Welcome to Naples, Florida, where the people are friendly, dogs wear Doggles, and we now own a second home. On I-75 between Fort Myers and Naples, I saw something unique: a motorcyclist with two unusual passengers standing in an open trailer. Their ears flapped at 70 mph. I think the dogs were smiling at me.

 Look for Naples to the west of Miami. That’s where we now own a house to rent until we retire.

My husband and I have six days to repair and get our house ready to rent. Why? Because we’ve been brainwashed to believe that as long as you work hard, you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

Day 1: Land at Fort Myers airport at 4:30 p.m. Rent a car, plug in GPS and pick out a  slab of “affordable” granite in 15 minutes. Hope we picked the right slab and right guy to replace our kitchen counter-tops. Spend night in an inexpensive motel, since house is empty.

Day 2: Get Starbucks–there is no Peet’s in Naples, sob, sob–drive to beach and breathe in some early morning salty air, while looking for that one special shell.

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The beaches on this part of the Gulf Coast are a shell collectors’ haven.

Buy a mattress from Craigs list and hope the guy will deliver the same day.
Two Brazilian guys measure our counter-tops. The sky decides to throw buckets of LOUD rain on our roof. We can’t even hear each other speak. I have a pounding headache. Duke gets a fever, and we both wonder if we made the right decision. Is the weather really this cold and gray in Florida? Rent a wallpaper removing steamer and realize this is more work than I thought.

 This is me hard at work for 4 days removing wallpaper. No I’m not a plumber showing off my derriere.

Dinner at Randy’s fish house is excellent. A two hour wait, but Duke gets two barstools and we eat potato-crusted salmon in the lively crowded bar, and meet people from Chicago and Boston. Great atmosphere.

Day 3:

SUNNY!!! Remove wallpaper, replace fans, decide to rip out old bathroom and update. Many trips to Home Depot, buy paint, paint walls, get two more guys to yank old tiles off wall.

View from our back yard. We have 12 pineapple bushes and an orange tree. 

Same routine of painting, and working.
Granite guys remove old counter-top.

Old kitchen

New kitchen

Day 4: Freaking out. Still lots to do and only two days left.

Two guys remove old bathtub, dating from 1970.

Day 5 and 6: Paint two bedrooms and baseboards. Run back and forth to Home Depot and other stores to get things we forget we need.

New bathroom:

Photos of new bathroom kindly taken by my blogger friend Nancy, who lives in Naples, and checked on the final touches for us. We had a lovely dinner with Nancy and her family. Thanks for all your help. Thanks to my blog, I now have a new friend in Naples.

New bathroom:

Duke and I returned exhausted from six days of hard work. Well worth it. We still have more to do before we can rent the house out. There are two sunken boats, and a pool that need some attention. My husband did so much with a fever and chest congestion. The day after we returned to California, he put on his lawyer’s suit, and was back at the office.

 Now back to reality and my memoir revisions. Entering edits on computer.

Please share anything you wish to, perhaps a project you’ve worked on? 

On the last day I started making mistakes from lack of sleep, and my body saying enough.

I often see a recurring theme in books written by U.S. female authors in their forties and fifties : How to find purpose in life? Am I fulfilled? and, Who am I? Or some variation on this topic.

In memoir, I have seen this in books like:

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.”Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?”

Devotion by Dani Shapiro. “I had reached the middle of my life and knew less than I ever had before.” she writes. “From the outside, things looked pretty good. But deep inside myself, I had begun to quietly fall apart.”

In fiction:

Distant Shores by Kristin Hannah. “You’re forty-five years old and your kids are gone and your marriage has gone stale and you want to start over. My practice is full of women like you.”

Now I admit, the above mentioned books relate to women questioning their faith and/or their marriage, however, I’d like to know if you think there is a cultural difference between the U.S. and other parts of the world as far as women questioning their level of fulfillment with their life?

I have noticed my conversations with women are so different in the U.S., than among friends in Europe. I do not recall a single conversation with my Danish, English or French friends revolving around finding “purpose” in life or being “fulfilled.” I have a few opinions as to why? but I’d like to hear from you first.

Do you agree this is more of an American theme among women or do you find the same type of conversations among women in your part of the world?

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(I woke up Sunday morning to a wonderful surprise. Please read below. Philip Nicolaides and his travel blog.)

I found an interesting question on the OWN Oprah Winfrey Network, “How do you approach big decisions in your life?” and gave it some thought.

Image from Mcorchnoy on Photobucket.

Every important decision in my life I owe to paying attention to that “go for it” inner gut feeling. Not only do I listen to that inner voice, but I seek out opportunities. Life is one giant experiment and when I make an important decision, I tell myself:, “this is just another experiment.” That way, I do not fear my decision. I just go for it. I’ve applied this “experimental” outlook on life, to many important decisions, including finding a husband.

When it was time to stop dating and settle down, I became proactive. I took a class–yes a class on–How to Meet the Right Person for You. I can’t believe I paid a teacher to explain how I should go about meeting a guy.

In a classroom full of women over fifty, stood one single man: the teacher. He invited me for a coffee when the class ended. At the time, I was twenty-eight and thought he felt sorry for me. At Denny’s coffee shop, I pulled out my notepad and pen ready for some serious tips on how to find that special man.

After following the only piece of useful information I received in class: buy a Singles magazine–these were the days before before Internet dating–I circled five ads, and treated the process of mate searching as an experiment. Like most women, I like to talk, and listen, so I knew this would be a fun interview date. If it worked, it worked, if not, I’d move on to plan B: a new experiment.

Duke was the first guy to call me after I mailed a letter responding to his ad. And no, it wasn’t love at first sight, but we did speak for hours on the phone before meeting. By then, I loved his voice, his intelligence, and believe it or not, the fact that he enjoyed swimming, and not skiing. I guess water, whether a pool or the ocean is, and always will be, a part of who I am.

Every decade or so, I fall in love with a new part of the world, and feel the urge to “experiment” living there. This time it’s Naples, Florida. I’m fortunate Duke is as crazy adventurous as me. So on February 11, 2010, (please note number 11, again, for those of you who know me well) we closed escrow on a small fixer home. Another magazine, Islands, prompted us to visit inexpensive properties off the west coast of Florida. They reminded us of Belize as far as climate, warm waters, and mangroves, but with modern conveniences. Although not an island, we found a house along a canal with a boat dock. It’s another stage of life, another experiment.

  Please share how you approach big decisions in your life? You might want to enter your response on OWN, and see it in print.

My son is graduating from the University of Michigan on May 1st, and President Obama has accepted to give the commencement address. Whether or not you agree with President Obama’s policies, I think we can all agree on one thing: He is one of the best orators of our times. If anyone can motivate young people in these tough economic times, it’s President Obama.

So should I film President Obama with my flip camera? Perhaps I need something more professional than that. Fortunately my husband has a SONY EX1. He wants to produce movies in his spare time, just as much as I want to become a published author. (I know, we’re both realists dreamers.)

Hotels in Ann Arbor, Michigan have been booked for months, if not years, for this event. I booked two weeks ago, and of course, there were no rooms available in Ann Arbor, unless you were willing to spend $250/night for a Hampton Inn…NOT.

So instead, we shall be staying 17 miles outside Ann Arbor, and all I can say is with over 40,000 students, fortunately not all graduating, I hope we find a parking spot.

• The University was founded in Detroit 1817 as one of the first public universities in the country.
• President Gerald Ford was an alumni of the University of Michigan.
• Seven Nobel prize Winners.
• 116 Olympic medalists.
• The entire crew of Apollo 15.

     Tree #2