It's a good thing.

::)Our house is old. It smells old when you walk in from a week away. It has medium brown doors and old door handles. It has brass fixtures and outlets that only work half the time. It has wavy walls, cracked floors and stained carpets. There is old track lighting in the family room, sliding doors that could cut off a person's fingers and a floor safe that has no lid. There are so many things to hate about this house. Especially in Texas, where new homes are a dime a dozen, and every home is sparkling clean and freshly painted.

But this house has something we haven't found anywhere else. When I walk in the front door, every care and worry just fades into the background. The fireplace calls us to sit and chat, the kitchen begs us to bake a batch of cookies. We walk in and the house is asking us to live a rich, fun, exuberant life. All of these little girls, screaming around the house and running down the long hallway.

When you open the door and come out of the bathroom, you can see all the way across the house to the yard. A big, rolling, green lawn with creaking trees that shade the hottest day. You can't help but walk the entire length of the house to stare out the windows and think your thoughts. The tire swing is always swaying, teasing the kids and pulling them into the vast outdoors. The sliding door is always open, so that we can yell from the kitchen to the golf course and anywhere in-between.

The creek bed behind the house holds bugs, dirt, wildflowers and toddlers. Sometimes the water is running, sometimes it's just dry and dusty. Some days it's rushing and noisy, other days it's trickling and full of bare feet. The adventures in the creek bed trump any movie or video game. The girls gallop around the shady yard screaming about monsters and princesses, begging us to climb down and play.

We have a striped hammock that waits in the breeze, hoping to trick you into relaxing so that it can flip you out into the grass.

All good, here in this good old house.