Less Fever, More Cabin, please

It's April in Ohio.  The darn snow won't go away.  And our house is shrinking.

Help!

Don't get me wrong, I love our old house.  It boasts all the amenities one should expect from such an aged dwelling:  creaky floors, cracked walls, drafty windows, the occasional rodent in the crawl space.  Nevermind the continuously-clogged drain tile that creates a temporary pond in the laundry room.  All these features give our house character.  Only boring people live in stamped-out palaces of perfection, right? 

Today was just one of those long, winter-but-should-be-spring days when clutter multiplies, toddler energy intensifies, and that quaint little laundry room pond grows into a lake.  Suddenly, our cozy cottage in the country felt more like a special of Extreme Makeover than the latest restoration masterpiece on This Old House.

As my toes crunched the leftover Cheerio grit on the kitchen floor, taking me past the dried oatmeal decorating the wall, I elbowed my way into kneading homemade bread dough on a microscopic-sized space of counter as I snarled at the crack in the wall which I'm pretty sure had extended three more inches this afternoon due to two toddlers hell-bent on tearing this house to the ground.  And that obnoxious old crack probably stretched a few more inches as I pounded my mountain of dough down to the size of a frisbee.

And then I stopped for a moment.

The groaning floor protested my shift in weight.

Perhaps it was the magical calm that only comes from giving a blob of dough a good punch, or perhaps it was a moment of mental clarity when my children ceased tipping the living room furniture, but my internal tirade against our house-turned-shack slowly dissipated as I began to think of everything I love about this little home.

Immediately, the general list-toppers of a small home mean less to clean, less to upkeep, less expense.  But then I began to think in terms of "more".  Granted, I was not overly Pollyanna about my little epiphany.  For crying out loud, there's snow on the ground in April and toppled furniture in my living room.  Feelings of sunshine, bunnies and butterflies were somewhat tempered.  Nevertheless, I managed to compose a concise little list of what's "more" to love about our humble abode:

More Stimulating Conversations.  Our small house fosters an aura of intimacy.  People do not have to shout across the room to maintain a decent conversation.  There is less space for interruption, more encouragement for detailed discussion.  An introvert's dream come true, really.  I cannot tell you how many friends have left here two, three, or four hours past their originally planned departure, simply because they lost track of time.  Some might say over-staying company stinks like a dead fish, but I consider it an honor when people feel so comfortably welcome.

More Motivation to Toss.  Who doesn't love a good organizing purge?  Digging through closets and sifting through cupboards for unused, unecessary items is an exhilarating high.  In a small house, my packrat tendencies are curbed by my addiction to happily tossing clutter onto Mt. Annual Garage Sale.  Bye-bye ugly glassware.  Bye-bye childhood trinkets.  Bye-bye bass guitar and amp.  (Just seeing if you're checking up on me, Mr. Handsome Upholstery Man!).

More "Scope for the Imagination."  In the movie Anne of Green Gables, as an awestruck Anne and Diana ascend the magnificent staircase in Aunt Jo's mansion, Anne breathes, "That's the one consolation of being poor...you have to dream all this up."  Our house is never completely "finished"--in reality or in our dreams.  In our minds, there are always walls to paint, wood floors to refinish, shelves to install, bathrooms to remodel, additions to build.  And when we discover a new idea when browsing the latest home magazines on a hot date at Border's (hint hint, Mr. Handsome Upholstery Man), our imaginary renovations expand at no extra expense.  While we know it could take years to actually make our dreams a reality, our thoughts are forever running wild with creative ideas of improvement.  And the potential of our little house feels endless.

I know I love our house.  It's small.  It's old.  It's quirky.  Sometimes this crazy Ohio weather really does seem to shrink the walls down a few hundred square feet, and cabin fever sets in worse than a bad cold.

But our fingerprints are stamped all over this home.  Yes, even literal, toddler-sized, dried strawberry jelly ones on the living room wall.

Near the penmarks of a 3 year-old aspiring artist.

One creaky floor above Lake Laundry Room.

Across the Cheerio-encrusted kitchen.

Just around the corner from the caked oatmeal I forgot to scrape off the wall this morning.

Maybe it'll make good mortar for that obnoxious crack.