Embrace the Creak!

Before we bought the brand new house that we live in now (with 5 kids, 4 dogs and one crazy cat, it ain't so new anymore - sigh), we lived in a 25 year old house that was full of creaks and crackles and groans and just the odd sounds of an old house settling in. 

Well, back then those creaks and crinkles just drove me bananas!!  Back then, I had little children/babies who needed their sleep, whose Momma needed them to sleep!  Hehe

So, I would (like the super genius that I am) shush my feet as soon as they misstepped and found themselves on the dreaded "creaky floor board!"

Times have changed and I no longer have little babies whose Momma needs them to sleep! Sigh!

So, I have come to appreciate the creaks and the crackles and the odd sounds that a house makes, that our house makes.

About a year ago, the same feet that I used to shush, stumbled upon the sweetest little creak upstairs right in front of the girls' room and I was SO excited!  No longer was I shushing my feet!  No, now I was learnig to appreciate the old, the worn in, the well loved!  Sort of like me, except worn out!!!  Hehe!

I know I talk a lot about my beloved front porch but we also have a back porch!  It is a tiny porch and I don't go out there much because I can't stand to look at my weed invested back yard but it is screened in and down here, that is a HUGE!

I happen to go out there the other day and opened the screened door to walk outside - to pull weeds!  Really!!

And low and behold, there it was

the creak of all creaks!  The creak that instantly transforms me back to my childhood and the long summer days spent at my grandparents' house.  I had heard it a thousand times before but this time, this day, it took me right back to my 9 year old self who would happily tromp through those weeds - barefoot

Maybe because my body is a little bit creakier (not creepier - creakier!), I have learned to appreciate our house's growing pains - growing old pains!

Maybe as you get older, you begin to embrace all that is - old??

I don't know! 

I do know however, that I hope our kids will remember the groan of the floor board upstairs and the creak of the screened door on the back porch and one day when they are old (yes kids it really DOES happen), their houses' creaky sounds will instantly transport them back to these days, these crazy days of flashlight tag after dark and roasting marshmellows in the fire pit, of flag football in the back yard and yes, occasionally pulling a weed or two!