Sunday, November 20, 2011

Search for the piano = completed!

So for those of you that know me...I play piano.
For those of you that know me...know I've been trying to get a piano in my newlywed home.
For those of you that have been to our apartment (which is not so many; shout out to Leah, Bryon, Krista, Frit, Jack, & Jeremiah)...you know our stairs are a teensy bit narrow. (Getting our mattress and couch up those stairs was a nightmare.)

Alex's Papa knew a lady in his ward that had an extra piano that she did not need in her apartment and would give it to us for free! Holla! So we went to go look at it, play it a bit, and see what we thought. It was a studio upright and was a really pretty color. I was down for it. So Papa wrote down all the measurements and then we went to go measure our stairs to make out a game plan for moving that sucker up 3 flights of stairs. Well, we could not do such a thing. The mixture of the piano being heavy, amateurs (Alex and other family members) moving it, and our narrow stairwell was not serving us well. So we called around to see how much it would cost to move the piano by professionals. Oh just a nice grand total of $375. Plus after moving a piano you have to get it tuned, which is another $100. Hmm...did we mention we're newlyweds? That's what I thought. Sigh...

Amidst the time Alex and I were trying to figure out how to fork out almost $500, Papa told us about another lady in his ward (he's a Bishop at a downtown ward) that was needing a new home for her electric piano. So we set up a time to go over and meet this old lady and see the piano. However, there were some rules we had to abide by:

Rule #1: Do not mention we are related to Papa. She no likey Papa. Um...rude. Who doesn't like Papa?
Rule #2: We HAVE to take this piano. Even if we don't like it, take it and get rid of it some other way.
Rule #3: We have to write her a thank you card pretty instantly. She gave away an organ once, never got a thank you card, and still tells everyone 5748394875 times about it.

Well...alright. We're desperate enough to do this. So we met Jack, as well as the couple missionaries that serve in that ward, and headed on up to her apartment. Her name was Mary. And boy was she a firecracker. She does not mess around. She was telling everyone that walked in where to sit and if they said, "oh, I'm fine standing" she got upset and told them they had to sit. Even though she was for sure a bossy lady, she was also very sweet. She wanted to tell me her journey to getting this electric piano and what to do with it when I'm done using it. She also proceeded to tell us a little TMI about her health and her first husband (who apparently wanted her to be the first wife of a few, which Mary did not go for...clearly.) She did ask Alex and the missionary to give her a blessing and Heavenly Father for sure loves her, so that was cool to witness. It was very interesting, but fun talking with her. She told us that when the couple missionaries told her they had found someone to take her piano, she said she felt so warm inside and was so happy Heavenly Father had sent someone to take it and love it.

Thankfully we like it so we don't have to dispose of it. Double thankful it's much lighter than a regular piano so Jack and Alex were able to get it up our stairs! It has a nice sound and touch for being an electric and it's been so nice to have a piano in our home!

Now to get going on sending Mary a thank you card so she doesn't haunt me when she passes on...

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