Thank you for responding, Ginny. I found out how to save my heucheras from the lady runs the garden center at our local Ace Hardware store. She said the the deer actually watch her when she plants something new in the garden and just have to taste it. She found that if she sprayed liquid fence at the time of planting, it lasted long enough for the deer to forget that they were new plants and the deer left them alone long after the Liquid Fence wore off. She taught me how to save my new plants and the are starting to fill out quite well. When they are a little bigger, I'll give them the deer test again using Liquid Fence. If it works, I'll go ahead and put them in the ground. Smiles, Lyn

A couple of days ago I found that I could search my father�s mother�s family even further than I could his father�s, and that took me back to South Carolina on the French side of the family. I could go even further back on the father�s side if I wanted to contact my relatives in Switzerland, but I would have to write to them in German, as their English is not so good, for some reason. I might do that at some point; my German is very good, if not modern. Anyway, the other night I had a dream that I was going to a family reunion at some large house in the country, and I hardly knew any of the relatives there. I had a suitcase and traveling gear with me, and I set the suitcase down in the dining room or kitchen. More and more cousins kept arriving, and some of them seemed like sketchy characters, whom I felt I might not be able to trust. The house kept getting bigger also, until it morphed into a warehouse that had lockers in one of the hallways. I put my suitcase in one of the lockers for safe keeping but left my traveling gear in the dining room, unsure of what I should do with it. I thought I should keep some of it with me but was convinced that it was okay in the dining room. I ventured out into other rooms in the warehouse (it had multiple levels), and eventually I discovered that I could no longer find the lockers where I had stored my suitcase. I began to become nervous at this point but told myself that it was just a dream and that I would find everything when I woke up. However, when I tried to find the dining room with the rest of my things, I began to panic and became very lost in the warehouse, having no idea of where I was or where anything was. At that point I decided that I HAD to wake up, but when I did wake up, my pulse was racing, and I felt almost like I was having a panic attack. I can�t tell whether the anxiety was caused by my blood pressure medicine (which seemed to have the opposite effect) or whether it was from the virus I had that was coming back. To calm myself back down, I started reading again. Right now I am reading anthropology books at night to help get to sleep and I am currently in the Upper Pleistocene Epoch, which is one of my favorite periods, but it might be causing me to think too much about my ancestors. I found out yesterday that my health insurance will help pay for psychotherapy, and so I am thinking about looking for a therapist to see if I have issues that I need to resolve. They usually put me on more medication, but that might be okay. I think I have a chemical imbalance that makes me psycho sensitive to certain medications. It might also have something to do with what I eat. I'm not sure how much more I want to find out about my ancestors at this point - I'm sort of afraid they might come back to haunt me. My famaily has been in Texas since it was an independent republic, but that was not so long ago. Lars

I've been wondering how you were doing. It's good to hear from you. Yes! Take it easy and do everything you are told! I know guys who didn't and have paid for it ever since. A bit of pain management advice: the first couple of times you go to physical therapy take half a pain pill (or a whole pill) and you'll get more out of the session. Trust me on this. Someone will have to drive you but it'll only be the first couple of times. After that you'll be much stronger and have more endurance. Glad to have you back! "Down Dunkie! Down!" Lori

Like others, just wanted to give everyone thanks for the ideas and to show my experience (based on everyone’s suggestions). Was always afraid of cleaning my HD’s as they appear so shear. Even though my HD Silhouettes have been up for just over 20 years now, I have been hesitant to professionally clean due to costs (over $1000 dollars estimated-was told it was this or spend over $6000 to replace). Given inspiration by this thread, I decided to do it myself and wanted to “payback” the thread with my experience. Given the cost of professional cleaning, I decided to DIY since it I messed up, I would replace with something else that was not so delicate (called HD and they would not sell “replacement” fabric so would have to replace all units). I could not use the bathtub method as many of my shades are too large (7ft W x 5ft L). Also, did not want to use sheets on the ground or swimming pool method as I did not wish to risk tearing/delaminating the shade vanes and it would have been tough to get to the center of the shades to clean and rinse. I did purchase then returned a cheap $39 inflatable pool but decided it was not worth the effort. Bissel was an option but some said it was messy and I didn’t want to risk dripping onto white/beige carpet if using when shades were still hung. Instead, I hung the shades up on a pergola in my backyard with some bungie cords and 1” nylon webbing with plastic buckles I bought on Amazon for $7. I rinsed the shades (first with the vanes in an open position, then again on each side with the vanes closed) to get rid of as much grime as I could using a variable spray garden nozzle (started with flat spray, and increased to a jet spray). I then sprayed each side (vanes closed) with about 1/2 ounce Dawn (as degreasing detergent) mixed with 1:2 Oxyclean/water in a spray bottle. This was followed by a thorough rinse on each side using the garden hose on jet spray to get rid of all the remaining grime and stains (started from the top, working out from the middle to ”eject” the dirt out to the sides). I followed up by using a leaf blower to dry the Silhouettes so I could immediately hang them back up. I already had a cheap one that I use to blow excess water out of molding/crevices and grill work when I clean my cars but a SunJoe electric leaf blower can be purchased on Amazon for as little as $19. Again, I started blow drying from the top, working my way out from the middle to the sides to expel all the water (and get any excess water out of the headrail and bottom rail). I found that this worked best first with the vanes closed, then a light going over with the vanes in the open position. Because the material (at least of the standard Silhouettes) is some form of polyester, the material dried very quickly, with no puckering nor delamination. A couple of observations. First, much to my surprise, the polyester material (at least on the standard) Silhouettes is not as delicate as I first thought. I can’t speak for any other brand or material, but the Hunter Douglas standard ones are very resilient, just don’t poke the shear material! You can be quite vigorous with the water pressure, much more so than I thought, to thoroughly clean and rinse the shades. They are a quality product (at least the ones I bought over 20 years ago, and the price I guess reflects that). Secondly, I would recommend leaving them in a “down” position with the vanes in an open position once you hang them back up to ensure they thoroughly dry. They will not pucker so you don’t need to roll them up as one person suggested as this may lead to the headrail components remaining wet and the shades not completely drying. From removal to reinstallation, I got it down to about 20 minutes per shade (had a lot of practice, lots of shades, lol). For those that were asking for photos: Before (right side before cleaning), after cleaning (on left) of two adjacent shades, left side started even worse than right side (see second photo) since left side window opens. After is back to original color #128 misty almond: Another before photo of the left side (pretty gross!) Hanging from pergola before cleaning: After cleaning: Variable spray hose attachment: Spray mixture and bottle: Summary: about $35 worth of equipment used (plus the cost of soap and water) vs. over $1000. Can’t imagine that the +$1000 method would have significantly better results. Anyway, sorry for the long post. Hope it helps someone, YMMV.