She’s Been Thinkin’ Her Thoughts Again

Hello Friends!
A mere three ish months after the big blog overhaul, we are going to have to make some changes again. One of the things I was hoping to accomplish with the first change was get you more interesting content without putting a whole lot more work on myself, because I’m running out of hours in the day. The good news is, I think we accomplished that! I’ve been pretty happy with what we’ve accomplished, I wish my editing skills were better, etc, etc, but that all comes with time. The bad news however, is that work is demanding even more time than before, as is my extended family, and I’ve got to get creative to make sure I can still keep all the plates spinning.
I’ll admit, my first thought was “what if I just took a break from working on the blog?” but that didn’t really sit right with me, I like chatting with you guys, and I’d really like to think you all enjoy a couple minutes of shenanigans each week (let my ego have this one). Plus, to be quite blunt, I am a prime example of Newton’s 1st law (ish) in that, if I am “at rest” I will stay at rest, so if I took another break from the blog “just until things calmed down” the chances are too high I wouldn’t come back, and I am just not ready to be done with this project yet, ya know?
So, then, my second thought was really scaling back content for a while, more like twice a month over twice a week, and to be honest this might end up the ultimate answer, but that also didn’t quite sit as the right answer either. It felt like a plan B, something I should think about, but not something to commit to yet, when there were potentially other options.
I actually credit Christopher with the idea that I think we are going to go with for now. He suggested I start stockpiling content on slow days so I have it during the crazy weeks. This is a fantastic idea in theory, but I can’t really stockpile weekly content about the farm that easily, because some things need to be timely, like sharing spring blooms and the highs and lows of loving critters, and quite frankly, it’s weird to be posting about being cold in July because I wrote about the goings on way back in March. But I like the idea of stockpiling some content so I started to have me a think.
The other issue that I wanted to look at while planning these changes is that while I love the blog, it’s not what I set out to do. Not to say I don’t have pride in what we’ve made but things have gotten a little “shallow”. My posts were feeling a little like putting on a show, and that’s not the goal here. I want to share the pretty little things I get to see every day, not a production. Authenticity. I realized what I was trying to do with adding videos, and this whole trying-to-figure-out-next-steps thing, is that I started this blog as a public journal, actually based on a little roundup I used to do at an old job, and I wanna get back to that, posting the things that bring me joy, in hopes they’d bring you joy too. Just in a fun, mixed-media format. Think about it like a journal-meets-scrapbook….but online, and without glue.
So, anyway, here’s the tentative new plan, subject to change as life does:
– 1st week of the month: Photo Gallery Post – a collection of photos I’ve taken with my camera, theoretically with an overarching theme, more than likely flowers, because I love photographing them so much, and slightly more verbose descriptions without needing to be a full blog post. This is a post style I can plan ahead for and stock up on, and it gives me an excuse to add a little “take a walk outside” time to my day occasionally, even just for a few minutes.
– 2nd week of the month: Topic Chat – a post on some topic or story, similar to those I wrote way back when the blog was just finding its feet, before the routine of life dulled the content. Again, these are stockpile-able posts, I can plan them well ahead, and it gives us a chance to chat without always feeling like we have to catch up on the day to day. Think “Things that I do in the country that never would have happened in the city” style posts… but with better titles.
– 3rd week of the month: Video Log – Turns out my favorite thing to do is capture little snippets, sometimes serene, sometimes exceedingly silly, of farm life, so I want to do more of those. Basically the same content we’ve been doing now, but without the need to “stick to a theme”, so maybe a clip of Dad enjoying his well-earned new lawnmower, then a sunset over our foothills, to Ro and Nel stealing tack off the fence, and maybe a few seconds of me attempting some silly food thing from Instagram, all gathered into a little “vlog”. I am kinda envisioning the fun goofiness of watching old home videos, where it’s just silly scenes that someone felt like capturing. I wanna bottle some of the warm fuzzies I get from the farm and share them, and this is my best guess at how to do that. I’m gonna try to get the family in on it and see what they capture, so fingers crossed on that eventually happening, although I wouldn’t get excited about that quite yet.
– 4th week of the month: Catch Up Post – This will be the tried and true “what we’ve been up to on the farm” post, just like we’ve been doing, but I am hoping that keeping it to once a month allows me to not be stretching for content and we won’t get caught bored when it rains for a week straight. Makes them a little more special, maybe?
– 5th week of the month (if applicable): The “Bonus” Post – Seems like there’s four or five 5-week months a year, so on that rare fifth Friday we will have a bonus! I don’t really know what this is yet, I was thinking maybe behind the scenes, kinda, like “here’s what my real life day job kinda looks like” or “this is my camera equipment” or “here’s how I schedule my posts” kinda stuff, but honestly, I don’t really know yet. Taking suggestions.
The main posts will go out Friday per usual, with accompanying social media stuff, Tuesdays will still most likely be an odd collection of off the wall pictures, quotes, verses, websites, etc. I know I said tiktok was a thing, but I’ll be honest, that app still terrifies me three months on. Maybe when I get a better grasp on twitter and Instagram first, I’m still a little social media phobic, believe it or not.
Anyways, sorry to dump all these changes on you at once, but I wanted you to know what’s up, and the new goals we are trying to achieve. Hopefully my schedule chills out and we won’t be doing this again in three months with me telling you that I need to lessen the content. I’d really hate to do that. Hoping these changes help mitigate that.
Until we chat again, my friends.