Wedding flowers (late but no less beautiful)! Truck repairs; tile delivery for kitchen counters; a lot to do yet. Sales/shares still very much needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

That was what my wedding bouquet was supposed to be: mini calla lilies and blue eryngium. It arrived today, along with the maid of honor's bouquet and the boutonnieres and petals for the flowers girls and a single incredible centerpiece. We didn't buy these — they were a gift from a dear friend — and wires got crossed somewhere in the process and they didn't make it up here until today. Which is fine; for the wedding, I used the flowers Wings bought me at the grocery store, which were also beautiful, and now I have some extra beauty in the house, along with a reminder that [some] schedules and plans can always be rearranged to good effect. 

We had to be up early this morning, because I had an acupuncture appointment at 9 AM, the first concrete step in trying to get over whatever this [waves vaguely in direction of heart, then hospital] actually is. Still waiting on the scheduling of the stress test and the heart imaging. I can't let myself think about what all of this is going to set us back. Wings just tells me to go forward and not worry about it, because it has to be done.

After that, we filed the marriage license with the county clerk and got certified copies of the application to start the laborious process of changing my name. I mean, I've been using it for a good long while already, given how long we've been together, but I might as well get it on my driver's license and so forth, too. That, however, is all a much longer process, and I'm not going to stress myself out over trying to get it all done at once. But now everything's all 100% official.

We also paid the drum group, and paid 2/3 of the balance on the exterior plaster (the remaining 1/3 has to wait for tomorrow, because we're waiting for sales funds to clear). He'll pick it up here tomorrow morning. And that, once again, pretty much wipes us out. Which is not a huge deal at this particular moment, because except for Marcos finishing up various odd jobs on the house like replacing the last few interior steps, we're on hiatus for this week. But the crew is slated to pick up again next Monday, and in the meantime, the truck has set us back another $300, and there are still all the medical costs looming like a vulture atop a caduceus, and it's just endless. So, here I am back to posting links, and I hope folks will continue to share them all:

• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• Wings's site, for sales;
• Wayfair gift cards, to replenish all the furnishings that the RV has destroyed in one way or another.
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It's not complete; I've added a few more kitchen-y items, but there'll be some later additions, too.
• Partial registry #2, from Wayfair. Also not complete, but there are more items to be added there, too, once I get them to resolve this fulfillment/shipping problem they have with their site. Now, it's going to be mostly odds and ends that make this place more liveable, because of the sheer volume of stuff destroyed by too many years in the RV (e.g., by the oven and stovetop, by the wiring, by the water, by the mold, etc.), or that we simply gave away seven years ago because we had no room and no place to put them and despaired of ever being able to use them again. But about Wayfair, and VERY IMPORTANT: They make it possible to crowdfund each item. So if you'd like to help, but the prices are too much for one person? You can kick in 20 bucks, or ten, or five, on any one item; many small donations can add up to one item.

It is very cold here now, getting down into the teens at night. The pond is less a pond and more a small lake now, and most of it is frozen solid, even through the day. It's really quite beautiful, but I wouldn't advise trying to walk on it. We have no snow predicted anytime soon, at least per the current extended forecast, but the cold is expected to get worse. I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to wake up in the early dark hours of the morning when the woodstoves have gone completely cold and be able to walk downstairs in only one ordinary layer of clothes instead of three or four plus a blanket or two and a space heater, and be perfectly comfortable. It's also pretty amazing not to have the power constantly going out thanks to said heaters, and to know that we will not have a $500 power bill this month. Thank you, everyone who helped make this possible. If I have to be sick, at least I'm doing so in a warm, safe space, and I don't have words for the kind of gratitude I feel for that.

I am still catching up, not only from the health issues (I'm still not allowed to do anything but walk here and there), but also from the pace of the construction and the wedding. Just being able to sleep in our home and know that we don't have to be up at some ungodly hour tomorrow feels scandalously like a honeymoon. But Home Depot delivered the tile today, and we need to get Floyd's crew back at least to cover the one kitchen countertop so that we can hook up the sink and have a minimally-functional kitchen, and that's more money. So please continue to share the links, and given that the holidays are essentially here, please refer folks to Wings's site (and if you have an endorsement, too, so much the better). I'll be trying, slowly but, I hope, steadily, to get caught up over the course of this week. Thanks again, to everybody, and we love you all.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.