How it all started

I'm probably typical of many who decide to learn the guitar later in life:   some music instruction as a kid - a few years piano, recorder in school, nothing serious.  And I've tried to learn guitar on my own before - twice in fact - and gave up each time after expending a couple of months of effort and learning to strum a few chords.  Then life took over and the demands of career and raising a family banished all thoughts of learning a musical instrument.

Fast forward a few decades.  Children are all grown up and I suddenly find myself with spare time and more importantly, energy.  Even then it's not so much that I had been just waiting to learn an instrument. It happened almost by accident - clearing out a closet I found my son's (unused) strumstick - https://strumstick.com/pages/history-of-the-strumstick  -a neat little instrument super easy to play.
As he showed some interest in singing I once thought (wrongly as it turned out) it would get him into music. Anyway I picked it up, and immediately got sucked into figuring out how to play it - which led to me remembering how I wanted to learn to play guitar, and a few weeks later that led to my first guitar purchase on the electronic Bay.
By this time in my life, I thought I needed all the help I could get, so I purchased a used steel string acoustic advertised specifically as being super easy to play. I knew so little I didn't know to even find out the important things - the size of the guitar, the shape of the neck, the width of the fingerboard, whether there were semi-fatal structural issues or whether it would even stay in tune! Looking back, I count myself lucky that I actually ended up with a guitar in good condition that stayed in tune and was moderately easy to play.   What's certain is I could have made a better choice for a first guitar had I taken some advice, but I guess that's all part of the learning curve. Take it from me, if you're a beginner, talk to some people who know about acoustic guitars before charging out and buying one; hold and attempt to fret a variety before you purchase one; and definitely do not purchase a guitar sight unseen online.  Even if you can't talk to anyone in person, sign up to join the acousticguitarforum.com -  a fantastic resource for all things guitar. Thousands of subscribers and lots of advice (and opinions) for beginners on everything from making a guitar, to how to choose a guitar, what to look for when buying a guitar, and even basic music theory.  And in my experience a good place to buy a guitar too.  Anyway I don't even have a picture of that first guitar, within a few months it was replaced by a sweet little martin that stayed with me for about a year.  Yes, a year later I was still playing guitar... And for that I can credit my long-suffering non-musical husband.  "If you really want to learn to play you have to take lessons" he said.  You might be wondering at this point if I have got my guitars mixed up - a martin is not a classical after all - stay tuned for more on my lesson Odyssey.