It was an ordinary day. Just opened the front door to our villa to replenish the bird feeder that hangs from the tree by our front window. As I open the bird feeder I take a look at the front window in our villa and there sits our two feline friends...The Gray Lady and Snickerdoodle. They enjoy watching the birds feed from the bird feeder as much as we do. Perhaps even more than we do. We have lived in our villa for over a year now and just love the environment around our new home known as Woodcrest Villa. Woodcrest Villa has a few different sizes of villas as well as apartment units with a varying amount of bedrooms in each. We chose to have a villa since it seems to be a bit more private than the apartments and a bit more roomy. We have an entrance way, a fairly large kitchen, a dining area and living room. At the one end of the living room is an enclosed patio that our two cats just love. They can sit on the rear of our furniture and look out the rear and side windows to watch the birds and whatever may past between our property and the property that sits about ten yards behind us. We have two bedrooms and two bathrooms as well as a laundry room and two full baths that both have showers. On the one side of our villa is an attached garage with plenty of storage. The heating system is at one end of the garage. The rear door that exits onto the patio has a lawn that is about 30-40 feet wide before it enters our neighbors property behind us. We are attached on one side of the property to another villa while the other side has a yard space between our villa and the villa next to us. When we entered Woodcrest we had the option of a villa or an apartment unit. The apartments were very roomy and some were almost as large as our villa, but they had no access to a garage. Plus, if you were in the upper floors you had to use the stairs or elevator to get to your apartment. We were moving to Woodcrest so we didn't have the maintenance and upkeep that we were experiencing in our large corner property. The upkeep with the wooden home and two-car garage as well as the large wooden porch at the rear of the house was becoming more than I could handle. Plus, the mowing, raking and exterior yard work was just too much to handle, as well as the shoveling of snow in the winter months. Yes, I could have had someone come every week to do the work, but that was pricey. So....we checked out about a half-dozen retirement communities and decided it was time to actually retire....altogether. About the only thing we miss is the two-car garage, but we did get rid of one vehicle. And, I don't need all the garage space to store the mower, outdoor utensils, etc. I actually enjoy sitting by my second bedroom window, which is now our office/bedroom while I work on my stories and photographs which I take. As I sit here typing this story, to my left is a large bird feeder in one of our trees that has close to half a dozen birds fighting for a spot on the bird feeder. Our two cats just love to sit with me as I type so them can watch the birds outside the window. I do have to walk about 50 feet to get my mail each day, but since I do next to nothing anymore, I do need the exercise. Oh yeah...my neighbor across the street from me is my newspaper guy and he actually stands my newspaper outside my front porch door, wrapped in a plastic wrapper, so I don't have to walk out to the street. Saves me about 10 yards ever day. Life is good...so it is. We enjoy our neighbors, the chance to play pool everyday...if I'm allowed to, and not having all the chores that I once did. Life is Good! I keep thinking...why didn't I do this sooner? It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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| One of my two cats enjoying the view our rear enclosed porch |
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Our Semi-detached villa
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