(Yes 100000 write cycles is usually what the EEPROM cell can take before being considered as untrusted)
Have you checked the EEPROM Library documentation? --> you'll see examples there
If what you want to manage are defaults parameters for your program, I usually store them in a structure and I read or update that structure in EEPROM every time needed (see the put() function that will only write what has changed). There is a trick to know if the memory has been initialized the first you run your program to ensure the EEPROM has meaningful value --> write in the first 4 bytes of the EEPROM a known key (like 0xDEADBEEF) and if it's there you can safely assume a structure has been saved in memory, if not this is the first use on that arduino and you need to establish default values