That number surprised me" - man, I bet. It's wild how the little things add up when you're not watching. I worked with an old framer once who kept a tally of every nail he drove, and he said when he hit a million he bought himself a new hammer lol. That kinda milestone makes you realize every wall you've built is basically a stack of single moments you never thought twice about. I bet if you looked back at your notebook, you'd see all the different kinds of bricks too - the ones that split wrong, the ones that were perfect, the ones you had to tap three times to set just right.

Caught myself and had to reread that - you had autosave on by accident? That's like finding money in a coat pocket you forgot about.

Totally agree about the temperature shock thing. I tried freezing a meringue topping once because a recipe swore it would make it more stable, and it was a total disaster. It looked okay coming out of the freezer, but then it just started sweating and slid right off the pie in one sad sheet. Your point about stiff peaks is so true, that's the real foundation. If it's not stiff enough to begin with, nothing you do later is gonna save it.