All keyed up

Get this-- today we hauled in our upright piano! The other day I was at a homeschool co-op function and learned that a lady I admire and respect gives piano lessons. Hmmmmm. Within two days, I found a free upright piano advertised on one of my homeschooler electronic mailing lists. I sent an email request-- never really expecting anything to come of it. A couple days later we were playing at a friend's house and learned that they too were eliminating their piano soon. Wow! Never expecting to hear from the first one-- which had been first-come-first-served-- I expressed interest in the second.

By that time I learned that the first upright was mine for the taking, so we went to get it today. I think we got life lessons along with lugging while working with our amazingly wonderful piano specialist. Once the instrument has warmed up and settled in a bit, he'll tune it up and we'll give it a whirl.

The girls are thrilled. The cats are thrilled. I am thrilled. I think even Ian is tickled, and this is moderately surprising considering he doesn't care to play and yet did a fair amount of hustling to get the monster settled into our front room. It needs some work, and based on some of the nightmares shared by our piano specialist we'd probably never recommend acquiring a piano sight-unseen to anyone else; but we were comfortable with the source where we found it and the people we worked through, and were blessed with a winner. We're grateful indeed.