One Year In

Hubby and I realized last night that we have lived in our downtown OKC condo for exactly one year now.  We moved in on December 15th, 2013 and last night was December 15th, 2014.  Wow.  Hard to believe how quickly a year went by and hard to believe we've been downsized for a whole year already.

A lot has changed in a year.  We went from a 2,500 sf home with a 2-car garage, storm shelter and LOTS of space (storage and otherwise) to a 2 bed, 2 bath 1,200 sf condo with a 1 car garage and 1 covered parking space.  More storage space than you might expect for the size but we did need to add a little more to it with a storage bench in the bedroom and another bench with storage under it in the closet.  Still, it turns out it was enough.

We sold the house and moved into the condo to make certain we could actually live in a 1,200 sf space because that's what we're planning to do once we retire and move from Oklahoma to Alabama where we already have a 1,200 sf condo on the beach!  We've been there plenty of times for short trips...  rarely longer than a week... but living in such a space all the time, day in and day out, was an unknown to us.  Not anymore.  And you know what we found out?  We can do it and do it easily.  Whew... what a relief.  :)

It wasn't easy getting rid of everything we had to get rid of in order to move into the condo last year but we put our minds to it and did it.  Honestly, we haven't looked back.  We have loved living downtown... we've had more fun in the last year than in the previous 5 years probably... and I always thought we had a lot of fun.  Just nothing like we've had since moving downtown.

I realized this morning the last time I posted anything on this blog was the end of May... right before my busiest time of the year at work and also a busy time for us in our downtown lives, too.  I didn't intend it to be that way but, looking back, I can see how it was easy for it to happen that way.  

I think it's good to end this blog with today's post, one year into our great downsizing experiment, with the wonderful results that downsizing can be done -- it can be affirming -- it can be liberating -- it can be cathartic.  If you're thinking about doing it, do it!  What are you waiting for?

3 weeks - gone in a flash!

Someone asked me the other day what had happened to my blog. I always intend to post something to it on a weekly basis... that way I don't have to try to remember everything we've been doing! But alas, that never seems to happen. What is it they say is paved with good intentions? Oh yeah... I remember now. :)

So, flash forward and it's three weeks since my last post. Now I have to try to go back in time and recall all the fun we've had since then... because oh, my.. we are still having so much fun living downtown. I wish I could conjure up some of those wavy lines for a flash back like Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey did on Wayne's World. :) LOL. If I could, perhaps we'd go back to this...

May 6-8 we had the most wonderful Adobe classes at our office with one my all-time favorite instructors, Russell Viers. He lives in Kansas City now but he's literally jetting all over the world all the time teaching these amazing programs. I learned enough in those classes to save myself hours and hours of time every time I do one of my projects. It was awesome.

I'd set him up to stay at the Aloft Hotel while he was in town. The hotel had only been open a couple of weeks and it's only a couple of blocks from our condo, too, so we knew it would be easy to get together with him while he was here. We didn't end up having him over but we did get together for drinks at the hotel one evening before going across the street to Urban Johnny's for dinner one night. We had the best time. He's just too, too funny. And he told me the OKC Aloft was the most European hotel he'd ever stayed in outside of Europe. And it's in OKC. Who'd a thunk it? :)




I was lucky that sweet hubby was able to meet up with Russell for awhile that evening while I made it over to the new Maywood Apartments, where we were having our monthly Urban Neighbors board meeting. The apartments were great to host us and we even got to have the meeting in one of their model apartments. They're a great addition to downtown living and I hope anyone who is interested in moving downtown will check them out.




Since that weekend was Mother's Day, we moved our dragon boat practice to Saturday. Something was going on at the river downtown (there's ALWAYS something going on downtown, it seems) so we met up with our coach at the boathouse over at Lake Overholser, just a couple of blocks from where we used to live in Bethany when the kids were little. Nice to have an alternative option and it was interesting to drive by the old house, too. :) It's nothing like the downtown river area but they've got it in pretty nice condition.




Since we hadn't been able to have our goddess get-together the weekend before because of the Thunder game, we got together at Urban Johnny Saturday night and then went over to check out the rooftop balcony at Aloft before coming back to the condo to hang out for awhile. The view up there is too cool, even if you can't see the Devon tower. And don't I have some beautiful friends?




On Mother's Day the heathen children (as well as awesome SIL and sweet grandbaby) came over to hang out. Oddly enough, Mom ended up making dinner for everyone on HER day but... :) We had a great time walking over to the Myriad Gardens since it was such a beautiful afternoon. There was a live band playing in front that was really good -- an Air Force band but we didn't get their name. We sat by the splash pad for awhile and then walked through the Secret Garden. Definitely a nice afternoon with family...







On the way back we decided to stop at the Wedge for a glass of tea (or maybe I had a beer...) and some gelato for the kiddos. They've got such a great covered patio.




Sweet grandbaby turned on her charm while we were there... and looked laid back while doing it.




The next week I was off to Stillwater, OK for the Special Olympics Summer State Games. Oklahoma's Electric Co-ops always have one of the largest volunteer groups there and I get to help coordinate those volunteers as well as take pictures for all our co-ops. It's one of the most rewarding things I get to do all year...










