1. Cry-laughing. Literally cry-laughing at this young woman.
2. From Fortnite to free college. It’s happening.
3. Wowza, a dark week for Trump.
4. The necessity of new-mom friends. It’s a thing.
5. Whaaaaat? MTV is rebooting The Hills with the original cast? Mindless television is the best television.
6. This explanation of why NFL players are taking a knee is the most eloquent and spot-on I’ve seen. I don’t live in Texas, but Beto O’Rourke, you have my vote.
7. The one thing I can’t live without in my kitchen. I’m one year in and can’t imagine not having it.
8. Yo, “kids these days” and Millenials are not interchangeable terms. Millenials encompass people up to age 37!
9. I want this (totally inexpensive!) dress in every pattern.
10. Lyft is offering discounted and/or free rides to the polls on election day this November. Bravo!
11. In this week’s Selfie podcast, Kristen razzes me for being the special snowflake that I am. We also have a great interview on managing anxiety.
Happy Friday! Hope you have a wonderful week.
image credit: ashley goldberg
Ale C
August 24, 2018 at 4:17 pmWow, I teared up during the video of Beto O’Rourke explaining his reason for supporting the protest. Not only for his position, but the eloquence in which he did it. If only more politicians could speak as respectfully as he did yet still be direct….
Sarah Kinnard
August 26, 2018 at 8:19 amI bought a Berkey several months ago and the whole setup process and intricate instructions for priming and testing and ongoing maintenance gave me so much anxiety. I couldn’t get the filters primed correctly and finally gave up. So it’s just sitting there and we’re still buying gallons of water… :( I’d love to hear how you manage the setup and maintenance for yours.
Jeanne
August 30, 2018 at 8:29 pmI’m not quite sure what part is giving you problems so hopefully I can help explain what we do. The black filters are simply densely compressed charcoal. I rinse off the outside, slightly scrubbing it with a clean sponge (no soap), to get rid of any excess charcoal dust.
Then next I prime the filter using the white priming button. You want to find the faucet head in your house that fits INSIDE that white button the best. It’s usually the most basic, smallest faucet head you have in your house. For me it’s my master bathtub. For my friend, it’s her garden hose. Yeah, totally that simple. I find that if you have some sort of special doo-hickey on your faucets that changes the water spray from stream to spray, it doesn’t fit the button well.
So what that button does is essentially force the water to soak the filter throughout the inside. That’s it. You’re basically soaking a sponge-like cylinder. The action of forcing the water through the first time saturates the filter and gives the filter a head start. There’s no correct, perfect way to do it. You just want it to fill with water and that button helps the water go through the inside.. You can tell when it’s soaked because water beads up on the outside. And yes, I’ve had water squirt out back at me a touch when the button slips off the faucet head a bit.
Don’t worry about the black charcoal. I’ve never had this issue with the filters but just know that for peace of mind, it’s okay to have a bit in your system. Your body just digests it and sends it out to the toilet. Chefs are cooking with it making black bread and black smoothies nowadays. And hospitals make patients drink activated charcoal if they’ve consumed something poisonous. The priming of the filters gets rid of excess charcoal dust, so I’ve actually never seen any in our water. However if you do see some, it will only be in the first filtering session.
Berkey suggests for the first time, you tint your water with a touch of food coloring in the top section.. This just checks for any leaks in the screws. The Berkey system is so thorough that if you screwed everything in well (doesn’t have to be insanely tight), the filters will take out all of the food coloring and the water will be clear. Crazy right??
In terms of maintenance, every several months, when the filter runs out of water, I just wash the top and bottom with dish soap, rinse and dry and fill that baby back up. It says to remove the filters but honestly I’m too darn lazy and it’s not been a problem for me.
It’s seriously the easiest system and you remind me I need to buy some new filters. Hope this helps and best of luck.
Jeanne
August 30, 2018 at 8:30 pmIt didn’t feel that long when I was typing it out!!!