We suck at good-byes–which is why our good-bye post kinda sucked.
It was a hard time. We are still slogging through it, but it’s better than it was for all of the fall. I seem to know (in both real-life and virtual-life) far too many people for whom 2014 sucked way more than our good-bye post did.
But it’s a new year! And Cane and I have both launched new online ventures that we wanted you to know about.
As you probably don’t know, Cane is a jiu jitsu black belt and he teaches others at a gym in Portland.
Before we launched this blog, he wrote one about his practice and teaching called The Gentle Art. He was ready to let it go when we began This (sorta) Old Life, but in the more than 3 years that have passed, he’s learned much that he’d like to share with his gym community. So, he’s doing that here:
As for me, I’ve had a series of personal blogs since 2009. It was nice to take an extended break from blogging over the the past few months, but I found that I really missed it. Although I kept up with my favorite bloggers, it’s just not the same when you’re not putting your own words out there.
Still and all, this no longer seemed like the right place for me to be blogging. I didn’t want to carry on here without Cane, and the truth is that working on renovating our home and writing about it just wasn’t doing it for me, for a lot of reasons.
I realized that I wanted to be creative in a different way. I want to create just for the fun of it–and that’s pretty much my new year’s resolution: To have creative fun for no other reason than to have fun. (But you guys know me. I’ll still be thinking things into the ground and looking for the deeper meaning of everything. Because that’s just how I roll.)
I also realized that I wanted to blog in a different way. My new blog is definitely an old-school venture. You won’t see a bunch of social media buttons on it, and I won’t be spending much effort on promoting it. Definitely going to be a “if you build it, they will come” kind of enterprise.
You’ll likely see some of the same kinds of things there that you did here, but the scope will be wider. There’s not a lot of content there yet, but I hope you’ll check it out and see if it’s something that will be of value and interest to you. You can find Rita’s Notebook here.
We truly do appreciate the community and company we enjoyed here for three years. I sorely miss “talking” with those of you who regularly chatted with us in the comments. I’d love to start a new one with you in my new online space.
