If you could live anywhere you wanted for the next 40 years (the last half

[Curmudgeoness]

22. California would be wonderful,

and since I have a sister there, it would be nice to have some family closer. The weather is great. But it is prohibitably expensive. I would starve to death there, and I am doing fine here. I see the property prices, rents, gas, utilities, taxes---everything is high, and I have to think about where I can afford to live when I hit Social Security age (sooner than I like).

Georgia----I think it has a bad connotation. I don't know what it is like there. Florida has some nice areas, and all of it is not overcrowded. I read Hiassen also, just remember that his stories are mostly around the Miami area....but I get the same feeling as you do about harming Florida even more. (Although I have heard that a lot of the snow birds are moving back out of Florida to places a little more north and inland because they are sick of all the storms and humidity.)

What you really have to do is start travelling a little. I have a friend who got sick and tired and just got in her car and drove the country until she found where the right place was for her.....it turned out to be in New Mexico in what sounds like a commune, but she says it isn't really a commune. Not where I want to end up, but the point is that she had to go there to find it.

I really do try to tell myself that where you are can be fine, no matter where it is, or it can be hell---it is all in your attitude. Personally, I have attitude problems (cranky and depressed) here in the winter because I hate cold and we have so little sun (and I am definitely solar powered).