Goodbye

We had to say good bye suddenly to our cat Griffin earlier this week.



Elsie came downstairs in the morning and found him under a piece of furniture meowing constantly. His hind legs were not working. The vet said that he most likely had heart disease and a clot made it into his spinal region disrupting the flow of blood to his hind quarters. He had no pulse in his legs and was very cold. So I made the difficult decision to let him go. There are typically no symptoms that would indicate heart disease, and he had been to the vet for two check ups in the past year and was pronounced "very healthy".

Now our trio...



is down to one....



Unfortunately Miss Daphne has kidney disease and will not be with us much longer. It has been a rough year in the pet area.

"THE" Dress

The finished ensemble had many details.





And the wearer looked very pretty in the outfit...




Yes... she is wearing little earrings and a sparkly head band. The dance was a grand success. She and Daddy were out partying until 8:30pm... definitely past her bedtime.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

The Daddy-Daughter Dance is tomorrow evening at Elsie's school. They will have pictures taken, refreshments, a ball dancing lesson, and then get to dance for an hour. It is the first time Elsie and the spouse have attended and apparently some of the little ladies get quite elaborate with their dresses. We have been discussing The Dress for a couple of weeks, and two days ago we had to narrow things down a bit.
I was first presented with this illustration and STRICT instructions that the skirt "go straight down".



From the image, it appears that the wearer of the dress would not be able to walk. So I asked if the skirt needed to "go up" as she twirled. "The skirt needs to go STRAIGHT DOWN! NOT OUT!" was the reply. Then I was presented with this drawing...



So again, I wanted to make absolutely sure she indeed wanted a hobble or pencil skirt. At this point it was no longer a discussion but rather a fiery argument ending with the words "I drew you two pictures showing you what I want!!" I think I have a budding designer on my hands.

The straight skirt request meant that she didn't want a petticoat (because they itch), but she did indeed want the skirt to twirl away from her as Daddy spins her about. She had also requested that it be strapless... I nixed that request immediately. We selected a pattern online (to save some time looking through pattern books) and headed to the store. After steering her away from the hot pink/vivid aqua/pastel green & lavender plaid combination that was calling to her, we selected these raw materials...



which I am currently transforming into a dress. Daddy cannot see the dress prior to the grand unveiling tomorrow night. I did pin her into all the parts last night... she looks very, very pretty.