot standing there with a truck full of sticks and not enough money. Now he keeps a $20 bill tucked in his glove box just for that kind of surprise.

lindab49, your "no extra fluff" line hit me right in the overthinker's soul. I spent a full year trying to color code my monthly log with different highlighters for work, personal, and "maybe I'll do it" tasks. Turned into a rainbow mess I couldn't read half the time. Now I just do a straight list like you said, and I even stopped bothering with the column headers because I kept misspelling "appointments." My handwriting is basically doctor scrawl anyway, so it all looks the same at a glance.

Propane definitely gives you more consistent temps once you dial in the regulator and burner placement. Took me about two weeks to stop fighting with it and start trusting the gauge. Preheating your forge for a full 10 minutes before sticking steel in makes a huge difference too.

Margaret sounds like @reesemoore's neighbor who argued over compost bins for two hours last week.

My buddy Dave had a cheap farrier rasp that kept clogging and he swore the steel was garbage. Turned out his anvil was sitting on a loose cinderblock that wobbled every time he set a nail. He put down two stacked pieces of plywood and the rasp worked fine after that.