The ray of sunshine is my daughter who came to visit this past weekend. She lives in Michigan and comes 3 or 4 times a year. She is going to England (3rd time) with her boyfriend this month to visit his parents. It would be hard to visit her as her condo has BRs upstairs and only 1 handrail.

I had a project for her this visit (as usual). lol We went shopping for new drapes for the bedroom and she put them up for me. I am all thumbs when it comes to doing this so all I could do was help her measure and get the tools she needed. She had to take down the brackets and reinstall them as the drapes ended up being to high but she didn't waiver. She said she has had to do this before. I would have thrown in the towel. lol We did have some fun time shopping and going out to lunch while my son stayed with Larry. The next day even Larry went to dinner with my daughter, my son and his girlfriend. He didn't eat much but he seemed to enjoy the company and talking with others. I treated my daughter to a manicure before she left Sunday. She doesn't take the time to do this much and I was sorry we couldn't do both pedi and mani with the time frame. There was a little girl getting a pedi with her mom. I think she was about 6 years old. I don't think I had a manicure even until I was in my 40's. lol They have little chairs for the kiddos now and the bubbling water and vibrating chairs too.

Larry is still finishing his PT and now has speech therapy for his swallowing problem. He had his evaluation last week after the PT therapy. The back to back are too much and he could hardly keep his eyes open with all the questioning. lol We have the same speech therapist as last year and now things have changed. He is using a thickening for his milk. My son was to give him his lunch Saturday while my daughter and I were gone. I instructed him on the thickening but I guess I went overboard. He said the straw was stuck in his milk as it was too thick. lol We have now learned just the right amount to put in. Larry doesn't seem to mind as there is no flavor to it plus it helps with the coughing. There are many brands of thickeners the therapist mentioned, and we could try which ones worked for him. He is also now on a mechanical soft diet. This was not the case last year as he could eat steak and meat cut up small. I just wish I could find that magic pill or Dr. who could get him to eat more! Hopefully, this new therapy will help. So far he has been to his internist, an endocrinologist, ENT, barium swallow X-ray, dietician and speech therapy. He has tried pills from his Mirtazapine, Dorabinal (made made marijuana pill), and an antihistamine I read that helped others gain weight. He loves his milk, ham salad and ice cream. He also does not need the puree to help swallow after every bite, such as applesauce. He needs to remember to swallow first then drink. He tends to take a bite and wash it down with milk. I catch him doing this or other things he shouldn't do. It's hard to monitor it all!!

I tried renting a movie for us to watch from RedBox. Larry's son gave us their BlueRey DVD player and I had not tried it yet. We sat down to watch it and couldn't get it to work. We checked connections, hit buttons on the remotes, while Larry tried helping with verbal clues. lol We gave up and my son came the next day and discovered the disk was damaged. I E Mailed RedBox and they gave us 3 free rentals. I hope I can get it to work next time. So frustrating!

Now that my daughter left, the weather is getting warmer this week. I guess we should be thankful for all the beautiful flowering trees here and the green, green grass of home, plus we are safe and sound.

Julie