Charlotte Katz's Bonita Springs Real Estate Blog

Judy Kahl is looking for a miracle. Actually, she’s looking for a second miracle. Her first miracle, she said, was the two cochlear implants that let her hear again. The second miracle would be her eyesight. Kahl is legally blind, and the same Usher Syndrome that left her profoundly deaf before her operation is taking what sight she has. But Kahl is doing more than just hoping for a miracle. She is actively working for it, and she wants to share the miracle with everyone who suffers from failing [...]

Someone I know is teetering between what many consider material fulfillment and a painfully slow (even to witness) stripped down form of destitution, depending on who’s counting and whether you were born yesterday or suffering the kind of blindness that’s not anyone’s fault and glasses can’t fix. [...]

Tucked behind the walls of 11 private residences in Naples are some of the most interesting art collections you’ll probably never see. Unless you come to the Naples Collects 2010 exhibition at the von Liebig Art Center Jan. 23 through Feb. 14. The art center invited collectors to share their favorite works in the second annual show that features the work of masters as well as lesser known artists the collectors discovered on their [...]

Recently a front page article appeared in the Naples Daily News with the headline “Golf clubs slashing prices.” While this may be so with many clubs, there is one that hasn’t, nor does it have any intention of doing so and that is the Club Pelican Bay. [...]

The steady advances in technology since the 1990’s have brought about a plethora of new words. There was a time when I came across a word that I didn’t know, I would jot it down to look up later for its meaning. As far back as high school, I started a journal to record those meanings with the hope I would remember them. This practice waned over the years as I became too busy, too lazy, or too frustrated that certain words, despite my journal and frequent rereading, had to be looked up again and [...]

There are times, when all the pressures of our daily lives seem to keep us so busy, that we are apt to forget something that, in our hearts, we all know — our children are our country’s most important “natural [...]

My novel is medical fiction, in the style of Robin Cook. In the book, titled “Wrinkle,” a Southwest Florida plastic surgeon has developed a new form of Botox and tries it out on his patients before it has FDA [...]

Ovarian cysts aren’t usually a big deal. Most women get a few through the course of their lives and never even know it. On the other hand, if you ever had one burst, you’d never forget [...]

Everyone must deal with stress from time to time. It has a way of bringing us down and making us feel helpless. We blame our circumstances: finances, relationships and work. We even blame current events. Our life often becomes a balancing act. It’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of activity and wind up spinning your wheels — feeling as though you’ve accomplished [...]

I have discovered the lengths some of us will go to avoid admitting our spouses are right is in direct relationship to the length of time we have been married. Camping in the Florida Keys last year, I enjoyed watching the sun rise over a steaming cup of coffee and since our camp was on the west side of the island I rode my bike to the east side every morning to watch the red-gold globe emerge from the mirror-like surface of the Gulf of Mexico. This was my God [...]

In the late 1960s, one of the seasonal social centers for Naples was the Country Club of Naples. The club was the first full service country club in the area when the only other golf courses at that time were Hole-in-the-Wall, Palm River, and the Beach Club. The club, founded in 1966, featured 18 holes of strategic golf played over a then championship distance of 6,500 [...]

There are so many things said by so many people that seem to be an excuse for saying something else. Are they meant to deliberately mislead? Do you have the same disbeliefs that I have? And so often, it usually comes in the form of a phrase. I will try to measure the real meaning of these phrases, be it fact or [...]

Just after 4 p.m. on a recent Saturday, Ross Hill, left, Jo Jo Sullivan, right, and a room full of cowboys from the Southern States Bull Riders circuit were getting out of bed at the Port LaBelle Inn. As they prepared for day two of the Ronald McDonald House Charity Rodeo in LaBelle, Fla., Hill, the 27-year-old, two-time defending world champion bullfighter from Muscle Shoals, Ala., stepped outside and lit a [...]

Colum McCann was recently awarded the National Book Award for his novel, “Let the Great World Spin.” His many faceted novel based around a day in history begins with a prologue full of breezy prose that so puts you in the place. The place being New York City in the [...]