Poor, poor pussycat~

I thought she was better, but she's not.

Poor Melly has gone back to the vet after finding blood in her urine once again. This time she got an x-ray, which shows she has a good size mass of kidney stones.

She got a shot and will get antibiotics for another 10 days. We'll feed her prescription food for at least 12 weeks, which is made to disolve the stones.

The doc has a good feeling that this will do the trick, and if not~ she will need surgery.

The surgery would cost close to a grand, so I really hope this special food gets rid of the stones! Not to mention the dinky little 4 pound bag costs $20.

Of course we'd do anything to help her, but geesh.... we ARE strapped for cash right now, as many of us are, eh?

Just be thinking of my sweetie, I'd appreciate it!

Meanwhile, I'm knee deep in my sister's wedding plans and other non-cyber things but I'll try to be in blogland when I can. I miss you all!

What's new pussycat?

CATastrophe, that's what!

Pussycat, pussycat I love you~ yes I do.... but oy what a few weeks we've had!

I had been planning to do a cute little post bragging on my feline friends but that will have to wait... Though they are cute, right? Such posers! Katie on the left, Melly on the right.

A few months ago, I had promised to share better photos of my wedding dress. So I set it up on one of my double mint twins to photograph. The pictures were so flashed out that I never shared them... intended on taking more later.

Here they are in their ultra bright glaring glory~

If you're wondering what that rusty/chippy cabinet is... it's an old barber's cabinet!

Ignore my manniquin's bare derriere, I only tossed the pink apron on her so she wouldn't be completely nude!

A few weeks ago I went into my craft room and it hit me~ the strong offensive stench of cat pee. UGH! And it's oh-so-fun to have to sniff around to find just WHERE it is coming from. Well, it didn't take me long. The entire bottom of my wedding dress was soaked.

Now if you have had cats you probably know that they usually only pee outside of the litter box for a few reasons:

One, the box isn't clean enough to suit them.
Two, they don't like the litter you're using.
Three, they don't like to share with other cats.
Four, a urinary tract infection.

My cats get UTI's frequently. They eat the special urinary tract food, and I bought them a drinking fountain, (which helped immensely with my other cat!!)... but they still get them.
I could see a tinge of blood in the mess, so I knew right away what it was. Miss Melly is the sick one this time. She just had a UTI in Oct. so I'm thinking that the antibiotics didn't fully kill the infection at that time.

So it's been a ball shoving pills down a cat's throat for two weeks; I actually request pills over the liquid because they sling that all over the place! She is the sweetest cat, and I think she really understands when we are trying to help her. She is the one who would've died had I not brought her home from the pet store with her sister as kittens. She could not stand up on her own she was so sick~ she had a 106 temp! The vet said it was just a virus~ I think she knows I saved her.

Anyhoo.... back to the dress. First of all, I don't trust dry cleaners with anything vintage or sentimental. That was not an option. Besides, I'd be too embarassed to take in a pee soaked item!
The dress had never been cleaned since our wedding day. The bottom of course was black. I had intended on wearing it for Halloween once, so I didn't want to have to clean it till after that. And boy, was I dreading it!!

It's made of panne velvet and corduroy, easy to clean actually.

Just incredibly cumbersome!

This dress weighs a TON as it is, but soaking wet I could barely manage it in the tub. It took days of soaking and squishing and rinsing and repeating.... I drapped it across the jacuzzi tub to dry a bit, then finally hung it (on two hangers!) to dry the rest of the way.

Here it is going in... EEEK!

Sorry, that's Katies cat butt you see there...

Hey! At least now you get to see all the fine details! No flash, woohoo!

I was SO excited when I found this chenille and satin rope trim, it brought everything together!

I admit, I was freaking out a bit at this point. Eww.
Just look at the BLACK bottom edge! Yikes.

All clean! I'll have to put it back on the dummy for you later. I threw the hoop away!

It came out beautifully. WHEW. The hook and eyes rusted a bit but that's an easy fix.