Julie and Julia and Me?

Yesterday my husband and I saw the movie, Julie and Julia. It was a good movie, a girl movie. A girl movie I was owed after seeing District 9 with my husband on his birthday. The movie, Julie and Julia was essentially the life stories of two women - Julie Powell and Julia Child. We all know Julia Child, but I was more interested in Julie Powell. We have a few similarities. She's from Texas - I'm from Texas, in the movie she had written half a novel - I've written half a novel, she felt unfulfilled as a writer - I feel unfulfilled as a writer, she rarely finished anything - I rarely finish anything, she has a blog - I have a blog. All similarities end there.

The movie begins with Julie deciding to write a blog about cooking as a means of satisfying her inner writer. But not just any cooking - she decides to blog about cooking her way through Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I. And, she decides to do it in one year - 524 recipes in 365 days. And, these recipes are extremely complicated, requiring boiling a calf foot and killing lobsters. (Warning: If you don't want the ending to the movie ruined - Stop reading now.) She meets her deadline, becomes famous, and has a movie made about her.

Wow! Who knew blogging could be so exciting? And profitable?

What does this mean for little-ole-blogger-me? Is there a famous book out there on cleaning which I could work my way through in one year in order to draw the attention of publishing houses and movie producers? I did just read that E.L. Doctorow's new book is about the Collyer brothers. They are legendary hoarders who were found buried under tons of "stuff" in their Manhattan mansion in the 1940s. But, even my house can't compare with that!

I guess what the movie did for me was make me realize I haven't been very serious about my blog-project. I haven't been a very diligent cleaner and purger of my house and of my "stuff." Should I follow Julie Powell's example and install a countdown meter on my blog site? We could all watch the days of the year tick by and wonder if I will complete my cleaning house project before the year is over. Should I follow Julie's example and get up extra early and stay up extra late in order to make sure I get everything done? How awesome would it be to know that in exactly one year from today my house would be spotless and free of all the extraneous "stuff." Could I do it, should I do it?

Nah, but it was fun, for just a minute, to think I might.