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.

About 11 years and 30 pounds ago

Before this picture, I’d come home from Russia having gained 30 pounds, and weighing very near what I do right now. But I’d pulled it all off again. Seems like some combination of Tae Bo and swimming worked wonders for me, but I gave up on both activities years ago.

Someone I trusted told me that I looked like an idiot when I did those things, and slowly but surely convinced me I should stop embarrassing myself. I wish I would have realized then what his definition of an idiot looked like, and the fact that no matter how silly might have looked, I shouldn’t have let someone else’s opinion of me stop me from doing what I enjoyed. In that sense, I really was a fool.

I can’t turn back the clock, and I don’t know that these workouts will have the same effect now that they did then. But I’m going to do them anyway, because whether or not I can get my skinny little waist back, I just might find something better. Wish me luck

Lookin' Sharp!

Nothing says “Happy Valentine’s Day” like an impaled heart! Ah, love. But if you needed something a little more romantic, leave it to Peter Parker:

Uhmm... in a good way?

Happy Valentine’s day!

Boy howdy, do I understand that! People say such things to me, too (I’m going through a rough divorce), and I can’t help but wonder if they’re blind to how desperately I struggle sometimes. Or maybe they’re just being nice, like Miracle Max, with his smile, wave, and well wishes to a Mostly Dead hero and his crew: “Have fun stormin’ da castle!”

And yet when I said she was tough, I really meant it. I can see it. Anyone who knows her can. So I defended my assertion by telling her that being tough and feeling tough are two separate things.

Maybe I need to listen to my own advice.

Weight lifters feel like jello, no doubt, as they push through their limits, but they still know they’re strong. And with the help of their trainers and spotters, and a good dose of rest and recuperation, they just keep getting stronger.

I’m sure it helps them to know that their burdens are both purposely self-inflicted easily quantified. I don’t have that, but I do know my trainer knows what He’s doing and is ready to spot me whenever I need it, as well as occasionally point out for me how far I’ve come.

Maybe I’m a tough chica, after all. As is my friend. Maybe we’re all much stronger than we’d think.

1) Stir 4 small boxes of gelatin into 2.5 cups of boiling apple juice. Yes, this is the basic recipe for Jell-o Jiggler’s.
2) Pour into whatever type of pan you’d like; you can either plan on cutting the jello into small pieces or mold it into small pieces in the first place. I used mini ice-cube trays.
3) Pop them in the fridge till they’re firm.
4) Unmold the pieces onto a plate or pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray
5) Cover loosely (in a paper bag, for example), place in a warm, dry place (like the top of your fridge) and let it dry for a day or two.

And that’s it!

I found this out when I’d intended to make Jigglers with my kindergarten class in Russia. My host mother found the jello in the fridge, wasn’t sure what it was (this was nearly 15 years ago) and simply took it out and set it on top. I’d already cut out one shape to test it, and to my surprise it ended up tasting much like gummy bears — maybe even better.

We’re going to try coating ours in Vitamin C crystals before they dry this time to see if we can get sour gummies too. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.

“Lack of Flash in the iPad (and before that, in the iPhone) is a win for accessible, standards-based design. Not because Flash is bad, but because the increasing popularity of devices that don’t support Flash is going to force recalcitrant web developers to build the semantic HTML layer first.”

When Apple and Adobe fight, standards win. Sing that now to the tune of Particle Man by They Might Be Giants (and forget, like I did, about that hater Triangle Man always winning everything). Like the ubiquitous Particle Man, standards -should- be everywhere. Thanks to iPad, standards may finally begin to find the priority they should have had with every designer all along.

Developers will still use Flash, but they’ll have to use standards for their foundation. Without meaningful markup, a Flash site is just a castle in the clouds. Not everyone is capable of finding their way there.

Apple didn’t create this problem. Flash-only sites have been alienating audiences for more than a decade now. iPad will simply increase the number affected, and in the process will hopefully inspire these developers to come down to earth. Once their site does its job regardless of platform particulars, they can build from there as much as they’d like. Getting there might be a rough ride for the plugin-centric, but in the end the web just might be be a more stable place, and that benefits everyone.

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.

Think of burning calories like you would think of burning firewood. If the fire is going strong, you can burn more or less anything. The trick is getting that fire started.

Start with something that burns easily, and build up from there. If the fire starts to go out, add a little more kindling — and extra oxygen. Once the fire’s hot, harder-to-burn items are no big deal, but do keep it going throughout the day, and don’t add any new heavy material to it if you’re about to put it out for the night.

According to Roy’s mom, then, you start the day with your simplest carbs, build up to your proteins, and then stop eating a few hours before bedtime. And to that I add: make a conscious effort to increase oxygen consumption as well.

I’ve also added Shape-Ups, Tai Chi, and extra walking to my regular routine: no weight loss yet. So now I’m adding these concepts in as well. 12 weeks from now I may look and feel exactly like I do right now, but if there are significant changes, I’m going to be stoked