Vacation report: part 4 of several

working vacation brain

Yesterday, 3 days late, I FINALLY made it down to the basement for my “stay-cation” cleaning project. The timing was perfect because I was pissed off.

I do my best cleaning when I am pissed off at someone…. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen often enough… thus my dirty, cluttered basement has piled up over the last 10 years.

I was pissed off at my hometown School Board….. details further into this blog.

My vacation visit up to my parents last week turned out to be a bit more exciting than I was hoping for. I wanted to zone out, but instead, I had to take on the role of an adult, for the first time that I can remember, I had no one to rely on but myself. I rose to the challenge, and took care of my older sister in a way no one else could.

Last Tuesday was our usual bush/tree trimming project for Dad. This is usually a fun project since our friends Vanni and Steve help and we enjoy working together as a team. Vanni does a great job!



Things were going well until my sister Jan had the mishap to put her hand up reaching for a branch as Greg was still trimming with the hedge trimmer .... The large one Steve is holding below. As you can see, John is out trying to supervise us.


Jan yelled for me to take her to the ER, and off we went with her right hand wrapped in a towel. Long story short…. This was serious, and Jan was transferred via ambulance to Rochester, MN /Mayo clinic which is 1.5 hours from Charles City.

I traveled behind her and we were lucky that she got to come home after being checked out by a hand specialized, and stitched up. This turned out to be a long day, since we didn’t arrive back in Charles City until 11:00PM that night.

On a bright note, I got to visit my old stomping grounds when I was in Rochester in the mid 70’s attending nursing school. Some things changed, and some were the same.... on a funny note, the ER admit gal thought I was Jan's daughter! :)

Next, since I was still in town helping with my sister, I attended the School Board meeting with my Mother and our former neighbor friend Cherri, who was a school teacher at the elementary school in our neighborhood. I spoke as a student of the first kindergarten class of 1961 of our newly built neighborhood elementary school. We attended this public hearing to protest the decision to tear down this school. We spoke well and passionately and we were quoted in the local town newspaper, but the School Board went ahead with their demolition decision.

PS: My sister is recovering well. My 2nd trip up with her on Monday to Rochester indicated she was healing well. Jan is very lucky to have no nerve or tendon damage. The many stitches will be removed next week.