An unforgettable anniversary

This Tuesday my husband and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary--and it was one we'll never forget. We had taken the kids up to my parent's house up north of Lafayette and then hopped on the motorcycle and driven to Kokomo to a bed-and-breakfast called "The Bavarian Inn." It's a beautiful old house tucked away behind the trees at the edge of town. At one end are the rooms--each with massive four-poster beds, idyllic paintings of Germany, and a private bath with a jacuzzi. We chose the Castle room, named for the pictures of German castles hanging on the wall. At the other end of the house was a glass solarium, with the kitchen, dining room, and living room all in between.

The evening was uneventful, but during the night, some nasty storms rolled in. At about 4:30 in the morning, Roswitha, the 75-year old owner, got up to go close the windows in the solarium and slipped in a puddle of water on the tile floor, breaking her ankle. The broken bone tore through the skin and she left a large pool of blood on the floor where she fell. She stayed there until the bleeding had stopped, and then pulled herself to the door of the solarium. She was intending on getting to the kitchen, but began bleeding again. Finally, at about 7:00 a.m, she started calling for help.

My husband was awake, but he is hard of hearing. Even with hearing aids in both ears, he has a difficult time. He had come into the living room and thought he'd heard a cat meowing, but didn't think anything of it. He went back into the bedroom to read. The light disturbed me, because I was still sleeping, so I groggily asked him to find somewhere else to read. He went to the kitchen to get some coffee and was surprised that there wasn't any made. He also noticed that breakfast hadn't been started. Breakfast was supposed to be served at 8:00, and it was coming up soon. Again, he returned to the living room and thought he heard a cat. This time he went to check it out. When he opened the door to the solarium, there was Roswitha, sitting in a pool of blood.

Immediately he called 911. Then he called me, telling me what had happened and that he needed my help. By the time I had pulled on my shoes and socks the ambulances were already pulling in the drive. I let them in and directed them to the solarium.

Roswitha was so apologetic because she didn't get to make us breakfast. She offered to buy us gift certificates to Golden Corral to make up for it, but we told her not to worry about us. When the paramedics asked her if she was in much pain, she said it didn't hurt at all unless she moved her leg. I couldn't believe how tough she was. Her biggest worry was that we wouldn't get breakfast, even though we insisted that she not worry about it.

When the paramedics were ready to lift her onto the gurney, she asked them, in her heavy German accent, "Do you need me to move?"

"No, you sit still," they replied. "We're going to lift you."

"You're going to lift me? I weigh 500 pounds!" Of course, she didn't weigh anywhere near 500 pounds. She was also concerned that they would get their blankets bloody. The paramedics just told her that they didn't care-they didn't do laundry.

After she was gone, we waited until her part-time help came in before we left. We did find some food in the kitchen to eat for breakfast--banana bread she had made, some sliced ham she was intending to fry, and some orange juice. It seemed odd being the only ones there.

When the other workers came in about half an hour later, they were really shaken by the amount of blood on the floor. Roswitha had been wearing a necklace that had a button to push if she needed help, but for some reason it hadn't worked when she pushed it. They weren't scheduled to work until the next day, but Roswitha had asked us to call them. She didn't have any guests scheduled that night, either, so it's possible that she might not have been discovered until the next day.

While it wasn't quite the beginning to our trip that we had planned, I am so glad that God placed us in the right place at the right time. We had looked at a different place to stay first, but decided to splurge and get the one with the jacuzzi. It's neat how God uses even little things like a desire to have a room with a jacuzzi to put us where He wants us.

I know we'll be back. I hope Roswitha is able to figure out why her necklace wasn't working, and maybe she can find someone to stay with her full time to help her run things. This bed-and-breakfast was her dream, and she's been operating it for 21 years. It would be a shame for her to give it up. I just hope she's able to find a way to keep it open and take care of herself at the same time.

This is a picture of the solarium where Roswitha fell. The house was too long to take a picture of the whole thing.

This is the other side of the house, where our rooms were. Ours was at the very end--as far away from the solarium as possible.

I included this pictures so you could see the middle section of the house to get an idea of the length of this place. The middle is where the living room, dining room, and kitchen are.

Yard sale

We've been having a yard sale this weekend. It's been really hot today, so I'm inside now, keeping an eye out the window for customers. I haven't had a yard sale in years--the last time I had one I made a whopping $17. But we live in a really good spot for a yard sale now instead of in the boonies like we used to, and plus I actually had a decent amount of good stuff to sell. It's taken quite awhile to build up this amount of good stuff, because I am not a packrat. I tend to throw or give away things when I no longer need them. I hate clutter and I hate picking it up off the floor, so whenever I can get a bag full of broken toys and lost puzzle pieces together and leave it for the trash man, it gives me great joy to know that I will never have to pick up those items off the floor again, ever.

Part of the reason we had so much to sell this time is because of Erick's elbow surgery. There are tools that he has that he can no longer use without hurting his elbow. He's never going to go back to construction now--he can't. So there's no point in having all of the tools he has. I've also decided that canning produce is probably not in my future. I've gravitated towards tiny gardens that give me some fresh produce but not enough to put up. My canning jars and Squeezo, my water bath canner, even my cherry pitter are no longer anything I plan on using.

Yesterday I sold most of what we had in the first couple of hours. We did great business. We sold the old laptap that the battery went bad in, all of the canning supplies, Erick's roof jacks, some leftover retaining bricks from building our flower beds, the entire table of books, and more. We made close to $400 yesterday.

Today I've sold much less. I think I've made $4.75 so far. There just isn't that much stuff left. All of the good stuff is gone and we're down to the boring things--some little glass items, shoes, clothes, stuffed animals, etc. Most people stop, look around, and leave.

I take that back. I just sold Erick's chainsaw finally, for $130 dollars. Erick originally was asking $200 for it, and today we lowered the price to $150. I had about five people offer me $100, but he said no. I had a guy offer me $125, and so I texted Erick at work to ask him, and he said he wouldn't go any lower than $130. So it's sold, finally. Now I can probably close up shop and be done with it, because there is nothing else out there interesting. All morning it's been more like show and tell instead of a yard sale, with the stream of men coming over to play with Erick's chain saw. They'd look at it, ask if had gas in it, fire it up and make it go "Vrrrroom! Vrrrrooom!" and then they'd offer me $100 for it. Yesterday a guy thought the tag said $20 and offered me $15. <roll eyes>

We made a really good profit overall, enough to do all of the things I was wanting to do with the profit--buy socks for the kids, buy the items they needed for 4-H, and buy school supplies for the fall.