Dear Dolly,

I’d like to wish you a Happy Birthday….I’m sure you are in Dollywood celebrating in your castle where you reign over the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. At least that’s how I imagine it. I would also like to thank you and tell everyone about how this letter is not just a blog so I can have an excuse to write about you…..but tell a little bit of a story of how you inspired the name of this blog here today.

Sure you’re probably thinking “Hi Sierra” is a play on your own name Sierra! How could that possibly have anything to do with Dolly Parton?? Well it is but I  would have NEVER thought of it until a few months ago I  stumbled upon an old country song.  One night…or day…I’m not particularly sure on the timing “High Sierra” sung by the queen Dolly herself ,Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris came on my music. A year of trying to come up with a name for a blog and on the verge of giving up there it was. That’s what my blog would be named. It would be played with and changed a little but that was it.

When it clicked it clicked. It was meant to come from Dolly. Dolly’s been a part of my life for a very long time. I  can thank my grandparents for that one. Dolly Parton is my Pop’s favorite singer and the day’s I  spent at their house were often days spent with Dolly. I  spent hours dressed up reading through the pages “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business” a book by Dolly Parton herself. Okay so I  mostly looked at the pictures but you know pictures say a thousand words. Nana also owned every Dolly movie there was….and we watched them all. I’ve seen them all a thousand times. I  can even direct quote her lines from “Steel Magnolias.” Except there is one I have not seen. One about a little house in Texas…I don’t know…she always said…”When your older we’ll watch this one” 😉 I’m still waiting.

There’s the pretty clothes, the big hair, the makeup, the nails…you’ve been an icon since long before I  was around. There’s also those iconic songs. From Jolene to 9 to 5, (which also is a favorite movie of mine, you wore a leather lavender knee length jacket in a scene I  swear I’ll own one day) or the classic you wrote yourself, “I  Will Always Love You.” When you were not interesting people with movies, music or fashion….it was your personal life that seemed to always romanticize itself. Like the rumors of Porter Wagoner proposing time and time again.

Just a little blonde from the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee that inspired girls for years to come that finally trickled down to me. So I’m sure you can tell……I’m a big fan of the makeup, the hair, the music, movies and OF COURSE the clothes. Dolly you have said some pretty spectacular things though too, like one of my favorites “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” Or the one I’ll end with that does not have the deep philosophical meaning that one does…but it’s still as true as they come. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”;) 

Xoxoxo,

Sierra Rae