Got back home on Friday, which just so happened to be my 50th birthday. :) Since Aloft Hotel was having their grand opening celebration that night, our Urban Neighbors friends decided we should combine the two events and celebrate it all together, which we did. I was exhausted after the busy week at Special Olympics but it was nice to get together with friends and to get to see inside some of the rooms at the hotel, too.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early for the big OKC Beautiful Beautification Station bus tour that was stopping at our wonderful Urban Neighbors community garden. That garden just gets more and more awesome every time I go visit.










We had two bus loads of people stop by to check it out and there was obviously a lot of interest. Plus we also got to hear from Hunter Wheat from Bleu Garten, the planned Food Truck court that's just down the street from our garden. That's going to be too cool. It's planned to be opened in September...







We were back on the Oklahoma River for the dragon boat practice on Sunday. I'm happy to report that we managed to knock 6 seconds off our time in the 200 meter trial. We still need to improve our standings but wow, what fun and what a workout, too! :)







We managed to have a pretty laid back week in the evenings this week since we're both a little crazy busy at work. Sweet hubby is busy working proposal after proposal and most of my time has been taken up getting ready to have 91 eighth graders at camp this next week and then, two weeks later, taking 72 high school juniors to Washington, D.C. for a week. Yep, this is a busy time for both of us. Nothing like sorting 600+ t-shirts...







Met Shelley at the garden yesterday morning for a watering session and mimosas. :) Also brought home goodies from the garden for this weekend's smoothies! Yum. We managed to wrap up the busy work week by seeing a really sweet movie at the OKCMOA, Le Weekend. Highly recommend it if you get the chance!




Today we're heading to Norman for a friend's birthday potluck celebration. Tomorrow, it's back to the river for another dragonboat practice and birthday tailgate because Monday is sweet hubby's birthday. He'll be a year older than me once again. :) I think we'll meet up with heathen daughter and her family on Monday to celebrate at Big Truck Tacos... love that place. :)

I'll try not to let 3 weeks go by before posting again but since I'll be at camp all week next week, there won't be much to mention by next week. Something tells me it won't take long before there's more fun to report on though. :)

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Take Two - Love Living Downtown

I could just kick myself sometimes. I know better than to not save things as I go... things like documents or, oh, I don't know... blog posts. Sigh. I'd spent the better part of the last hour writing and editing, adding pictures, going back and forth on my iPad to the photos. And what did I do? Instead of going back to the open file I was in -- the one that I hadn't saved - I opened the app again - which opened to a blank new file just waiting to be filled. ARGH! Palm to the forehead! Sigh... so, rather than trying to re-write everything, I'm going to make this one easier and just post the highlights rather than a blow-by-blow account (which is surely boring anyway, right?) of the last couple of weeks.

Suffice it to say, we've been really busy having fun downtown these last couple of weeks. I mean REALLY busy. I think we've had only three nights at home in the last two weeks where we didn't have something going on in the evening. And the weekends... oh, my. A week ago Friday, which was my day off work, I logged over 18,000 steps on my fitbit! Whew...

So what have we been doing to stay so busy? Well, let's see... first off, we had our first dragon boat practice a couple of weeks ago. What fun! We'd never visited the Cheaspeake Boathouse and wow, it's pretty incredible. I didn't get any pictures of our dragonboat team but I took a couple shots before we took off.

Rowing is quite a workout and, because the next two weeks we'll be practicing for 45 minutes longer to make up for missing last week's practice due to the wind, I think we'll be really in for it this afternoon. I'm going to try to get some shots of us in action today if possible. :)

And the best part about the dragon boats? Possibly the tailgating afterwards!

We volunteered to bring the tailgate supplies last weekend - the practice that was cancelled - so instead, we had a last-minute make-shift tailgate at the condo and invited everyone over for that instead! We had a good turn out and it was so much fun to have everyone over. I don't know what we would have done with all that food if it hadn't worked out. Whew... :) The hummus ravioli and the Romesco dip were both big hits... and completely vegan.

Following the awesome tailgate after the dragon boat practice, we took off for Blanchard, where Shelley had lined up a place for us to buy organic plants for our community garden. They just did a story on KOCO Channel 5 about it last night but I couldn't find a link to share. Shelley's done a wonderful job spearheading this awesome project and I know she's got to be crazy happy with how well it's all turned out. Here are some of our latest pics from the garden project...









We had a big garden gathering last weekend to get the soil amended and everything planted... it was great fun. Afterwards, sweet hubby and I took off with Shelley and John to the Arts Festival, where we relaxed with a cold beer (or two), watched people and just had the best time.





The Myriad Gardens are really coming to life and it was so much fun to see so many people out, having fun on such a beautiful day. I don't think it rained once during the festival. That almost never happens.

Earlier in the week, sweet hubby and I had walked over to Urban Johnny for dinner. We sat outside and enjoyed the great view of downtown.

