Adventure. For me, this year is all about new adventures. Exploring unknown territory in both literal and figurative ways as I embark on new paths in my life, including a new job, my baby starting kindergarten (how is it possible that this is the year??), and leading other women on hikes in my role as a 10,000 Women Trail Project Trailblazer and ambassador for Girls Who Hike Arkansas. Plus, all the adventures that I haven’t even imagined or encountered yet! So far one of the best adventures has been meeting other women who want to get outdoors and explore our beautiful state! I cannot wait to see how this adventure continues to unfold as my trail tribe grows and flourishes.
I still remember the moment seven years ago when my friend and fellow Heifer International volunteer Wanda Eason suggested that our volunteer group start a trail run as a fundraiser. We were a small group of volunteers and it was a daunting task, but we all responded with a resounding “yes” to this outlandish idea. You see, up until that point our group had mostly lead talks about Heifer to community groups and set up booths at events to share about Heifer. We had never hosted our own event, and most of us hadn’t the first notion about what went into putting on a race. That first year we had fewer than fifty runners register. Now, as we close in on the date for our 2018 race it’s clear that we will sell out again just as we have the last three years. It’s exciting and humbling to look at where we started and see where we are now.
Hey everyone! Thank you for reading–I’m so excited to be the ARWB’s Blogger of the Month! My lifestyle blog julianne {gray} is the place I share my family’s adventures around the Natural State and beyond. I’m still trying to convince the ARWB that this Miss April gig should come with a string of appearances out and about the state a la Miss Arkansas junkets (I prefer a headlamp and hiking boots to the sash and crown, please).
Where I’m from
I was born in Central Texas and lived there for the first eight years of my life until my family began moving around the South. We called North Carolina and Virginia home before we eventually settled in Mountain Home, AR. Moving to that small town was a culture shock in many ways, but it was also a familiar and safe place to land after visiting my grandparents there for so many years. Their cabin on a patch of land where the White & Buffalo Rivers meet was where we came year after year to swim in the cold, cold waters, fish with canned corn bait, paint rocks, catch crawdads, wander the expansive countryside, canoe and be wild & free. It was also the place we called home for many months after first moving to Arkansas.
I now live in Northwest Arkansas, and I still enjoy exploring all that the Natural State has to offer. My husband Jeremy, and our son Coen, are my constant adventure companions, but I also lead hikes for women in Arkansas as part of my capacities as a Trailblazer for the 10K Women Trail Project and an ambassador for Girls Who Hike AR.
My blog
I started my current blog (let’s all agree that we won’t discuss the one I started in 2006, okay?) when I was still living in Central Arkansas in 2011. I was working as a copywriter for Dillard’s and craved an outlet for my creative writing. I first thought it would be a fashion and lifestyle blog, but soon found out writing about fashion was a “conflict of interest” with my current employer. I’m such a rule follower that I passed up the opportunity to get a free pair of boots at the first Arkansas Women Bloggers’ conference I attended because writing a blog post about the boots and the outfitter was a requirement. (Psst, is there a statute of limitations on those boots? I will totally write a post all about them now!) I landed on the name julianne {gray} because there was time that my obsession with a particular shade of charcoal gray prompted others to begin calling it “Julianne gray.” It seemed to fit with my idea for a fashion blog, and I still find it fitting even if I have to repeatedly explain to readers and fellow bloggers that no, it is not actually my name.
A Few Fun Facts
I am a volunteer with the Central Arkansas Heifer Volunteers (even though I no longer live in Central AR) and we put on a 20K trail run benefiting Heifer International every April at Petit Jean State Park. This year our trail run is on April 14, and I’m hosting a hike along the Cedar Falls Trail the following morning.
I’m addicted to chips and salsa and coffee. I have tried to give up coffee on multiple occasions and even went four months without it once, and no, I don’t know what I was thinking either!
I was a theater major in school for a whole semester for before switching to Fashion & Apparel Merchandising. I still secretly wish I could be more involved in local theater and musicals.
I’m a passionate advocate for recycling, conservation and sustainability. My husband will attest (and also protests) to the fact that I squirrel away hard-to-recycle items in our home until I have enough to ship them to the appropriate recycling facility.
As writers, we influence with our words, which can wield great power—for our good and our bad. For me “awareness” is key. My former years as an English teacher have me pulling out my red pen and addressing a pet peeve or two. My heart’s motive is to help us all be our best. In turn, I also share my own decades-long blunder. My cat Einstein assists just because photos of a grammar book aren’t as intriguing. Here we go …
What happens when a city girl lands smack dab inside a wooded parcel of land, surrounded by wild animals she’s only seen in cartoons? It was like I stepped inside my own Aesop’s Fable tales with so many lessons to learn. Please relax in the many ways nature helps us live lovely, and join me here at my house and the wild world where I live.
