On July 5th, my little monkey Jessica passed away. She was so many things to me, & i know what i was to her. I will never see my little monkey play with her hockey-puck-dishwasher-tablet again, she will never again knock the fake orchid plant off my Kitchen island. I will not see her when i walk through the door-no matter where i was or how short of a time i was gone, she was there to greet me when i got back. She is the one who groomed my hair, licked me endlessly while she laid on me while we watched TV-she didn't believe in laying on furniture, only on her momma or daddy while THEY were on the furniture. She was the first one to race into our bedroom at night, ready to snuggle & sleep all night between my husband & I. She loved everyone who ever came into our house-but most especially, "her special Emily" from next door. She loved her "water bottle cardboard box choo choo train", after the 24 bottles of water came out of the carton, she would climb in & wait for me to pull her, sleeping in it for hours sometimes afterwards. She loved me. She would look at me with eyes that spoke, she didn't need words. I would give everything i have, just to have my monkey back. What she gave to me by being in my life every day was priceless. There is a hole in my heart, a piece that will be forever missing. I know that you are in Heaven, Jessica. I know someday, we will see each other again. I miss you so so much, more than any words could express. I will look for you everywhere, because i know you will be watching over me. Heaven could not give me a better Angel.

I took the last chunk of fleece from my spinning starter kit and determined to dye it in an Interesting Way. Pre-dying, it was shades of cardboard. Not very Interesting. Since I've been playing with Kool-Aid for this venture, I don't have to worry about accidentally poisoning anything so I just use whatever biggish container happens to be clean. My last two attempts were solid colors dyed in translucent Rubbermaid containers, so I could more or less see what was going on with the dying process. This time, all my containers were in the dishwasher. No problem. I can just use one of my pots, which happen to be lined with black Silverstone. This was where things got interesting. I was attempting to create a tone-on-tone effect with one color (Grape) with splotches of a second color (Blue Raspberry). I got the fleece into the pot of hot water, and made some heavy stripes and sprinkling with Grape and a few piles with Blue Raspberry, with the idea that the color would slither down the fleece and Make Interesting Things Happen. This should have worked. I couldn't tell, of course, because of the dark fleece being in a black pot. Did you know that the coloring in Grape Kool-Aid *separates*? I did get blue blotches, and much of the base color is a kind of gentle burgundy, but there are also red splotches from the dye separating and some silvery spots that I am at a loss to explain. It will be interesting to see how it spins up.