I just found out today that Julie Powell passed away.

I know, I’m late. She passed in 2022, but the shock hit me like a physical weight this morning. To the rest of the world, she was a blogger and an author. To me, she was the person who gave me permission to start.

I remember watching Julie & Julia back in 2009. At the time, I was a lonely single mum with three kids, raising them pretty much by myself. I had good friends, great kids, and a roof over our heads, but I always felt like something was missing. I started my family young—I was 16 when I had my first, 18 with the second, and 20 with the third. I loved my kids dearly, but I never had a “career” because I decided to stay home and put them first.

When I saw the movie, I saw these two women battling their own lives—the tiny kitchens, the people who didn’t get it—and I thought: “If they can do it, so can I.”

I had always enjoyed writing in school, but I was never a personal diary kind of person for obvious reasons… three sisters! A diary wasn’t safe. But when Julie introduced the world of blogging, I was instantly inspired. Almost as soon as the movie finished, I Googled how to write a blog, found Blogspot, and got started. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was figuring it out as I went.

Since then, I’ve had several blogs. In 2011, I found WordPress and started again. But looking back, I think I was trying too hard to be like the “big successful bloggers” instead of being myself.

Now that I’m 51, I have my voice.

I don’t try to be anyone I’m not anymore. I write what I want and I am not concerned if people don’t like it. These days I’m working for myself, not for what society says I should be doing. Society says I should be out working myself into the ground to keep up with the rent.

I say: I work full-time at home. I run a house, I look after a teenager with autism and homeschool him, I run a small online business, I tend my veggie patch, and I cook from scratch—including making our own bread. I have slow mornings, slow afternoons, and busy evenings. I have declared that I am the CEO of my life, and I answer to no one but God. While society may say I need to work, I say I shall continue to rely on God as He always provides.

The Doubting Thomases

Over the course of blogging, revamping furniture, and starting my online business, there have always been the doubters. Even my own husband struggles to see the long-term picture sometimes.

But just like when I look at a piece of furniture and know what it’s going to become, I know that this stage of my life and career is just the beginning. Yes, I may have started later in life than most, but so did Julia Child and now, this is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Finding that piece of furniture and going through all the technical work—from prep to choosing paint colors and “jewelry”—is what keeps me going. When all else feels wrong with the world, I can, like Julie and Julia, retreat to what makes my heart sing. The world simply drifts away and it’s just me with a paintbrush, Margaret Whiting’s “Time After Time” in the background, and the images of Julia in her kitchen in France and Julie in her little apartment in Queens.

Both of them are gone now. The movie ends with Julie leaving a tribute for Julia—a silent “thank you” to a woman she never met but who changed her life.

This post is my stick of butter to the two women who inspired me all those years ago….Julie & Julia.

I’m still here. I’m Still blogging. I’m still creating. I’m still doing the work. And for the first time, life is working around me.