Rosie gets the Blues

This is going to be a post of many parts. First off I would like to thank all of you who commented on my last post, all the messages meant a great deal to us.

We have been treated to a great deal of blues harp over recent weeks. Rosie found her Daddy's harmonicas and it didn't take her very long at all to get the hang of playing them. It could be that as I've been working my way through our CD collection with her and we recently hit a run of Charlie Musselwhite albums that she found inspiration. She certainly seems to enjoy her Delta Blues.

There has been a bit of stitching going on when I can fit it in. I've started an online class - Anniversary Roses with Lauren Sauer of Forget Me Nots In Stitches that's been offered by Susan at Hanging by a Thread. I've finished the first section of this gorgeous sampler, you can see a picture of the complete sampler on the class page.

Lastly Ellen has asked how much longer it is till Alien 2 arrives. Because of some health issues on my part which have led to me being diagnosed with Obstetric Cholestasis again, I'm scheduled for induction on the 5th July when I will be at 38 weeks. This is the same condition that led to Rosie's early arrival. I would have preferred not to be induced again but ultimately my only goal is to have a healthy baby so I'm concentrating on the positives. Dave has his leave booked, we can get Rosie over to my folks and I'm not having to worry that everything will kick off in the middle of the night with Dave at the other end of the country and me having to find people who can run me to hospital and to look after Rosie.

Tansy

Sorry to have been absent from here over the last few weeks but we have been suffering from a bad dose of 'life' round here.

It all started with Rosie cutting another tooth (only 3 left to go!) then Dave & I both caught a stomach bug last week that lasted over the bank holiday weekend. Thankfully Rosie didn't get it but the whole parenting thing doesn't work very well when both parents are broken. The final straw was when I found one of our cats, Tansy (the cat in my avatar), behaving very oddly on Monday afternoon.

Dave took her to see the emergency vet where they discovered she was extremely dehydrated and has lost over a pound in weight since her annual check up in December. The vet ran some blood tests, and they found severe kidney failure. The vets tried to treat her but she was not responding, they were trying to syringe feed her but Tansy refused to swallow so we listened to what she was telling us and let her go. My Dad came over and took Rosie and I to the vets as Dave had a meeting he couldn't get out of. We let Rosie say goodbye to Tansy and then my Dad took her to a near by park while I stayed with Tansy till she'd gone.

We all miss her horribly. We got Tansy and her litter mate Dill when they were 8 weeks old in 1996. Rosie is taking it by far the best of all of us, thank goodness for the pragmatic nature of two year olds. I got a copy of 'Goodbye Mog' in just in-case but I don't think I'm going to need it this time round.

Tansy was a frequent visitor to my sewing room to keep me company when I got to spend time up there

In her classic 'feed me' pose

Tansy loved a sunny spot and wasn't too fussy about where it was