Swimming in December

I really love living in Florida, even more than I ever expected.  When we first started looking for a house here, we were looking for a house that had a pleasant view in back, golf course, pond or meadow - anything not looking into another house's back yard.  A pool was not in our requirements because there are so many community pools in the Villages, we thought it would be easy enough to use one of them.   We had a pool at our first house and it was hard to maintain.  We were at a high elevation, backing up to a forest, and the pool was not heated.  As a result, the water was usually cold, frogs loved to jump in an die from the chlorine, and we spent more time cleaning it than swimming in it. 

When we found our perfect house with 2 bedrooms, office/computer room for each of us, and a view of the burrowing tortoise preserve in the back, we were a little hesitant about the fact that it had a pool.  It was a very nice one though, heated and screen enclosed, with no trees around to shed into it. We decided we could hire a pool company to keep it clean and chemically balanced.  As it turned out, the pool is one of the features I really love about our new home.  I don't think we would be swimming as much if we had to go to the community pools.   They are nice social spots and good if you want to spend a few hours poolside, but that's never been our style.   I love being able to put on my swimsuit, go out the back door, swim for a half hour, read on a lounge chair for the next half hour while I dry, and then go back inside  and continue with whatever else is planned for the day.  What's more important, is that we can get this type of exercise in almost every day, year round.   Unless it's rainy all day, the weather is usually good enough to fit in an hour for the pool sometime during the day.  Today the outside temperature was in the 70's but the pool is heated to the low 80's so it feels good.  Getting out, I just need a good towel and a light cover up.  That and a good book to read while I'm waiting for my suit to dry enough so I don't drip in the house, make it very pleasant.  I can relax more it that hour each day than I can anywhere else.  Now, when we are traveling, that daily swim is what I miss the most.