Julie & Julia -- A Lesson on Loving Your Work

On my Continental flight home for the holidays, I spent $6 to watch Direct TV and movies... maybe not the best use of $6, but it was worth it. They were playing a movie I had wanted to see for a while and haven't got around to it -- Julie & Julia.

Wow, I loved the movie! As a blogger, of course I could relate to the main character who wrote about her life every day. For Julie, her blog was all about trying to complete the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook. The real-life Julie actually did start out as a blogger, then got a book deal, and then a movie deal. Such things do happen, apparently.

I always dream about getting a book deal off this blog. I don't know if I'd have enough interesting things to write at this point, but by the time I'm in my 30s I hope I know enough to write a book about personal finance. It's certainly inspiring to watch a movie about how for some people, blogging about what you love can go somewhere beyond just putting writing out there into cyberspace. The movie was all about turning 30, and while I'm not quite there yet, I'm getting closer. I'm 26, I'm really close.

One thing that really spoke to me about the movie was how it's all about following your passion. For both Julia and Julie, they went against the odds and took a risk to dedicate much of their time to cooking. Cooking is not my passion, but there are plenty of things that are -- writing about personal finance, painting (which I haven't done in way too long), and, well, really I don't need more than two passions. One is enough.

I'd really like to get back into painting next year. I have paints and just need to buy a canvas and I'm ready to go. Maybe I'll even blog about it.

By the way, here's Julie Powell's current blog... where she writes about her life post the Julia Child Project. Awesomeness.