One of the most important lessons I have learned from my midlife struggles, is the need to be willing to fight for my dreams. This journey began for me back in 2004, when I lost my job and then spent months in introspection.

I focused on this question: What do I need to happen before I die?

I concluded that for myself I needed to find ways to believe in love again. I so wanted to find one genuine love in this lifetime. This book is a summary of what I learned in this process. I fought through a lifetime of tragedy and disappointment to change my perspective and find new faith in the power of love. Then I found a great new partner within a few months.

With Mike I found true partnership where we are able to work successfully together towards shared goals. One of his lifetime goals was to build his own solar custom home with an incredible view. This is the goal we have been working on for over a year now.

So many obstacles have arisen in this process. Leaving behind our life of 20+ years in Fort Collins was our first challenge. I wrote about that extensively in my memoir of this entire experience. Suffice to say this kind of change is never easy.

We moved into a 100-year-old little house in Walsenburg and put much into storage last June. It took five months just to get a proper slab completed in this rural Colorado county.

We noticed every step of the construction process was costing much more than we had budgeted. We found that our contractor was not taking bids for work, but simply using his regular sub-contractors. At that point Mike decided to take over the contracting part of the process. He took bids from both local and Pueblo companies and cut over 30% off the cost of the electrical and stucco work. Our builder was not happy.

This week, after almost a year of struggle, we were finally ready to complete the inside of our home. We have collected everything we need to complete the kitchen, baths, trim, etc. The response from our builder? I may be able to get to that in a few weeks. I went ballistic! In response he hung up on me.

Luckily Mike apologized profusely, and so we’re back on track again. It will all get done, and we will move in sometime in July, more than a year after we moved here.

I tell you this NOT to discourage you from pursuing your own unique goals, but to warn you that pursuing dreams can get ugly sometimes.

You must be willing to fight for your dreams…

How did I end up here, feeling so fortunate?

It’s a long story, one I can now share with you in my new memoir!

Remember: WHATEVER YOU’RE NOT CHANGING, YOU’RE CHOOSING.