"I am residing in the independent living community of Colonial Heights Senior Living in Florence. The food is good, and they check on you if, for some reason, you don't go down to the dining room or the front desk. They check every single day, and they call for a wellness check. I thought that's a good selling point, although I haven't needed that because I have gone down at least once every day. They have maintenance five days a week, and there's certain stuff they will help you do. Housekeeping is once a week, which I think is normal for most places. Everybody I have met has been so cordial and welcoming. Most days, they have cards and other activities. They do have shopping one day a week, I think. I notice in my calendar that they take people to Kroger or Dollar General. You can sign up and go to those. Like the others, they also have rides for you for appointments. They have carports available, but that's at an extra cost. I didn't sign up for that because I don't think any of them are empty anyway. I can use my scooter inside, but I have a long way to go to the main elevator, which is the one that my scooter would fit in. It goes down to the main entrance, and there you will see the dining room, mail room, reception, barbershop, exercise room, the library, and all the different conference rooms. Everything is in that area.
The one thing that this place doesn't have, that others do, I believe, is that it only offers you two meals a day. I only eat two meals per day, anyway, because I have a protein shake every morning and that's it, so it worked out perfectly for me. If I wanted breakfast, I could always go down, and then they would add a nominal cost to my monthly bill. They also have a delivery service to your room. One weekend since I've been here, I wasn't feeling right, and I was afraid that maybe I had stomach flu or something. I didn't want to go to the dining room those two evenings and be around the other residents and maybe spread it. I called down, and they asked if I would want to bring the meal up. There's a $2 minimum charge, which they just add to your monthly bill. They deliver it right up to your room, it's still hot, and they bring drinks and plastic silverware in case you don't have them. The food is good, and I haven't had anything I didn't like, but it's not home cooking or a gourmet restaurant.
I made an appointment and had my haircut at the beauty and barber shop, and the young lady there was phenomenal, just as good as I've ever had, and I'm very happy with it. I haven't been to a lot of activities where the staff were in charge, like the chair exercises, where they have, I assume, a staff member. I also haven't been to bingo, but they have that. There are some card events where you're just basically playing cards with the people at your table. There is also a happy hour. I haven't been here long enough to take in all the activities. There was a church service, and that was nice. I went to that one on Sunday. This coming Friday, they're having some kind of picnic thing. I haven't been to anything like that yet. I noticed that they also give you a monthly and a daily activity list. For the coming week, I noticed it says two names and a birthday party. It gives initials for what room it's going to be in, so I'm guessing residents celebrate their birthdays here."