Labor Day marked our tenth year with Presley. Because it was a landmark year, we had a little party for her. (I know, I know…we’ve become one of those childless couples who throws parties for their pets.)
It was just a good reason to have Karen (the cat nanny) over for supper and to wear tiny party hats. Getting Presley to wear her tiny party hat was the best part of my week. She kept it on for all of three seconds, but I got a picture of it so I am thrilled. Her charmingly grumpy expression is just perfect. 
Karen gave Presley some treats and some wine bottle cat toys. (So far, Presley prefers the Catbernet to the Muscat.) 
She enjoyed a special tuna dinner while we ate her cake. 
Now I’m just looking for more excuses to wear tiny party hats.
P.S. Here’s the story of how we got Presley.
After we checked out the 
I poked through hundreds of boxes of postcards throughout the mall. I actually had to stop myself because my parents were with me and I didn’t want to slow us down. Sadly, I didn’t find any good Princeton, IL postcards to send that day, but I found a USPS hot air balloon puzzle postcard and an old 
And I picked up some other vintage Chicago postcards. I love the scalloped edges! (Seriously, can you find edges like these on modern postcards?)
I thought the horse cards would be fun for mail art in May (for the Kentucky Derby, which I’ve only seen once on TV.) And Naoto and I have been to Hawaii a few times but I’ve never made an album of our adventures, so I thought maybe some playing cards would help make that project happen. 
The money I saved on the Eureka seals was wasted on these Dennison stars. They were packaged in a sealed bag and labeled “almost full” which was less than truthful, especially as far as the blue and red boxes were concerned. You win some, you lose some I guess. And, last but not least, this box of Dennison mailing labels! There are more than 200 in the box (which was also in sealed packaging) and it was definitely a winner!
Do you know 
Parcel Ghost (with the help of 
I’ve been a Parcel Ghost fan for quite awhile, reading his zines and using his stickers on my mail. (Santa often leaves zines and Parcel Ghost treats 
(He really liked the strawberry donut.)
How did your Letter Month go? I have to admit, I crawled towards the finish line. Not making and sending a bunch of Valentines really messed with my mojo for this project. And I’ve been feeling very boring lately, even though I’ve been busy this month, so letters aren’t coming easily. Meh. Thanks to everyone who sent me mail this month! You guys were the light at the end of the tunnel because I wanted to make sure I responded to all of the mail I received in February (as the original Letter Month rules suggest.)
I only made a few Valentines this year. (I got behind in planning as usual.) I made a few Elvis Presley Valentines and a few MY Presley Valentines. For the Elvis ones, I started with my 
They were fun to make and, even though some will be late, I suppose a little message of love is well received all month long, right?
One last thing about the holidays…
In addition to the egg salad, we had ham salad, cucumber sandwiches, and chicken salad served in little bread boats, lemon cranberry scones and English toffee scones served with lemon curd, cream and cranberry butter, grape salad, toffee pudding, plum cake, and Christmas cookies. (I think that’s everything!)
I also made 
And, because I think every party needs a little paper element, I made these simple place cards out of some red cardstock, my 
Peggy’s tables were delightfully decorated, as always. 
We read 
I labeled each glass with a year marker made from black cardstock cut with a 2-inch circle punch and tied on with twine. (This may have been overkill since we stayed at the table for most of the party.) 
We tasted each wine in order of year and wrote little notes on the paper at our place setting. It was fun talking about the wines even though we were all far from wine experts! Next time, I’ll have copies of tasting notes for everyone–something like 
kimberly ah 