'm feeling a bit guilty about not writing for so long and hope you will all forgive my lapse. I think I last wrote about Christmas time. I have heard from Lois 2-3 times. She told me of her DH's passing. We exchanged a couple of e-mails.
First of all we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary in March. Didn't do anything about it then--we waited until July 10-17. We didn't want a party so we took our family (21 people) on an Alaskan Cruise. What a wonderful time we had. We told everyone to do what they wanted but hoped we could have dinner together. Which we did--every night in a lovely dining room. We changed our seats every night so we could visit with everyone. A fine time was had by all. My DH did have a good time. Although, to be honest, he didn't know where he was part of the tme. He remembered most of the grandchildren. We did take 3 or 4 shore excursions but I don't think he really remembers much about them.
Pm <au 1 we wemt tp {prt;amd tp attemdpit gramddaigjter s cp;;egegradiatopm amd tjem a rece[topm afterwards/ Tjat was moce/ DJ waqs frogjtfi;;u cpmfised for a while but came out of it ok.
In mid-May, we took off for Springfield, MO to attend a grandson's HS gradjuation. Went sailing a couple of times while we were there. DH loved the sail boat. Everything he knew seemed to come right back to him. That was so wonderful to see. Sort of a backweard glance at what once was.
Then in June we went to another grandson's HS graduation in Seattle. I always knew our kids would 'bunch-up' on us. Well, they did and now all these chickens have come home to roost. Do I make sense?
Now it's August and we're busy organizing our home and garden. Everything is looking so nice. I'm praying we don't have to move any time soon.
My vision has become quite a bit worse. I did go see another specialist (this is the 4th time). I won't be going again. I'll just go in for follow-up with my regular opthamologist once a year.
The social worker from the Community for the blind and partially sighted set me up with the talking library. That's a wonderful service. The gov''t sent me a nice player and the 'library' sends me digital books that I insert and play. The readers are great. So far, the library has just sent me a variety of books to listen to, but the other day they sent me a catalog with fiction and non-fiction titles. I have no idea how many books are in there system, but they have a bunch. That covers it. I'm really enjoying it.
I do touch typing and hope I haven't made too many errors. It is harad to read. I have my computer enlarge these posts to 150% but it's still hard to read.
Thank you, all of you for being so patient with me. I'll try and keep you posted and not write such long letters.
In closing, DH is getting worse. Gets very confused. He's very sweet and easy to get along with. Very affectionate and loving. His speech gets slurred at times. I really doubt that he will be able to take any more trips like our cruise. But then, again, who knows?
Mawzy, what a delight to see your message. It's really good to hear from you and know you are doing okay. I'm glad you've had such a good summer. How's Noche?
Hi Mawzy, I was thinking about you yesterday and was going to post to see if anyone had heard from you. Glad to have you back and hope the rest of the year is as good as the first few months. Post when you can and take care.
Mawzy, check on your computer to see if you can't enlarge your type to more than 150%. On mine I can enlarge the words up to at least 600%, where they don't fit onthe screen anymore. I do it using the "control" key together with the "+" (to increase) or "-" key (to decrease). It increases by 25% increments.
Mawzy, thank you for checking in! I'm so glad you were able to spend the cruise with your family. That is wonderful. I appreciate very much the effort you took to let us know how you are doing......however, you left out an important member of your family......Noche...how is he?
Lori, your suggestion works on Firefox with Windows XP. I don't think it is a particular computer. I think that it will work on any computer with at least Windows XP and with Firefox. It probably works with Internet Explorer as well.
Lori--I tried this and it works like a charm. Thanks so much. Now if I could figurek out how to make the characters 'bolder' or blacker, I'd be in pretty good shape.
Thank you all for your nice notes. I appreciate them.
MAWZY, MY SISTER IS ALSO VISION IMPAIRED, IN SPITE OF THE LARGEST MONITOR SHE CAN GET. WHAT HELPS HER IS TYPING IN ALL CAPS. SHE EXPLAINS TO NEW PEOPLE THAT SHE DOES NOT MEAN TO BE RUDE BUT IS VISION IMPAIRED, AND ALL CAPS ARE EASIER FOR HER TO READ AND CORRECT HER MISTAKES. EVERYONE SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND AND REPLY TO HER IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AS WELL. IT SURE HELPS HER.
The size of the things you're looking at on the computer can usually be changed by keeping your finger on the 'CTRL' key which is in the lower left and right of the key pad, and then pressing the + or - keys on the far right of the keyboard above the 'Enter' key. This will move the screen 25% per key touch. Watch the magnification percent displayed in the lower right corner to see where you are. If you set this and then close the window, windows will remember and set you up at that magnification level the next time you open a new window.
In the control panel on is likely an icon called 'Ease of Access Center'. Double click on that and you will get options that include Magnifier and Narrator. Click the magnifier and you will see that Windows can be modified for more extremem visual impairment. The narrator is interesting. Try it and the computer will say aloud everything on the screen that's active as you move your mouse over it. It can be quite distracting.
Thanks to all of you folks. I have that "control +/- down pretty well. However, I must be doing something wrong with the "Control B for bold.
Regarding typing in all caps--that doesn't help me much. In fact if I make the print too big, then the holes in my vision just make bigger holes--sort of like swiss cheese. Does that make sense? I'm better off with upper and lower case in bold or black--Arial black is very nice.
I have used the Easy Access portion on the control panel. It's very helpful. I have a social worker coming next week to tutor me some more on the 'fine points' on those special items.
Mawzy, to do the control B for bold you have to have HIGHLIGHTED it before doing the ctrl-B. You can highlight it by clicking in the text and doing first ctrl-A (for all), then ctrl-B for bold