Bonita Springs Florida Central

A super easy day trip, afternoon trip or just a trip for breakfast or lunch can be made to Fort Myers Beach from Bonita Springs.  Fort Myers Beach is accessible from only two main points. 

The south end via Bonita Beach Road through Bonita Springs and the north end via San Carlos Blvd through the city of Fort Myers.  If you're coming from the south Bonita Springs direction there are a lot of causeway  views of Estero Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. You'll drive right past Dog Beach, Carl Johnson State Park & Boat Ramp and Lovers Key State Park on your way to Fort Myers Beach.  A new large playground has been installed at Carl Johnson State Park, you can't miss it.

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For those of you that read the Christmas post, I dragged "A" up to Fort Myers Beach for the local color.  Ok, she's not a kid, but what trip would be complete to SW Florida without a trip to FMB and the Pier?

Picture:  Fountains at Matanzas Pass - Snug Harbor.

While writing an article about Bonita Springs Vacation Rentals I started searching for an appropriate photo.  I have a billion photos and just didn't feel like digging for something that would work.  Plus, most neighborhoods in Bonita Springs have sign restrictions so a "rental sign" in front of a home isn't possible....or is it?

I just love imagechef.com.  It is the easiest way to invent your own personalized photo in seconds.  I've twice used the "build an image" feature in the last week.  I created my own rental sign for a post on my Bonita Springs Vacation Rental article and also a cute computer keyboard "easy button" for an article about my friends at Platinum Coast Computer Repair in Bonita Springs.

Take a look at this nifty real estate sign that you can personalize.  There are dozens and dozens of both serious and fun images that you can personalize on Image Chef.  Go have fun:

www.imagechef.com

The year 2007 brought me more of the unexpected than I could have imagined.  If you were to have told me last year at this time how many new people I would know from all over North America I wouldn't have believed it.  Because of my blogging and internet exposure life changes quickly and dramatically.

I am still in awe, especially during this holiday season.  So many people have been so kind to this bumpkin from Bonita Springs.  It has caught me off guard.  The amount of cards and emails that came to me for the holidays, and even Christmas gifts has floored me.  I won't "out" my gift givers on the net, but I do thank you and appreciate you thinking of little old me.  I had planned on going thru the quietest Christmas of my life and was surprised and honored by the thoughtfulness of others. 

Usually, I try to be somewhere over the holiday period and didn't go anywhere this year to spend Christmas with my parents fearing it would be my Mother's last Christmas, as she has been seriously ill.  I stayed put and at the last minute my parents flew back to Cleveland, Ohio to be closer to the Cleveland Clinic.  So here I sit in Bonita Springs.  I figured it would be just me, the dog and the movie cube at the grocery store.

A few days ago things changed.  I mean really changed.  I have an outside blog called Life in Bonita Springs.  I wouldn't likely have built it without having spent the last year or so on Active Rain.  I was posting so much local information about Bonita Springs on Active Rain I decided to start putting it in my own blog.  Correction, Actually I didn't, Bob Carney shamed me into it.  (Thanks Bob and thanks to Linda Davis and Sarah Cooper for backing him up.)  Continue Reading.

Clever.  I had never seen this done to a car before but my passenger had and seemed bored that I thought it was cute.  What do you think?  Have you seen a car antlerized before?  I did see a few around town with just a big red ball nose on them, but I didn't think to take a photo of them.

So, I'm sitting there suffering thru I am Legend last night and decide to snap a photo for the mobile blog.  Actually, my first thought is:  I'll probably go to jail because I have an illegal photo and distribution of the film on my blog.  I decide to chance it!  I'm reckless like that...livin' on the edge in Bonita Springs.

Well, the photo didn't upload correctly because the reception in that theater stinks.  I decided to edit the text and keep the photo.  Viva la free speech! 

I love Will Smith but the movie felt like it was edited and important parts were cut out.  I did scream out loud twice and made a fool of myself.

My disasterous mobile review is HERE

As you man recall, Lumberjack the Bonita Springs Animal Trapper carried off Hector the Possum to greener pastures, just a few weeks ago.  It was a Havahart trap, so don't get upset.  I love critters, just not under my house. 

You've heard of the holiday hawk?  The seasonal squirrel?  How about the possum in the pear tree?

Well, as luck would have it, Santa Clause has decided to give me a back up possum.  Meet Lucrecia.

Doesn't she have the cutest darn ears you've ever seen?  (Those white tipped thingies behind the fangs.)

Do you write seasonal blogs?  I do and here's why.  First, I'm always taking pictures.  I have more photos than time to write stories, actually. 

Several weeks ago I got a Honeybaked Ham coupon in the mail.  The irony is, I don't eat ham...well, I don't eat any meat, actually. I promptly gave the coupon away, but kept the idea of blogging about Honeybaked Ham in Bonita Springs knowing full well we had Thanksgiving and the Holidays of Christmas and New Years on the way.

Personally, I find a bit of difficulty writing about something like that, because I don't even know what it tastes like, but I put up a post on my outside blog: Ham-worthy Holiday News in Bonita Springs I know that people from this seasonal and transient area will be looking for the store.  It works.  There have been about 20 people a day finding the article, alone.  Dozens of people that would probably have never seen my smiling face until then.

Blogging about other events and festivals is a great draw too.  Here are a few examples that have brought in some great traffic.

• High School Football Games
• Local Holiday Events
• Festivals
• Art Shows 

The time of year has come where everyone rushes around, barely gets a thing done and exhausts themselves doing it. 

Take a moment out of the commercial part of the holidays and give yourself a break and silently think a good thought for someone who needs it, say a prayer if you pray, light a candle if you light candles, meditate and send positive energy to someone who needs it.

It's just way too easy to be self absorbed and not realize that someone else may be putting on a different jacket than you this morning.

• Mothers are missing children, just five days from Christmas.
• Women will enter 2008 with a bag of peas on their chest.
• Families will not wake up in their home on Christmas Day.

Don't loose site of what is truely important in your life and the basic fundamental importance than no one can live without:  Family, health and home.  

Today, as I helping the carpet cleaner push (I'm small but mighty) my seller's car out of the garage to jump start it I was thinking to myself.  ::Crimany, what haven't I done for my customers at this point::  Just then the carpet guy gets out of the car after putting it in park and says, "I guess you more or less have to be counted on for everything when you're selling someone's home".  Understatement of the year.

I live and work in Bonita Springs, Florida, the land of second homes and abscentee owners.  I am not without my share of of listings that are vacant or the owner is seasonal. 

Like the listing with the dead car battery, the owner is thousands of miles away and not really up to a trip to the area to tie up the loose ends.  Jump starting the car is one of the easiest details involved in this transaction.  Besides marketing and selling this home in record time I will now help mitigate a water issue that went unrealized until the home inspection.  Drywall will be removed, carpet replaced, stucco patched and water proofed and ozone machine installed for a few days to "clear up" any lingering cooties.

I will probably make no more than 30 more trips back and fourth to this home until closing, meeting movers, getting the necessary repairs completed and home in order.  I love my job or I wouldn't do it.  I'd find some way to pawn it off on someone else.

So the next time you hear someone cryin' and whinin' about real estate commission, just know that they're cryin' and whinin' because they obviously hired someone who wasn't worth their weight in gold and they're feeling ripped off.  They could have picked someone who was afraid to carry the load.

There, I said it.