Julie Turner Music

Beth Moore. ❤️

Since the last time I posted here (in April 🤦🏻‍♀️), I finished my first year of teaching Latin, went to South Africa, and wore the same dress for 68 days in a row, as evidenced on . (Only 32 more to go)

What have YOU been up to?

The day before we left for New Zealand, we spent a gorgeous day in Los Angeles. Blue skies, perfect weather. Lunch at was a dream come true. If you follow , you’ll soon find yourself hungry. Everything pictured here was absolutely fantastic. Can’t wait for my next trip to New Zealand so I sneak in another bonus day in LA! ❤️

This is one thing I haven’t missed from NZ. 😂 IYKYK

I’m in New Zealand. It’s gorgeous. The end.

Last year, a few months after I stopped coloring my hair, I got glasses. Progressive lenses, to be exact. I had glasses for driving before that. But I’d never had glasses that I really NEEDED. So I’d put on my cute glasses on the days I thought they looked nice with my outfit, and the rest of the time, I disregarded my need to see street signs at a distance.

I started teaching several months after I got the glasses. My students have only known the gray-haired bespectacled teacher. Yesterday took off my glasses to clean them— this is another thing I wasn’t expecting, how smudgy and gross they get. One of my students looked at me in horror. “YOU LOOK SO DIFFERENT WITHOUT GLASSES!” like the clock had struck midnight and I’d turned back into a pumpkin. I laughed and thought about my dad, a person I’d only known with glasses. I thought about the times I saw him without his glasses and how empty his face looked without them. I put my glasses back on and nodded to the student, happy to get myself back to normal again for his sake.

So anyway. Here’s a picture of my gray hair and my empty face.

I’ll be honest, seeing my six-year-old daughter put herself on her list of favorite singers makes me really hopeful for her. I hope she really sees how God has gifted her and isn’t scared to use those gifts. I’m also pretty glad I made the list. ( & , I am not even mad that you topped the list. Glad she likes well-crafted music. Y’all are great examples for us all.)

Man. Tonight I took the kids to see and at a house show not too far from us. The weather was perfect, and it was so good for my kids to see creative people using their gifts to tell pieces of God’s story. Our Creator made us IN HIS IMAGE to be creative. So thankful we got to experience this! (And thanks, for joining us!)

When I was young, having your favorite preachers and pastors sign your Bible was a big thing. I’ve not done it much as an adult, but I knew I would be sorry if I didn’t ask to sign mine. I started listening to his preaching on the radio probably 20 years ago. Then I shifted to podcasts on my iPod when that became a thing. I can honestly say that, aside from my dad, no other preacher/teacher/author has shaped my faith more. I have so many stories of very specific times God spoke to me and met me with exactly what I needed through Chip Ingram. So to hear him in person, to see him right in front of my face for a few days, was so encouraging. I’m so thankful for the chance to visit for this pastoral renewal conference. I can’t wait to see how God uses what we learned.

There are women who shave their head to allow the gray hair to grow in and not have any weird transition lines. Some of these girls look awesome. I’m thinking I’d look more weird with a shaved head than I do with multicolor hair. So here we are.

What’s an appropriate allowance amount for a 6 and 8 year old? What are the cool parents giving these days? 😂

Edited to add: I want to start teaching money skills to Jude and Ella. You can’t learn to manage money if you’re broke! Ha.

I’m back to teaching, and I’m looking very… um, teachery today. 😂

Okay, I’ll tell you straight up. Some days this gray hair is scary. And I’m really good at coloring my own hair. So I know that for about $12 and in about an hour, my hair could be “normal” again. The gray could be gone. But I was talking to a friend recently who is going through the same process, and she said she had enough “stubbornness mixed with intense curiosity of what it will look like all grown out” to get through. And had we been face to face, I would have given her a high five. Because same, girl, same. Here’s to another year or so of awkward pictures.

We spent the week in Waco, Texas (“It’s pronounced Wacko”- Erin Hannon) learning from , and it. was. amazing. Four days learning about Romans 8. It was so encouraging and challenging. I’m so thankful for the chance to do this!

I had a conversation with a friend the other day that was trying to find a male comparison to a woman growing our her gray hair. After several attempts, I jumped in with “A woman growing out her gray hair is the equivalent of a man growing his gray hair” No one asks men to color their hair. No one points out a man’s roots and says, “you should probably color that.” It’s a ridiculous societal double standard that I’d like to see die a quick death. In the meantime, enjoy pictures of my gray roots. 🎉🙌🏻💃🏼

Probably the best coffee in the Atlanta area. Worth the drive.

Well, it was time to let the gray grow out, at least for a while, to see how I feel about it. So I lightened it all up to soften the line of demarcation. I’ll let you know if I hate it. But I probably won’t. If can do it, so can I.

I have always wondered if I could live in Colorado. And I’m thinking yes. I’d have to get really skinny so I don’t feel like the Michelin man every time I go outside, but I think I could do it.

I was a mother before I was a mother. From 2004-2007, these kids were my responsibility. I lived in Tennessee with them, and their mother lived in Texas. Mothering someone else’s kids is exactly as much work as mothering your own biological kids. All of the sleepless nights and potty training and laundry. It’s all the same. But man, I loved it so much. These guys are mostly grown up now, and they live back in Texas and I’m far away in Georgia. But every now and then, I let myself go through old pictures and miss those little guys.

We spent four hours in line to get COVID tested. The boy is already positive. The rest of us are probably negative, but right now we are question marks. Merry Christmas to us.