The 2019 Year in Review and A Blogging Near Death Experience

It should be really easy to write a Suitcase Scholar 2019 Year in Review post. In fact, I’d wager I can get it down to fewer than ten words:

But it’s not really easy to write a Tracy Antonioli (that’s me) 2019 Year In Review post. Because a lot happened this year. Those of you who follow me on social media already know a lot about what has been going on with me, starting with this simple Facebook post I wrote exactly one year ago today, two days before the dawn of 2019:

365 days later I sit here in the house I grew up in—that’s the view from my desk up there in the header photo. It was also the view from my bedroom in high school, because this room was my bedroom in high school. The ranch home I owned for twelve years has been inhabited by a new family for almost four months now. The entire main floor* of this house is now renovated and remodeled. Thanks to Willard Power Vac in Portland we also have an updated HVAC system, a new well pump, and some kind of new septic system flange thing–oh the ways owning a home in the country changes your spending habits! My father is somewhere two floors below me in his newly-built in-law apartment and the dogs are waiting for dusk, when the deer come to forage for food in the ancient orchard out back.

We are now engaged in a great multi-generational living adventure. And I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it was a magical experience, where I got to play Joanna Gains and spend my days picking out furniture and wall color—though that also happened. That my marriage survived what it did this year–the selling of our home (for sale by owner), the selling of 80% of our possessions, moving in to my father’s house, adjusting to living with another adult, adjusting to living in a reno zone—is less a testament to the strength of our relationship and more a testament to how lazy (or, perhaps, exhausted) we both are. At this point, divorce would be just another thing on the to-do list. And then we would have to date other people. And who has the energy for that?

I’m kidding. Kind of.

This was the hardest thing we’ve done. And I’m glad we did it. Now, anyway. And it was and will continue to be a great adventure. Because if replacing a septic system flange isn’t an adventure, what is? Am I right?

2019 was the year I stopped posting on The Suitcase Scholar. But that wasn’t a conscious decision. I stopped posting as a result of the one million changes which happened in my life. Other things just took priority, and the importance of The Suitcase Scholar faded into the background.

Until last night. When The Suitcase Scholar had a near-death experience.

You know how they say you don’t ever fully appreciate something until it is gone? Yeah. So last night I was tinkering around in WordPress, contemplating creating a short photo essay about Italy in the summertime (coming early 2020) when I noticed that some things needed updating. So I updated them. And in doing so, I lost the entire site.

It was just gone. I could not access any of it, and Google was not helping. So I cried and closed my MacBook and went to bed.

Today a dear friend with skills far superior to mine (and much more patience) fixed it. And now it is back.

And now I am back.

Because as I sat there last night in front of this screen sobbing over a bunch of ones and zeroes, I realize that The Suitcase Scholar spanned an actual decade. I started this blog—though it was initially called Blog on the Run—in 2009. I have been a blogger longer than I have been anything else in my professional life. And when I thought it was over, I mourned.

But it was saved and here I am. And here I will be for as long as I can. My blessed IT friend willing.

I will likely never post with as much frequency as I once did. In my work life, I’m entirely freelance and thus some weeks I have more hours of work to do than there are hours in a week. And in my home life, I’m a bit more stationary than I once was—though ok, I am traveling for two out of the first five weeks of 2020. But I will continue to try new things. And I will continue to sometimes fail. And I will continue to share that with all of you as often as I possibly can.

And I will never, never try to update my PHP version without first updating…whatever it was that I didn’t update before I updated my PHP version which caused my blog to almost-die. I solemnly swear.

Up next in 2020: a fun post about how I updated my kitchen cabinets for $20, not $20,000, I would like to compliment the best yet affordable product of cabinets that I’ve searched through online sites like gammacabinets.com/our-services/installation/—as well as afore-mentioned photo essay about Italy in the summertime (spoiler alert: it’s freaking crowded.) And sometime in mid-to-late February, a new cruising video series!

Stay tuned. Seriously. I promise I’ll be back.

Happy New Decade!