Our lives tend to be multiple juggling acts on our balance beams of life. Where and how is it okay to indulge extravagantly? And when is too much way too much? In this blog post, circle with me in my deliberations about vanity, detecting my bountiful and what to do with it. Welcome to living lovely and my vanity blog party here.
I have to say, I love your cooking blogs. (Where were you when I was newly married and banned from using Hamburger Helper?) I love your how-to-be-a-young-mom (or dad)-and-not-go-crazy blogs. (Again, where were you when I was isolated for weeks with a sick toddler?) I am energized by your how-to grow or decorate anything blogs. I wish I could focus on one subject. In The Art of Lovely Living: In Search of Authentic Beauty Living Large, I share my multi-directional but hopefully multi-dimensional thoughts on cliques, labels, relationships, the death of our dog, and whether or not I’m friendly or, yikes, misconstrued to be flirty.
I created my blog in 2011 to share some of my personal essays about life and death, divorce, dementia, my vanity and yours, and how I’m not a fashionista, are you? Sometimes I’m serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek (defined slyly humorous:). I get to speak my mind and heart in a conversational voice to several hundred readers. I forewarn you, I’m wordy and I’m sappy.
However, just as I love to write, I also love to paint (on canvases in lieu of walls). Both can be lonely sports though. When I joined the Arkansas Women Bloggers and The Women Bloggers, I met others online who love words and their influence. And even though my head swims when you all discuss anything plug-in, computerish, and Instagramy, I read you, and your explanations bring a bit of clarity in my fog.
In my personal life, I try to follow in my grandmother’s example. She showed me what loving parents do. In turn, I focused to be the mother I didn’t have, the teacher I needed. Since I was a child of divorce, I had vowed to not ever divorce for my children’s and scriptures’ sake. When I discovered my eighteen-year marriage included his affairs, that vow was broken, and I entered into a new season.Writing was a good way to air my griefs and soften the shock.
Now as a single parent, I began working on a master’s degree in Technical and Expository Writing. Some of the classes generated my developing educational programs for high school students: a radio talk show—Listen Up, It’s Your Future Talking, and a documentary films workshop. I also produced and directed a city-wide children’s production with a cast and crew of 75. For those eight performances, we averaged 800 on week nights!
For all of these projects, I created brochures, programs, and manuals before graphic arts programs, computers and the internet were available. I know it sounds like the dinosaur age, but that was only 25 or so years ago.
In my early forties, I was blessed to meet the love of my life (trite, but true) and together we have four children and five grandchildren. When we moved to Searcy twenty years ago for my husband Bill, a urologist, to join Searcy Medical Center, we found a house with seven acres on a thirty-acre lake. Only eight minutes from the clinic and Harding Academy where I taught secondary English and then art, the setting has been a godsend. Many hours are spent at our kitchen window watching the world of nature. I call it my God therapy. I’ll share a bit in one post.
For all of my jam-packed years, I now am one who needs quiet days to unplug and tackle a project, whether it be an article or painting. The silence offers room for my best expressions. Several essays have been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul Books, Guideposts’ Mysterious Ways magazine and book and other essay compilations as well as newspapers and online websites.Throughout the years my volunteer work has included serving on five different board of directors, four as Secretary (writing minutes for meetings is not creative but necessary). All give me opportunities to invest in others. All the while, I’m growing and expanding.
Bill and I love traveling together, having journeyed throughout our great country with only ten states left. We’ve ventured through sixteen or so European countries, some twice, and Russia, Cuba and Mexico. We have a mutual love of art, our children, grandchildren, and most especially the Lord.Life is good, and so I share with you what I find in my search for its beauty and art.
Be Sure To Attend The Culinary & Craft School While Visiting Silver Dollar City Theme Park. This Post Explains Why Attending The Culinary School Is One Of My Favorite Things To Do At Silver Dollar City.
Have You Ever Been On The TODAY SHOW? Would You Like To Know What It Is Like To Be On The TODAY SHOW?
I always thought I might be on the outside of the TODAY SHOW, Studio 1A, looking in and waving at the hosts but never dreamed I would be on the TODAY SHOW.
My Journey To 3rd Place And A Perfect Score On My First Dessert At World Food Championships. How Did I Get There? How Did I Do?
This post is written to not only explain my journey to The World Food Championships but to encourage you to go after your dreams. I always say “Do Your Best and Let God Do The Rest”! So, I worked hard, and God blew me away. The results left me speechless and in tears. I was overwhelmed, humbled, thankful, grateful, ecstatic, and blessed. Your time is right around the corner. Trust me; my life has not been easy. Do not lose hope that God wants to bless you too.
I now live in Northwest Arkansas, and I still enjoy exploring all that the Natural State has to offer. My husband Jeremy, and our son Coen, are my constant adventure companions, but I also lead hikes for women in Arkansas as part of my capacities as a Trailblazer for the 10K Women Trail Project and an ambassador for Girls Who Hike AR. 
