SHE'S a Player!

"The Dance" Acrylic on Canvas by Cara Kansala - Original Sold

Moving In...........

At Home for Now......perhaps the biggest project since time began! We hope to have it painted and in working order sometime in the next 3 years!!
THIS IS A TRUE STORY
SHE likes to collect things. I do not. SHE loves going to antique stores and yard sales and thrift shops. SHE loves antiques and anything dusty, with tiny little words that smell of mothballs and other peoples secrets. 
SHE is obsessed with the days of yore.
Quite a few years ago, we were at an antique store and she found some VERY dusty boxes. Long and slim. She didn't know what was in them but the accumulated dust and grime deposit was so great, She figured that inside there must certainly be something magical. With great enthusiasm, She opened each one....."Player piano scrolls!!" She yelled, "I have to have them!" 
I watched all of this in daze. 
"No! No!" I said, "We don't need player piano scrolls. They are, in fact, the LAST thing we need. No! Let's just put them back for the next person!"
"NO!" She said. "I have to get them. I was meant to have them. I need them!" And She walked off to the cash.
"AHHH! Please, no more. I KNOW that they will sit in the bedroom in a box until I am 85 and you will never look at them again. I will have to give them to the Goodwill in 45 years, so why not  jump the gun and leave them here now?  You can't get them! We will NEVER have a player piano!! NEVER! NNNNEVVERRR!!" 
I was putting my foot down.
She was paying (they weren't inexpensive to say the least). 
Apparently, my foot was not even close to where it needed to be.
Mrs. Antique-Shop-Owner-Who-Looked-Far-Too-Pleased-With-Herself put them in a bag and sent Us on Our Way.
That was years ago. And where have those piano player scrolls been ever since? In a box. In the bedroom, waiting for my pension to kick in. Has She looked at them, or needed them, or used them? Nope.
UNTIL TODAY
Last month while judging a scarecrow making contest, lovely lady friend asked us if we  had ever wanted a player piano. SHE lit up up like disco ball at an ABBA tribute and I tried to scrape myself up off the floor. 
"A WHAT?" I asked.
"A PLAYER PIANO." said lovely lady. "We have one that might need a home..."
Everything has been a blur since that day. So many "I told you so's".
How many times have I heard "Shall we take out the piano scrolls and have a look at them, again?"
I have had humble pie, 60 days in a row and crow for the past week.
SHE is in Her glory. 
Player piano is happily sitting in our living room. YES! Yes, my friend, the one we were never, ever going to have.
My biggest fear is this.......
Two weeks ago, She came home with what She called "The last thing I will ever buy at an antique shop, I promise!" It is a manual, antique meat grinder with all of the parts in working order. Working. Order.
If a truck pulls up outside our house with a side of beef, I AM MOVING OUT!

P.S. Thank you 5 billion times over to Linda Lewis and her wonderful family who gave us THE PIANO,  delivered it to our house and moved it in. You are all shining stars and we can't thank you enough!