A Room With A View

To all you nice bloggers that left comments &  kind words of encouragement - Thank you so much. 

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There has aways been a sub-culture of people that choose to live simply. Usually hippie chicks from the 70's that recycle their jeans and make purses out of them or depression babies like my mom that spot treasures in the trash and stop in broad daylight to snag them. I have to admit the monastic life has always appealed to me (except for that celibate thing) In the last 10 years it has become fashionable again to live a simple life.


 My choice to start lightening up was not a philosophical one but more of an economic one. I was on that first wave of people to lose their house to the nose-diving economy. We got a great deal on our house 12 years ago. Perfect location, nice yard with a pool, & plenty of space. Well after a series of huge home repairs, hubby's unemployment, & sky-rocketing home owner's insurance Hubby & I decided enough was enough. The straw that broke the camel's back was the pool leak. One day the pool water level was down about a foot which burned out the pool pump due to a leak somewhere in the concrete. OK, I'm done.

View out the front window

After a little research for new digs we decided to move the fam to an apartment. We found the perfect space closer to the beach and friends. Our new place is the same square footage as the house and they have a nice solar heated pool that THEY take care of. 


 Well the moving process was painful. We all had to make some hard choices on what to keep, store, or sell. After 3 garage sales we stripped down to the bare essentials. Now almost 2 years later we couldn't be happier. The best thing about our new place is the view. We didn't know we were going to be on water front property. The mitigation area was dry as a bone when we moved in.  After the rains started and it filled up it hasn't dropped yet.  We live with the best view of a nature preserve right out of every window.

This is what it looked like when we moved in

This is what it looks like now

This is the view out both back windows

                                            
                         We get lots of visitors

This brood of Florida Mottled ducks showed up when they were  about 2 days old.
They fly now and visit us often

Looking for a lizard snack

Yes I know - disturbing but not poisonous - Florida Banded Water Snakes 

I sometimes miss my house but that goes away quickly when I see the maintenance man mowing the property although I get my weed-on right outside my door.  I love to weed. Isn't that crazy. I don't even want to entertain the psychological ramifications of that. Great news! Hubby has a new job and is doing fantastic. Grandma can run the a/c like a walk-in freezer and it doesn't cost us an arm & a leg. Life is good - God is gooder.





Our nightly Frog Serenade