What a wonderful life.

I am the happiest girl in the world. The fifty degree days are helping that I think, but it's also just the realization of how great of a life I've got. You know how sometimes you just drudge along in life and it's a good life, but you don't see it for that because you're too busy looking at your feet plodding along? Well I vowed to myself I wouldn't be that person a long time ago. However, with the holidays, and graduation, and present making, I kind of started looking at my feet...but now I am back to my old self. Smiling and happy and just amazed.

I'm starting my own business (I know you know this, but I have to keep telling myself that in order for it to sink in). I have an incredible husband who loves me with an intensity that is rarely seen anymore, and I feel so lucky to have been able to find him. We've got a house that will make a great home someday. It's my dream to get it into a decorating magazine--although that won't be for some time because most of the rooms don't even have floors at the moment. It's a huge farmhouse and I've been dreaming of it since I was a little girl. Anyway, all the pieces of my life are coming together just the way I always imagined that they would.

Today is sunny (although last night was a long one with bad storms), and beautiful. Unseasonably warm weather that makes you long for spring which is sooo far away. Spring is going to be fun because I am going to get back into gallivanting for the sake of gallivanting. I want to find forgotten town squares and not only look through those shops but also bring them to you. I want to interview the cashiers or owners or whoever is close by and then take some photos of the interior and my purchases and give my commentary about what I think of the place. I'll also have tons of photos of my drives to and from these various small towns. I'm hoping you will enjoy my escapades and that it will draw a following.

In the spring I'm also hoping to get into some furniture restoration and other salvaging of pieces. On my desk at this very moment is a lamp I made out of a horse-head ashtray (I'll post the picture later). But that's the kind of thing I'm hoping to create. Just things that are otherwise trash-bound and worthless and giving them new purpose. And probably also just finding some steals along the way. Wish me luck--this is my future on the line and tons of dreams lie in the balance.

I'm off to finish up my last three remaining paintings for Christmas. Have a wonderful day!!

Some of my photography.

These photos are from about a year ago, but are a good start in

showing my work.

Jake Running

Our barn

The landscape near our house

Calf in a pasture

"Moving Pages"

As I said this is just a sampling. Not everything I do is agricultural in nature. I'll add some of my other photographs and works soon. I've got to go work on my Christmas presents. I'll add photos of them as soon as I'm done.

Introducing...Me.

My name is Julia. Gallivanting Girl was a nickname I acquired when I was sixteen and had first gotten my license. I’d feed the livestock in the morning and drive off into the great unknown to explore the countryside until I came home at dusk to feed again. This continued up until I graduated from high school. I can honestly say I’ve never been lost, but oh the stories I could tell you from the backroads of Indiana—and I’m sure I will because I have the habit of rambling, so you should stick around.

I’m a recent college graduate with a Fine Arts—Studio Concentration degree. Before that I earned a degree in Agribusiness. Now I’m officially not a student after nineteen years of being one. I’m starting my own business that combines my love of auctions, art, agriculture, and antiques into a mix that will make me happy. Essentially I’ll be selling my art and offering up auction finds online and at art festivals and fairs while I also attempt to keep track of my small farm.

How does a girl become this sort of person? How does she become such a complex jumble of interests? Well to start I had a childhood that could’ve been a fairytale. I was allowed to run free on my family’s farm which had every animal imaginable (peacocks, chickens, ducks, cattle, horses, guineas, rabbits, dogs, cats, etc.), and my artistic side came from watching my grandmother sketch horses on her napkin at the dinner table and my father drawing all sorts of contraptions on the computer. My grandparents bought and sold horses and other livestock during my childhood, so I got the opportunity to go to auctions at least once a week.
I was never told what I should do for a career, although my parents had hopes. My dad wanted me to be a marine biologist, which would be great, but I’m terrified of the ocean. My mom wanted me to be an author, which I have dreams of becoming someday. Alas, I think I always wanted to be an entrepreneur though. The idea of working for myself always appealed to me. At any rate, my artistic side was cultivated right next to my agriculture side in a way that would make it impossible to choose one side or the other.

My poor husband gets to go through this adventure of a life with me. He's so great and understanding and completely clueless to what he's in for next. I think he enjoys the unpredictability of it all. I'm hoping you guys do too.