We ATE The Hammered Dulcimer!!!

WHAT?  We ATE the hammered dulcimer????  Could that be true? How would we eat the dulcimer? With ketchup? Mustard? Maple Syrup? Hmmm.....

You see... a few years ago, we heard a man playing the hammered dulcimer and it was beautiful! What amazing talent was displayed. Since several of us in our family play musical instruments... piano or harp, especially, my husband said that if he learned to play something, he would like to play the hammered dulcimer.

So, we started to hunt for one on Craigslist... I watched for months... and finally we found one... almost an hour away from our home.    We went to look at it and ended up buying it....  my husband started practicing.  After some research, I made a "cheat sheet" to lay under the strings on the dulcimer and show what the notes were and to make it easier to play, since the dulcimer is not set up the same as a piano.

He practiced and started to play a song or two in a simple manner and it was surprising how well he did. I was sure that with practice, he would do very well. He seemed to enjoy playing and he had hoped to keep practicing, but life got busier and he played less and less. Finally, after a couple of years, we decided to sell it since he never used it at all. My daughter and I used it a little, but our main interests are piano and harp, so we didn't want to keep it for us.


 We posted it on Craigslist and after a few months, it sold...  and it was so nice to take it off of the cabinet it had sat on for so long. Since it wasn't ever used any more, it had become a nuisance to just take up the space on that cabinet... after all, a hammered dulcimer is rather large and a bit oddly shaped.

A few days after we sold the dulcimer, my husband was headed to the store for me as we had unexpected company coming, but I was out of grocery money. Since we had company coming, it was necessary(we would have made do with something else, but having the extra from the dulcimer helped) to get something for a company meal and he took some of the money from the dulcimer, to buy those groceries (no, he didn't spend it all). I wrote about that trip and in that post, I said I would explain at a later time about where I got the money for that shopping trip- I am doing that here... The original post is :
Saving Money-Part 2-Grocery Shopping




What a blessing it was to have the money from that dulcimer for groceries. Prices have gone up quite a bit on groceries and I have been having a hard time buying what we needed, so selling the dulcimer eased our budget a little.

In the past, we have "eaten" a china cabinet and a few other items. :)  No, we didn't have to chew the wood...  or get splinters in our tongues, and we didn't use ketchup, mustard or maple syrup, but still... we "ate" the hammered dulcimer and the china cabinet.... and more. The item had been converted to cash... and the cash used to buy food, which we ate. :)  There have been times when money was especially tight and we would look through the house to see what we could sell to bring in money to pay a bill or to buy groceries. It has been a while since we did that, but it still works.

Years ago, when our #2 son was small and had so many medical problems, it was a regular practice to go through the house and sell something to buy groceries... we just didn't have any money and the supplies needed for our son's care were very expensive. God provided in different ways... and one way He provided was by using those things we had in our home, but could do without. We would sell something and pay a bill... or buy groceries.

If money is tight for you, maybe taking a walk through your home and looking for something that is unused could be beneficial. Maybe it is a china cabinet... or an old unused toy box... or a baseball card collection (yes, my husband sold his during that time years ago)... maybe some jewelry... an extra car... a stereo... computer..... cell phone.... kitchen items.... other things.  God does meet our needs... and sometimes He already has... we just need to let go of something.  Is there anything odd that you and your family have "eaten"?  I would love to hear about it in the comments. :)  Thank you for visiting.