Well this weekend was a lot of fun in the Becker household. Saturday, Beth and I went to go see Monster house at the new theater in Fort Myers. The best part about this theater is the fact that the seats are so nice your butt does not fall asleep within 20-30 minutes. You can seriously sit through an entire move with out the constant shifting in the seat that you get at other theaters. And to top that off the movie was pretty good as well.

After the movie I surprised Beth and took her to her favorite restaurant, Daruma. Daruma is one of those japanese steakhouses where they cook the food right in front of you. The food is great and most of the chefs put on a really good show.

When we left Daruma we decided to head to Home Depot and look at their ceiling fan selection. The one we had in our master bedroom was not keeping the room cool enough in the evenings. We found one we liked and after getting it for 40 dollars off the regular price we were out the door and on our way home for the evening.

So far our Sunday included installing the new ceiling fan and running errands. The fan was installed flawlessly and works really well. The only gripe I have is the fact that a fan that only runs by a remote control does not come with a 9 volt battery to run the remote control. We went to test the fan when we were finished and could not because we did not have a 9 volt in the house. Other than that, I can’t believe we installed our first ceiling fan so well by ourself. No electric shock or anything.

Someone once told me that once you become a homeowner a large majority of time and money will be spent on fixing things that break. And it seems as though they were right.

Right off the bat when we moved in we decided that the dishwasher needed to replaced because the seal was allowing water to trickle out from the top of the unit while it was in operation. It also needed replaced because the soap dispenser was broken and it was just plain OLD. So we went to our friendly neighborhood Lowes and bought a new unit that was on clearance for $450 dollars. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY FREAKING DOLLARS ON CLEARANCE!!! Granted both Elsbee and myself hate doing dishes in the sink it was well worth the money spent.

Another thing that needs replaced is the garbage disposal. One evening while Elsbee and myself were cleaning up the supper dishes and placing them in the aforementioned dishwasher we needed to start the garbage disposal to get rid of some excess food that had been left on the plates. Elsbee flipped the switch and nothing happened. She tried it once again and still nothing. Luckily I happened to find that a trip switch was on the bottom that needed pressed back in and it worked like normal once again. However, one evening after I began to place some rotting strawberries, cantaloupe and black olives down the disposal I realized I needed to turn on the disposal. I flipped the switch and it just hummed at me for a moment and then quit. I tried to press the bottom switch again and got the same result. The disposal was dead for good this time with a bunch of rotting fruit in its belly. So now I had to unplug the disposal and dig all of the mushy mix out of the disposal with a spoon. So now I need to buy a new disposal so that we can effectively use that sink again.

Another thing that needs fixed now is the shelving above the washer and dryer. The other night after a run to Sam’s Club we were putting away the new laundry detergent and fabric softener onto the shelves above the washer. Right after we set the bottle of detergent on the top shelf the shelf just collapsed and as I was getting everything onto the next shelf it also collapsed. It appears as though the metal clips that held the wire shelf to the wall bracket snapped on both shelves. So now we have to fix these as well.

And those things are on top of the painting three rooms and tearing the wall paper down in one of those rooms. Along with hanging all of the pictures and decorations on the walls. It seems it is true that homeowner truly knows no rest.

In an effort to break into the Naples real estate market before the market out priced us, we have entered into an agreement to purchase a Condo in North Naples. The condo we are moving into is about 300 square feet more than we are currently inhabiting. This will allow us pull items such as our dining room table out of the closet and actually use it in a kitchen. However with the price of this condo being a tad more than we planned on we may not be able to afford anything more than Ramen Noodles to place our our table.

We seem to have developed a pattern in which we do not live in a place for a year. When we lived in Ohio we were only in our house for 10 months before we moved out in preparation for finding jobs that allowed us to make the most of our knowledge base. And with our closing date in the middle of May we will be about 2 weeks short of living in our current apartment for a year. However, I do think this is our last move for at least 5 years or more.

The new condo is a 2nd floor 2 bedroom and 2 bath condo. We have 2 screened in porches off of the 2 bedrooms with a really beautiful view of the complex pool. Click here to see a floor plan.

Here are more images of the place taken when we walked through our future home.

Well I thought I would post a quick update just to wet your appetite for more information.

The main reason for a lack of updates is just the number of things daily life keeps us busy with. There is always an errand to run or somewhere to be. The main distraction at the moment is looking for a bigger place to live.

A proposition that is almost too good to be true was made to us to make our dream of owning a piece of property a reality. And this is the perfect time to do it before the property values of Collier County rise faster than we can save for. So our nights have been filled with scouring the newspaper’ online and print edition looking for places that fit our price and the area we would like to be in. On a side note we did run across a piece of property that was selling for $12,000,000.00, needless to say we had to cross that one off our list as it was just a tad out of our price range. I think it might have been the 17 big screen televisions that the house came with that pushed it beyond our price point.

I hope to start writing in this blog more in the future. I love to write all of our oh so exciting adventures out for the 5 people visit this site to read. I also have a few other projects I am looking to start with this blog in the near future.