Well, heating and microwaving both did not work. This is a bit of a chemistry project more than just cooking. You can't dissolve sugar crystals by heating them. If some sugar crystals form on your syrup or honey, you can perhaps get them to dissolve in the remaining syrup or honey. But if you just have sugar crystals, you have to add water somehow to get them to dissolve. Too much water and you won't have syrup anymore. I'm trying to heat them in corn syrup and see if they will ever dissolve. Anyway, Annie's maple oatmeal bread will have to wait til another day. I hope I can get some good syrup to refill my stores when I'm back in MI. Here is a link that might be useful: The science of sugar

@davidro1, I'm not concerned with the pop-up mechanism at all. I was concerned with the pop up housing being level with the drain line. I was worried that if water stayed in the pop up housing, that the housing might be prone to leaks (at the point where the ball and rod go into the drain pipe). I was also concerned with any code issues. I remember reading somewhere that there is a maximum allowable distance the p-trap can rise from the low point to the drain line. I assumed that reversing the j-bend would result in too much of a height difference to be code compliant (I'm still assuming this, since nobody has chimed in on this issue). However, more than the legality of it all, I really just wanted to know what bad consequences might happen as a result of reversing a j-bend. @jimsonburg, Thanks for the SPAM. Not. @homebound, I was concerned about the connections. The waste arm has the flared tip, but it doesn't seem so different from the plastic washer thing that goes in the tailpiece. I've went ahead and reversed the j-trap, and everything fits fine and feels really solid. I filled up the sink, drained it all at once, and there are no leaks. I've even opened up the pop up housing (where the ball goes in) and to my surprise, there is no standing water in there (the water line sits just below that). I'll keep an eye on it to make sure nothing leaks. If it does, I'm sure we'll notice it right away, before there's any major damage. Aside from a few bottles of cleaning supplies, we don't really use the cabinet under the sink, so maybe I'll just leave an old aluminum lasagna pan down there. At least that way, it'll catch any leakage should any occur, and it will alert me to any leakage by amplifying the sound of any drips.

Get yourself a 1-1/2" to 1-1/4" adapter for the drain stub, and then you can go 1-1/4" all the rest of the way. As for the bottle trap, while they look stylish, they are not code compliant in many areas of the country. In addition, unless everything aligns perfectly and the wall connection is exactly centered behind the drain stub with the fitting exactly 90 degrees to the wall, it can be quite difficult to get a bottle trap to fit properly and not leak. I considered a bottle trap for a recent bathroom reno, and ended up being glad I didn't. I'm pretty meticulous, but my sanitary tee was a hair out of square with the wall, and I wasn't ready to cut it out and try to replace it. Standard P-trap installations are much more forgiving.

I think you have more problems than you realize. It does not appear that there is enough room between the right side of the cabinet and the cold water angle stop to actually turn the knob, which means that in an emergency you would not be able to turn the cold water off. So you need to replace the current valve with a quarter-turn stop positioned so that you can actually turn it. Your drain problem is a little different from the problem that Carolt924 had, in that her pipes were close enough to lining up that she could install the trap without additional adapters. Your situation is not that simple. I respect that this is a DIY forum, and we try to give helpful answers to get folks through problems, but DIY requires a certain level of skill, some tools, and some basic knowledge of how plumbing works. I'm not sure, from what we've seen of your installation so far, that proceeding on your own is in your best interest. You may be best served by calling a plumber. Good luck.