Idea Blog

If your garbage disposal stops working, particularly if it’s been working fine and then one day simply dies, you just might be able to fix it yourself with the press of a little red button. Who knew?

Just like your hair dryer, garbage disposals have a GFCI: a circuit interrupter that shuts the device off if there’s a safety issue. If that safety issue was just a fluke, resetting the button will do the trick. You should be able to find the reset button just underneath the disposal. Just make sure the normal on-off switch is set to ‘off’ and that there aren’t any spoons in the sink, so you won’t have any surprises when the disposal starts running again.

Is this common knowledge? Well, my friend didn’t know, and had gone 3 weeks thinking her garbage disposal was broken before I fixed it tonight. I wouldn’t have known had my brother not told me. And he didn’t know before either: he figured it out when installing a replacement disposal for his mother-in-law, who’d gone without for ages.

So if you didn’t know, well, now you do, and knowing is half the battle. Maybe someday it’ll save you or a friend the cost of a new disposal or visit from a repairman.

I figured this out by accident in Russia; today I’m making it with my kids again. And it is surprisingly simple… (more…)

I just joined the Biggest Loser contest at UVU. The person who loses the highest percent of their initial body weight wins, with prizes each week as well a grand prize at the end. My problem? A woefully efficient metabolism. No matter how much I’ve exercised and dieted, the weight doesn’t drop. My body is very good not only at living within a very tiny caloric budget, but also at saving some of those calories for later. The net result over a few years of living off 900 calories per day? 5 more pounds and zero energy.

So my goal is not only to lose weight, but to figure out how to get myself a spendy metabolism. And the wise words of my friends mom are seeming to make more and more sense. (more…)

This year, I resolve to do unto myself what I would have myself do unto others. Wait… what? (more…)

The kids and I were going through old pictures today when we ran across a picture of the worst wart ever. You’ll have to click “more” if you want to see it — don’t look if you’ve got a strong gag reflex. And actually it wasn’t the worst wart ever, now that I think of it. He had some on his feet that were bigger than a fifty cent piece. (Bah! And after all that I forgot to add a More link so it displayed the whole thing! d’oh!)

But anyway, the whole reason I’m posting this is because we’d forgotten how bad it was, and what a miracle it was we found a remedy that actually works. And since someone had asked the other day how we got rid of his warts, I figured I’d post the solution here. If you want it and don’t mind the gross picture, click ahead! (more…)