Summing what up, exactly?

indexed.blogspot.com + bakerella.blogspot.com = juliesumsitup.blogspot.com
Now entering my Bakerella- NON-fail blog:
I thought I'd start this out like Bakerella does hers, with a little picture of the ingredients. Here, you can see butter (softened, not melted), yellow cake mix, and brownie mix. All the signs of a good cook and a meatless burger.
Then I decided to go where few have gone before, at least in public. Here's CAKE MAN. He's very happy; doesn't realize that soon, his nose and eyes will be blended into oblivion, only to be put in a scorching oven until his skin blisters and his atomic make-up changes. (Or whatever happens that makes salmonella non-existent.) I baked cupcakes out of the cake mix, filling them high enough that they were going to bake up and over the sides a little bit.

After baking and cooling the cupcakes, I baked the brownies and put them in the freezer for easier cutting. I cut the cupcakes into thirds, and cut the brownies into circles with a glass. Lucky for me and other brownie-lovers, circles do not tessellate very well. Lots of scraps!

Sesame seeds (listen, Mitch!) stick on the tops of cupcake buns with just a little water on the cupcake.

To squirt the homemade icing out neatly, it worked really well to put it in plastic baggies and cut the tip. It was impressive, even for someone with the patience and attention span of me!

So I layered them... and ended up with a delicious-tasting meatless burger!
Cupcakes + icing + brownies + sesame seeds = one pretty good imitation. If I do say so myself.

And I do.

it takes two. it always takes two.

I planned on waiting until I had something that you would be interested in reading, but alas, I do not have the patience. Instead, I'm going to throw some lessons I've learned post-graduation.

Lesson #1. Things happen in twos.
Two weddings (see Lesson #2), two different people cracking headlights on my car... Once in a hotel parking lot graduation weekend (rear tail-light cracked) and once this morning parked on my own street (front tail-light MIA.) Luckily, both parties left notes with numbers and apologies. I'm hoping the Kia dealership has some sort of frequent-buyer deal. I bowled my two worst games (found out in the 6th frame of the second game that I was using the wrong fingers; never did find out which hand I should be using.)

Lesson #2. Bridesmaids surprisingly have a lot of free time on their hands.
Weddings of friends are lots of fun. Two of my housemates got married the past two weekends, one in Cincinnati and one in Grand Rapids. I don't have any pictures from the Cincinnati ceremony - but I figure that's all right, since this blog is about me. (I did include one of the bride and groom from the second wedding. Her family is a little more on top of facebook.)

Ex. 1
Sneaking pudding at Tessa's wedding. I've spared my conspirator by not putting in any pictures of her.

Ex. 2. We were waiting in the nursery for Cara

Another Sammie post?

A year ago, I was avoiding studying for finals by learning Photoshop. This year, I am out of ideas for how to not study. My creative juices appear to have dried up, so no Photoshop. We lost internet in our house, and my phone is lost, so no easy contact with friends. I completed the Confessions of a Shopaholic series before finals started, and I'm pretty much as packed as I can be. Graduation is a week from tomorrow, the 23rd - it's all coming down to the end!

This is what I was doing during the studying-phase of finals last year: Remember the story of how Sammie ripped a wing off of a bird? I have illustrated it for you, in a lovely version of the circle of life.



I've also been searching for housing in Columbus, and deciding what's important to me. I found an experimental suburb (classy, right?) in Germany that is not a housing option for me, but a unique and interesting idea. I'm trying to remember to follow it.
A reason NOT to dislike suburbs

I'm no Brown Sharpie rival...

Brown Sharpie is a comic site written by a math graduate student. I'm not smart enough to understand everything, but I can pretend to laugh at almost anything. (You can search by title, this one is under culture.)


Hilbert's paradox of the hotel (wiki it here) is a hotel with infinite rooms that are all full. Luckily for this comic, both the rooms and the bus sets are countably infinite, so there really should be enough rooms. But what a dilemma for the concierge! My favorite part of this is in the speech bubble. Go ahead, laugh (or just sparkle your eyes in amusement.)

Now, there is no reason to ask, "What has Julie been doing with her time since swimming is over?"

Haiku contest

I hate the stench of
coffee. It snarls, "Morning's here!"
but I just want dreams.

Join in the contest. Haikus (5/7/5) about anything specific, not abstract. I'd like to test your creativity.

What could be better than chocolate and peanut butter?

Talent is overrated

The plan was to make these "Spring Chickens" from Bakerella, a blog Kristi showed me. Unfortunately (but quite fortunate for the purpose of a humorous blog entry), I did not read the difficulty level until I was way too far into the process. Thus, my spring chickens met varying fates: some lost their lollipop sticks, some lost half a body, most were recklessly abandoned, and a select few made it in a pathetic chicken state.

The select few chickens are heading to my friends who drove from afar for Easter. It's little balls of crumbled cake mixed with chocolate frosting so that it molds into a ball. The cake balls are stuck on a lollipop stick and dunked into candy melts.



This is me holding one that has no faults.

Er, very few.

And the lucky abandoned / crumpled-heap ones are destined to be snacked on since I lost interest in creating chickens, once I found out I have no talent in this area of chick cake-ball making.