By Laurie Whittier
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Goodbye, endless meal prep and cooking. Farewell, messy kitchens full of dirty dishes. Sayonara, snow shovels and lawn mowers.

For 220 residents of Wind Crest, it’s time to sit back and enjoy a more carefree life.

More burden than benefit
For many new and incoming Wind Crest residents, home ownership and household management has become more of a burden than a benefit over the years—between cooking, cleaning, paying costly home-maintenance bills, and wasting time and gas running errands all over town.

With convenient on-site features like a bank, a hair salon and spa, a pharmacy, and a market where residents can pick up basic staples or lunch fixings, Wind  Crest cuts down on time usually spent running errands.

“We welcome the extra time we’ll have getting away from all the housework  and all the things we had to do before,” says Jim Murphy, who recently moved to Wind Crest with his wife Virginia. Murphy, who attended Wind Crest’s groundbreaking last fall, says he and his wife will be saving around $1,000 every month living at Wind Crest. And since they love to travel, they’ll have more money and time to enjoy their adventures.

Wind Crest Retirement Counselor Molly Thorne-Dhieux says the Murphys’ comments are not uncommon. “Many future residents look forward to being able to come and go as they please without having to rely on neighbors to watch their house or pick up the mail,” she says. “And when they return, they just ease right back in as if they’d never left.”

Cooking not required
Among the most welcome changes for residents is all the time saved by not having to put so much effort into meal preparation— from planning meals and shopping to cooking and cleaning, says Thorne-Dhieux. “With two quality restaurants located just steps from their doors, there’s no need for people who live here to spend much time in the kitchen—unless they want to,” she says.