"Who can't relate to the idea of leaving one chapter behind and moving on to the next?" ~ Mike Shinoda

As we wrapped up our time in Stuart for the season, and battened down the condo, I spent some time reflecting on our first winter in our Florida home. It was a busy winter, to be sure. Two out of the three months were spent pretty much dealing with condo stuff - furniture; decorating; some final construction things such as the kitchen backsplash, arrival of bathroom cabinets, etc. Even if we were not actually completing some things, we were waiting for scheduled arrivals - sometimes to have the agreed upon time come and go with no delivery. Other times, having things arrive and then having to put them together. I'm not saying any of this as complaint (except the scheduled deliveries that didn't arrive when promised - that pretty well ticked me off), just the reality of starting from scratch.

I said to Bruce at one point that I was just so happy to know that any dirt in the condo was finally "our" dirt! Which brings up a very happy "plus" of occupying a small space. We can vacuum the entire condo from one outlet - one! Tidying up takes a matter of minutes, and anything that you misplace can be found quite quickly - it simply can't have gone far!

On the down side, we live in very close quarters with other residents. We did not find that to be a problem, but it caused us to be aware that on days when the windows were open, we could safely assume that other people could overhear things that we were saying. We didn't have anything to keep "hush hush", but we were conscious of it.

Overall, we had a wonderful winter. We spent time with old friends and made new ones. I loved my early morning group of Jazzercise ladies, and am eager to exercise with them again next winter.  I enjoyed every minute with my knitting group - old friends and some new - all wonderful. We discovered new restaurants, and have added many to the list to try next year. We sat on the beach; walked on nature trails; listened to music by the water nearly every Sunday afternoon; read books; spent many a sunset sitting on the pier; ate Kilwin's Icecream at least once a week, and spent numerous hours laughing with friends - oh, and Bruce got to golf a lot!

As we made our way back to Central NY and we sat at dinner the night before we got home, we had a toast to "Next Winter"! The work has been done and we will open our front door to a home that is ready and waiting for us.