This Ol' House

I love our old house.  We determined it was built sometime in the 40s and renovated in the late 90s or early 00s with an open kitchen and family room.  If you look closely on the kitchen ceiling you can see where it used to be divided with a wall between the "kitchen" and "dining" areas.

The hardwood floors are creaky and worn along the hallways.  There are cracks in the plaster walls and you can either align the furniture with the wall or straight, but not both.  When the dryer is on in the laundry room you can hear the mirror in the front bathroom rattle softly.  In the summer, when the air conditioner goes on, the lights will dim for a fraction of a second.  There is no flushing the toilet while someone is in the shower, and no hope of clean clothes or clean dishes if you try to run the washing machine and dishwasher at the same time. 

If I go across the street to the park and look at our house, I can fit it in the palm of my hand.  But inside its walls are all my big and little treasures:  Jeff, Peyton, and Ashley.  But also the pictures and scrapbooks, bookshelves full of favorite reads and kids' crafts, recipe books with instructions from Mom and Grandma that have yet to be tested, my blankey from when I was a baby (that's "blankey" not "blanket"), the kids' cutest baby clothes that I can't find myself to throw away and are still shoved at the top/back of their closets, journals and poems I've written over the last 20 years, and letters I've written to the kids in hopes of winning back their love after their teenage years. 

Home really is where your heart is.  It's where I yell at my kids (I admit it, I do) and where I rub their backs until they fall asleep at night.  It's where I yell at my husband (yep, I do that, too) and scratch his back until he falls asleep at night (sometimes if I'm lucky there's kissing involved).  I am quite content when I'm all alone and the house is quiet (and clean), but I also enjoy the Saturday mornings when I wake to Dad reading the paper, Peyton watching cartoons, and Ashley playing barbies. 

Is it the cool autumn air that has me feeling so warm and cozy inside our little house tonight?  Or is it the cute striped socks I have pulled up to my knees (which Jeff hates, by the way)?  I'll take both.  And a good book in my big bed in the calm before husband, dog, cats, and kids take over.