What “A Change of Pace” means to us
Hello! So, obviously we’ve launched a blog and with that comes all the creative things like naming said blog. I have never had a blog before and had no clue where to even start, but I loved the idea of journaling as we go throughout this process. Someday, maybe we’ll look back and be able to remember all the feelings we felt along the way because, trust me, it’s been a roller coaster ride.
So naming the blog…what did I do? I googled it. Here’s what I typed into my browser, “how to name a blog”. As you can imagine, a plethora of results were returned to me and the one I gravitated to was “7 Best Ways to Name Your Blog”. Looked promising to me, so I clicked on it. I’m not really a detailed reader. I’m a scanner. I scan through it quick and if I don’t find answers quick, I move on quick. That’s likely my most toxic trait...impatience. 😬
So, I am scanning through this article which has all kinds of ideas for naming your blog like, “dust off your thesaurus or dictionary”, “try alliteration to come up with a catchy blog name”, “use puns for your blog name”….you see how this is going. But then one of the techniques was “read a book (or article) to uncover a clever blog name”. Hmmm…ok. I look over at my coffee table and the only book within reach is my Be Still, 90 Devotions for the Hopeful Heart by Cleere Cherry daily devotional. I grab it and start thumbing through it thinking this might be a dumb exercise but honestly, I wasn’t prepared to get off my couch to name this blog, so I’m hopeful an idea will jump off one these pages.
Jason’s sitting next to me on the couch partially invested in naming the blog because he’s focused on ordering tree saplings from the Tennessee Department of Forestry so we can re-forest an area of the property. The website was malfunctioning and he was getting frustrated…so, basically he’s not being a lot of help naming the blog. I just keep flipping and I turn to a page titled “Change of Pace”. I read it out loud and he breaks his focus and says, “Yes! I like that”. Me too. So that’s how we named the blog. Some advice from google, leveraged my daily devotional and there you have it, a blog name. :)
In all seriousness, we really do love the words change of pace though. For a couple of reasons. We feel like it truly embodies what we are striving to accomplish at the farm. We want people to drive through the front gate and feel like life slowed down a little. Like it’s okay to stop and breathe in the fresh mountain air. We want to create pockets on the farm where our guests can rest, take a hammock nap, read a book, exercise, play games, soak in an outside bubble bath or sit by the fire. Whatever it is that brings them life. We want them to leave feeling revived and recharged. Life is busy these days, and often times heavy. We just want people to feel like they can lay that down even if it’s just for a moment.
And for us personally, a change of pace holds a lot of meaning. Jason and I both have corporate jobs. We both love our companies and what we do as our day jobs, but with any career, fast paced is the name of the game, right? How quick can we turn something around? How efficient can we be? Can we hit that deadline? Multitasking is praised and all those things are great. We’ve been doing it for a lot of years with much reward. We’ve been blessed throughout our careers and have been fortunate to work for some amazing companies and leaders, for sure. But there are days we long to slow down, breathe a little deeper and spend our days creating and curating spaces and experiences for our guests. An opportunity to use our creative sides everyday and not just when we’re working on a home project. I’m a farm girl. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent time on a farm, but both my grandfathers were farmers - one had a dairy farm and the other a horse farm. Some of my greatest memories were riding horses on the farm with my cousins. So being outside, loving on farm animals and wide open land has always had my heart. And for Jason, he’s a hiker, a horticulturist….a true outdoorsman. Nothing makes him happier than spending his days outside. So for us, “a change of pace” is a daily reminder of our goals to slow down, serve others well and find our way back to the things we hold so close to our hearts.
