and yeah i feel that so much. it's like when you patch a leaky pipe with duct tape and hope no one turns on the faucet. sooner or later it's gonna bust and flood the whole kitchen. that's the thing with quick fixes, they just buy you a little time but not real peace of mind. i've been there too many times myself and it always ends the same way.

Bet you Dave has never actually had to clean up after his own advice.

That's a good point about keeping parchment for certain things. The thing that gets me is how folks just jump on the bandwagon without actually testing both to see what works best for each job. Have you noticed a difference in how long your cookies stay soft compared to parchment? I found that on the mats my sugar cookies came out a little crisper on the bottom than I prefer, but maybe I just need to adjust the time or temperature. The other thing that bugs me is how some people act like you're doing it wrong if you still use paper for some tasks. What's your take on that whole debate about which one is better for things like roasting vegetables?

Three years of testing acrylics on scrap leather showed me most of them still crack over time, @oliviapatel. Have you had any pieces hold up past a year without issues?

Swapped over to mortar on a buddy's old place last spring and still ended up hitting a copper pipe for some old water line nobody remembered was there. Whole wall started dripping like a broken fountain, had to patch it up with epoxy and hope for the best. Now I check every single time with a stud finder that can sense pipes, even if it's just hanging a picture. Mortar's easier to drill for sure, but you never know what's hiding back there in an old house.