When we get these warm/sunny days between cold fronts, we just have to take the boat out with some appropriate adult beverages. Took this picture coming in the back door about 10 minutes after a sunset cruise.

We scaled down our lifestyle so our house is older and simple, but taking the boat out is like pulling our car out of the garage - just hit the button on the lift, wait 30 seconds and start the motor. For us, this is the kind of thing that makes the down scaling worth it.

Beautiful sunset. Wish my wife wanted to downsize to the lake, she could sit on the pier and read while I fish.

Beautiful!!! I went by Ray bob today and it was dead calm at the damn and across 902. Would have been a great evening to hop in a plane but I was late getting in.

That beautiful sunset picture makes scaling down ones lifestyle look like a huge lifestyle improvement

Great photo.

It took some serious adjustment, but selling the big custom home and avoiding temptations like shiny new cars and expensive vacations, allows us to become debt free in two more years. Heck, one year's savings in property taxes offset the cost of our used pontoon boat. The house sure ain't pretty, but it has good bones, is in a great location - and we have our own launching ramp.

Without the daily pressure of a high overhead, I find myself making different decisions than I did before.

Absolutely beautiful sir. If we had something like that, I'd be happy eating PBJ sammiches the rest of my life.

same here

That’s my retirement dream, don’t even care about a boat, just want my own dock to fish off. Wife’s not on board yet. I can wait!

We accelerated our move after seeing friends and family becoming incapacitated and/or passing away in their 50's and early 60's. Started to realize that "someday" might not come. So, we bought a lower cost, "livable fixer-upper" that we can work on ourselves.

This house was a "weekender" for 17 years, so no laundry hookups, no dishwasher, etc. I was built in 1979 but jokingly tell people that it has not been remodeled since 1975 😊 After building a laundry room, we installed a dish washer, re-decked the dock, then overhauled the lake watering system and boat lift. Now the 2/3 acre lot is fully irrigated, so we installed 16 pallets of St. Augustine. Just last month we had enough saved up for a new asphalt driveway. Now I am gradually changing out the old hollow core interior doors for knotty pine to go rustic.

Here is the old toad getting dressed up for Independence Day

Dang! Beautiful place. Well done! We need to "simplify", but it needs to be a one story, one level house. Again, very well done.

Nice shoot!

beautiful pic!

Congratulations on all the changes and a classy photo.