Its been a while...

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but to be honest there hasn't but much to post about.  The month of July was spent working at Sam's Club for me.  Geoff's job is really taking off!  He is starting to get clients of his own and making more sales.  I love to see how much he loves his job!   I don't mind listening to him talk about fixtures and bulbs everywhere I go, because it just shows how much he loves what he is doing!

This past weekend my parents came to visit!  It had been a really long time since we had a chance to spend some quality time with them!  Friday, we drove to Omaha and did some serious shopping at Charming Charlies and Cabellas.  We also stopped at Mahoney State park on our way back to Lincoln.  Geoff and I have had this park on our list of places to check out for quite a while.  This state park its huge and has tons to do! It has everything from horseback riding to put-put, mellow dramas to water parks, tent camping to condo stays and some really fascinating views of the Platt River.  Although we were just checking it out and driving through, we really enjoyed it! I'm definitely looking forward to doing some camping there this fall!  AND this winter if it ever snows, they have a pretty sweet sledding run and ice skating rink!

At the top of the observation tower at Mahoney State Park

Saturday was spent going to the Farmer's Market, taking Roscoe to the Dog Park and getting some UNL Dairy Store Ice Cream!! Dairy Store ice cream is about as close as I can get to Braums here.  I LOVE their pumpkin ice cream and cannot wait for fall to be here so I can enjoy it!  Sunday came and we went to church and ate ourselves silly at Dicky's BBQ (so good.  so, so good.) and unfortunately it was time for Mom and Dad to head home.  I miss being near them so much.  Really I just miss being close to my whole family, all of our friends, Chick-Fil-A, Braums, Silver Dollar City, trees, hills, the general hospitality of "the south." I guess you can say, I've been pretty homesick lately.  Oh well, Christmas will be here before we know it and I will get to go home for almost a week! 

Now its time to gear up for school to start.  Still no teaching job for me.  There weren't even jobs for me to apply to.  I know God has a plan, I just wish it involved a teaching job for me.  So another year awaits filled with cutting lamin, pouring ketchup, recess duties and babysitting students...yay.

I Bought A Piano!

Geoff is forever dragging me to auctions and this past one was no exception.  This time I had company, mom and dad were in town and they were along for the ride with me as well.  Lincoln Public Schools holds their auctions twice a year.  When we went in the fall, I really enjoyed myself.  It goes by pretty fast and there are lots of items that I am interested in actually bidding on.  For this auction, the preview mentioned Musical Instruments: tuba, violin, trombone and piano.  This definitely caught my eye!

Once I discovered the Piano at the auction, I was immediately interested.  I was surprised at how good of condition it was in; of course it was in need of a good tune and some TLC.  I wanted it!  We stuck around to see how much the piano was actually going to go for.  The auctioneer started the bids at $100.  You could hear a pin drop.  The 20 or so people standing around probably had the same idea we did.  Finally someone bid $10.  Geoff kept looking at me with "Do you want me to bid?" eyes and I kept looking at him with "I really want it" eyes, so Geoff jumped in with $12.50! No more did Geoff bid that the auctioneer was saying, "Going going gone! For $12.50!" 

At first I was thrilled!  Woo hoo!  I bought a Piano!! But shortly after, my thoughts soon turned to where in the heck are we going to put this thing? How are we going to move it? (we own a Blazer and a Grand Am, my parents were here in the "Flea" aka Hyundai Accent)  I have never felt buyers remorse quite like this one.  I was literally sick to my stomach!  Here I was so excited to actually win a bid that I really wanted and it just wasn't going to work out. Plus I already own a piano! It just isn't here in Lincoln with me.  We are going to move it from my parents house until we are in a more permanent place. 

Luckily Geoff's boss, Bryce, was also at the auction with his truck.  The funny thing is that he was the one who bid $10.  We out bid him! So he volunteered to take the piano and store it in his garage.  We decided to put the piano up on Craig's list and try and make a profit and split it between us and Bryce.  (Like it will be hard! We ended up paying $13 and change with taxes put in.)  

Buying this piano also allowed me to bless a family in an unexpected way.  After we won the bid, this lady approached me almost in tears.  She asked if I had bought the piano and I said, "Yes, do you want it? You can have it!"  All she wanted was the tuning tag.  It belonged to her father who was a piano tuner.  Helping make this family's day really helped my buyers remorse.

$12.50 ended up buying us a piano that nobody wants. (Its currently August 6 and no one has been interested.  We have even offered to donate it for free to several places.  But $12.50 did buy me quite the story! 

The moral of the story, remember to spay and nuder your pianos to keep homeless pianos off the street.