I just can’t stand it. I withstood posting all day long, saying, No, I said I’ve already posted thrice this week and I have to be as good as my word. But I enjoy writing about our wacky lives, and since I’m the king of my own domain I can change my decrees on a whim. So I now proclaim that I Shall Only Post Thrice Weekly When I Have Thrice Weekly’s Worth of Posting To Do. So let it be written, so let it be done.

By the way, Vern wrote in to say that “Reading about your country life on your blog was a major factor in getting me to quit putting off this dream while chasing other lesser goals.” So he and his family are moving away from the city, buying land, and building a house! Way to go! I am touched that others can benefit from our lifestyle. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes, as we are fearless in making them.

I really appreciate everyone’s input on this blog. God bless you.

So anyway, back to the piano. When we first moved here from Chicago almost 11 years ago (!) we bought a house and said, “What’s the heaviest object we could possibly put in here? A piano, of course!” But pianos are pricey. So I went to choir practice at church one Sunday and hollered, “Okay, folks, who has a piano we can purchase for $250 or less?” And Curtis said, “We have one you can have.”

Which just goes to show, it never hurts to ask.

Curtis’ piano was an upright grand that had been sitting in their garage since they moved in. They had their own piano, and this one had been left with the house, so out it went. He was glad to get it out of there, we were glad to have it, and the truck we borrowed was glad to get it off its truck bed. This thing weighs about as much as Vermont. When we moved into our home in the mountains, it took a bulldozer to get it up the stairs and through the door, and when it was in place, we found that one caster had made a beautiful new Grand Canyon of a groove all along our brand new bamboo floor. (We parked the sofa over the groove.)

So there it is, anchoring our house to the mountainside with its weight. There it stays until the day our oldest two girls are in college six years from now, when we’ll knock a hole in the living room wall, hang a couple of French doors, and turn that bedroom into a music room.

Meanwhile the piano gets plenty of use. Emma (age 13) is the official organist at our church. She, Becca, Katie, and Abby all take piano lessons weekly, and Natalie will start in a few years. We’ve never tuned it (hopefully that will change this fall), but it’s in pretty good shape, aside from some of the keys that apparently were played with a ball peen hammer (literally; they have circular craters in them) and the collection of pens and pencils that over the years have rolled into that crack you see behind the music books.

Here Sarah (age 2) tries her hand. All our kids have a propensity for music. Just to her right you see the stereo and iPod that power our ceiling speakers, so that music is a frequent visitor in our home. (Their proximity also illustrates how cozy our house is; the sofa immediately behind Sarah, to your right. Hey, I much prefer a cozy country home to a McMansion. Don’t you?)