Tried a 100-word flash fiction challenge and it completely broke my writing process

I did a 100-word sci-fi prompt last Tuesday and spent 4 hours agonizing over every single word, way longer than my usual 1500-word stories. Has anyone else found that strict limits actually make you more stuck, not more creative?

Swapped my weight for a lid on my crock for sauerkraut, way less mold now

Just realized my boss's advice about 'always being available' was wrong after a chat with a retired engineer at a coffee shop in Austin.

He told me, 'I missed my kid's whole soccer season in 2008 for a project that got canceled two weeks later,' and that finally made me set hard work-life boundaries.

I was cleaning a flue in an old house near Burlington and found a newspaper from 1912 stuffed up there.

The paper had an ad for a chimney sweep offering a full clean for 25 cents, which really put our current rates into perspective, doesn't it?

Honestly, I dropped $80 on a fancy portfolio template that made my work look like a toddler's fridge art.

Ngl, I bought it hoping for a quick polish, but the layout was so cluttered and weird that a client actually asked if my designs were a joke, so has anyone found a simple, clean template that doesn't cost a fortune?

My neighbor told me his electric bill dropped by $40 a month after he got a smart thermostat, and it made me think about the small stuff.

Remember when we used to draw everything at 1:1 scale on the board?

I keep seeing new drafters skip the paper space setup in AutoCAD. They just draw everything in model space and print from there. That was fine for a single sheet back in 2005, but it's a mess for a 50-sheet project. You lose all the control for viewports and title blocks. My old boss in Cincinnati would have fired me for that. How do you guys handle training new people on this?

Changed my mind about those 'easy care' succulents after my jade plant dropped all its leaves

I used to think you could just ignore them, but after my plant in the sunny kitchen window got root rot from weekly watering (my friend in Phoenix said 'they're desert plants, treat them like it'), I realized overwatering is the one thing almost everyone gets wrong and it actually matters because it kills them from the roots up before you even see the problem.

I doubted the new digital tension meter until it saved a job in Chicago

I was working on a high-rise traction unit and my old analog gauge kept giving me jumpy readings on the governor rope tension. The super was getting impatient, so I borrowed a coworker's Digi-Tech T-2000 just to shut him up, and it gave me a rock steady 250 lbs reading on the first try. Has anyone else had a tool they didn't trust at first completely change their mind?

My new ultralight tent turned into a kite in a Wyoming windstorm last month.

I was camping near Pinedale and a gust ripped the stakes right out, sending the whole thing tumbling 50 feet into a creek. I spent the night in my car, which was way less fun. Has anyone else had a tent completely fail in bad weather?