Cheers to Change in 2024: Come join the party!

As the calendar flips to a new year very soon and celebrations and champagne pop, I want to invite you to a party.

For those of you who have known me over the years and decades, I have this deeply rooted hosting characteristic. 

From running our Inn Serendipity B&B in Wisconsin for nearly three decades to parties and potlucks over the years, my genetic code adds up to a desire for building connection, community and collaboration.

So this is new space for me, to be sending out an invitation in the virtual space to gather. I’m old enough now at 56 to remember the “before” days of the internet world (some of you may have been around long enough to remember those days when you found various printed newsletters from me that landed in mailboxes) yet still at a stage and age to embrace the power of technology. Albeit slowly.

While it feels strange for me to not be able to offer you coffee and muffins around my literal kitchen table, I hope to create that same setting and feeling now via this new personal Substack project.

The reason for this gathering right now is to share as my husband, John Ivanko, and I launch a new chapter of our lives moving abroad to Estonia in 2024. This means closing our Wisconsin farm chapter (including listing the farm for sale this spring) and embracing a large and juicy buffet of learning and challenges navigating this new life phase.

Will be narrating more on all of this and our thought-process and strategy and welcome questions.

For quick context to get the party started, here are four ingredients right now that are cooking up this change for us:

Estonian Roots & Connections

This small country south of Finland with a land mass of about a third of Wisconsin is home to my family roots. My father was born in Estonia and the family escaped the Soviet invasion in 1941. At a displaced persons camp in Germany, he met my Latvian mom and eventually all immigrated to the United States, settled in the Chicago area and — flash forward a decade — yours truly came into the picture.

Because Estonia was occupied for over 50 years, regaining independence in 1992 (an inspiring story I’ll share more on), through my dad I am an Estonian citizen (as well as/dual citizenship with U.S) as well as our son, Liam.

While I was raised in a very Baltic household culturally, I see my heritage as something I’ve never fully explored nor appreciated, and now (see below) is the time. For me a twist on “coming home” to a place both familiar and new (and yes, next to Russia — a reality plot line of this story).

Kid Fledged Abroad

Liam, our only child now 22, now lives in Estonia and is attending Tallinn Technical University studying cybersecurity. He started studying Estonian online during Covid, initially inspired to translate some of his great-grandfather’s poems of the homeland, but quickly grew into him finding his calling in Estonia and Europe.

Lucky me, my husband also has a love for Estonia (and Estonian women — another story for another time!) and, even through we fully respect and value Liam creating his own, independent young adult life, we’re a close family of three and none of us wanted to just see each other maybe once a year.

Our moving to Estonia is something we three talked about and made sure Liam was supportive of. John aptly summarized our philosophy on nurturing a relationship with adult children: “Intersect but don’t interfere.” And so we roll.

Changing Democracy, Changing Climate

While I still like to think of myself as your quintessential, glass-half-full down home, positive Midwestern gal, I’d be naively blind to not see the writing on the wall and I’m scared. American politics on all sides disappoint me in leadership and strategies.

Add in perpetual record-breaking temperature and weather shifts evidenced globally and the personal fact that on our farm in Wisconsin over the last 27 years we’ve experienced the growing season expand to the point that we’re closer to a Mediterranean growing climate. 

This is not healthy for our planet and ecosystem. I embraced my inner Swiftie this year as her lyrics grew so personally poignant: “I saw the scoreboard and ran for my life” rang true: to a climate further north and hopefully safer.

Life Clocks Ticking

A lot of change has already been brewing the last couple of years, between a pandemic that is far from over and me caring for my mom who passed a year ago at 94 (damn fine Baltic genetics I hope I inherited!) along with the simple statistical fact that John and I are not getting any younger. Now is the time to travel, explore, experience and do, my friends.

Being in your mid 50’s is a true mid-life reality check if you’re willing to dig in.  Prioritizing physical and mental health and doing so connected to those you love is the priority more than ever. Not yet “elderly old” but definitely not the 30 year old youngsters who started Inn Serendipity and got married in 1996. 

But John and I have packed and stacked our suitcases of learning over those decades and can now use those experiences for what’s to come. I’m very grateful to be on this next chapter journey with a life partner with the same passion for serendipity and adventure, shared together.

Next Steps

Our immediate timing is we just spent a few weeks in Estonia celebrating the holidays with Liam and looking at properties (hopeful spoiler alert:  we have one we really like!).  Now we’re in Madeira, a Portuguese island off the west coast of Africa, for the next two months seeking warmth, hiking and reflection.

I see this Substack project as a fresh creative palette for me to experiment with different formats — from word to video to maybe even audio — to share various reflections and learnings along with travel postcards from Madeira along with some catch-up ones from Estonia with, of course, lots of food stories with especially, knowing me, baked goods! Illustrated with John’s beautiful photos. Grateful to be married to a professional photographer.

Despite having written multiple books and articles over the last thirty years, this personal story sharing venture feels much more vulnerable and yet authentic. I so appreciate all of your support in this, including those who kindly signed up for this Substack when nothing existed!

I’m intrigued and have heard many good things about Substack as a platform.  For those (like me!) new to it, one big appeal is you can control how you receive updates from writers. I’ll be sending out an email with new posts (once I figure out how to do that — ha!) and you can control on your Substack settings end how you want to receive things and if you prefer to read it in your email inbox or within the Substack app, where you’ll also find an absolutely amazing array of other writers and topics to explore.

I welcome all feedback and input here, especially from those of you I know are much more savvy on the Substack platform.  And please feel free to share with friends!

I also very much see this as a journey together, that hopefully the change I’m going through and reflections shared can help spark whatever you may be seeking and open to on your end, both as we enter a bright and shiny new year and beyond. 

Madeira is in the Western European Time zone so we’ll be starting the New Year celebration before most of my American friends. John is serving “poncho” tonight, the traditional cocktail of Madeira Island made fresh with all local ingredients of citrus juice, honey and rum. For snacks, he’s cooking up Bolo do Caco, a Madeiran flatbread made with sweet potatoes, shaped like a cake and thus called bolo and grilled up on a pan. Recipes and details to come — cheers!

So value your friendship and sharing the adventure.

For more on photography by John Ivanko and to purchase, see his site on Alamy.