Our New Pride and Joy :)

This is the piano that Paul & I won on ebay for $25. I have to admit, it was an amazingly SWEET deal. The previous owner was just some guy who happened to have a piano lying around in his garage for the last 5 years, and he was going to just leave it on the side of the road, but he figured if he put it up on ebay he'd make a few bucks off of it. Unfortunately for him, that's ALL he got. But WE WIN! On Saturday, our good friend Nathan Utt drove Paul up to the Chicago temple (he had to work there for 5 hours), and then the two of them drove Nutt's truck down an hour or so south of town and wound up in a surprisingly nice neighborhood, where they exerted their superhuman strength and moved the piano all by themselves. A big shout-out, too, to the guy in the apartment above us who helped get it from the truck to the inside of our apartment.
This is the small centerpiece I made for it, mostly to cover up the book that we're using as a weight for the lamp until we can find something better. I used the leftover wedding flowers (and STILL have more to go!).

So now the quaint old piano is in our apartment and we look at it much the same way new parents admire their children--part wonder, part shock, part amusement, part love. It feels like a little miracle in the midst of a lot of hard times, and holds the promise of progress and happiness ahead. And while there's a low B key that buzzes and a high C key that's sharp, for the freedom it gives us to explore and express ourselves and the independence from the "someday" promises of BOTH our parents' pianos, this beauty'll do. :)