Then I turned around to see a giant black cloud moving toward us from the east. We paid for dinner and walked really, really fast the three blocks back to the condo. Literally as we reached the front door, the sky opened up and poured down! Wow, talk about timing. By the time we got upstairs, it was really coming down.

That same week we went to a fundraiser for Reduxion Theatre as they were celebration William Shakespeare's birthday. While we were standing there with a glass of wine, visiting with a friend of mine from high school who is involved in the theatre, I happened to glance at a poster for one of their upcoming plays, Henry V. Lo and behold, the title character is one of my former Youth Tourians, the kids who go to Washington, D.C. with me each summer. I knew he was into acting but had no idea he was doing so well! Now we've made plans to go see the play - so I'm sure that will make an upcoming post. :)

Last Sunday was the OKC Memorial Marathon. A couple of my dearest friends (two of the girls who went to the beach with me last month) were running so sweet hubby and I decided to take our coffee outside and watch the racers as they went by our condo - the route had them coming up from Bricktown and then east on 4th Street so we were right on their path.

Wow, I've never had 25,000 people run by me before! That was quite a sight! Not only did we see both the friends we were looking for but several others as well. I even had someone in the crowd of runners shout out "Spike Momma!" three different times. :) That's the nickname the Youth Tourians have for me. That was too cool. Several others running called out "good job, coffee drinkers! Looking good!" LOL. We hoisted our cups to them as they sailed past...

Again this month we missed the H & 8th Street event but we managed to go to the rooftop terrace at the Art Museum again and that was great. Now that it's May, they'll have live music each week. It was a beautiful evening.

Friday evening was so pretty we decided to sit out front with a glass of wine. Block 42 has lots of table and chairs for gathering and there are always people coming and going so it's been a great way to meet our neighbors. We were really happy to have Steve, one of our Urban Neighbors friends who lives here, stop by and visit. His beautiful baby daughter and wife stopped for awhile, too. Such a nice sense of community downtown. :)

While we were planning a get-together with friends for the first Saturday of the month and we'd invited everyone over to the condo and then planned to have dinner downtown, since the OKC Thunder had made it to game 7 in the first round of the playoffs and they'd be in OKC, we knew that downtown was not going to be an easy place to be. Sweet hubby and I have never been sports fans so it's not usually on our radar but we've lived downtown long enough to know the game crowds are impressive.

Instead, we went to our friends house in north OKC where we cooked out and enjoyed some time together. The game was on the TV and even though we've never, ever watched any of a Thunder game before, we both admit to being sucked in... a little bit at least. Considering the awesome economic impact the team has on the city, it's hard not to be excited about that. Being the "early to bed, early to rise" people that we are, we left before the game was over but we did check when we got home to find out if they'd won. LOL. That's a first!

This coming week I've got a few days of classes at the office. The instructor is one of my all-time favorite people so we'll definitely plan to have him over for dinner while he's in town. I made him reservations at the new hotel in Deep Deuce, too, the Aloft. We'll have to go by and check it out while he's here... we just haven't gotten around to visiting it yet. I think it's going to be really cool.

For now, I better quit blogging, finish up the laundry and go do some grocery shopping before we report to the river for our next dragon boat practice this afternoon. :) It's easy to enjoy sitting here while I write, taking in our much prettier spring-time view now... things are greening up nicely.

Gosh, I just love living downtown. :)

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Wondering What Fun's Ahead

So it's been a week since my last post and we haven't done anything having to do with downsizing or being downtown since my last post. I made it through my biggest meeting of the year and then left OKC the next morning for a runaway girls' beach trip with three wonderful friends. We're sitting in the Mobile, Alabama airport at the moment, waiting to board the first plane on our journey back home after spending several days relaxing on the beach or sitting on the balcony with a terrific glass of wine. I think we're all feeling rejuvenated for sure.

We're hearing some weather warnings for Oklahoma as we start home. I think the weather all week this week back home was in the 80s but I understand there are now freeze warnings for tomorrow night and Tuesday. Seriously, Oklahoma? Wow. I guess that's spring for you... but I am so ready for warmer weather to arrive and stay. Maybe not the stifling hot summer days just yet but warm, sunny days for sure. Good thing we haven't planted much yet in our new community garden!



So now I'm wondering what kind of fun lies ahead in the new few weeks... working in the community garden, for sure. The OKC Festival of the Arts is set for April 22-27, just over a week away. It will be great fun to be downtown for that and able to walk over to it any time we want to (along as the weather cooperates, of course). The H&8th food truck event will be coming up again on the 25th... I'm not sure if the Arts Festival will impact that or not. Guess we'll find out. And then the Paseo Art Walk is going to be on May 2.

Urban Neighbors is signing up for the Boathouse District's dragonboat league. We've never done anything like that but they all assure is it's great fun and I'm sure they wouldn't lead us astray. I think we'll practice on Sunday afternoons starting next week and the final regatta is on June 28th. We should only miss one session while we're in DC with all the Youth Tourians a couple of weeks before the regatta.

It looks like the new few weeks are going to be loads of downtown or near-downtown fun for us. Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that we made this move? :)



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