Monday, October 7, 2019

A little ragged, but stubbornly alive.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.
One last firewheel, a little ragged, but stubbornly alive.

That's me, every day.

Everything is geared around making sales right now. My Patreon, albeit $400 short, is going in its entirety to quarterly taxes tomorrow. It's not enough; I have to pull a few hundred from other commitments to make it. Between August and September, our income has been reduced by more than $650 thanks to some Patreon subscribers' cards being declined (apparently mostly an issue of expiration, but folks aren't checking their subscriptions, I guess). That has put me in a huge bind right now, because that income? It usually pays medical stuff, utilities, groceries, gas, and this month, it would have gone to a high electric bill and a $300+ annual propane tank rental, but this month, it goes on taxes, and even putting my entire Patreon earnings for September toward it, it's still $400 short. So folks, please, PLEASE check your cards that are on file with Patreon.

I'm tired in every sense of that word (on day 2 of another migraine, and attendant lack of sleep), and way behind, and I have too much to do but it has to be done somehow. The too much to do mostly involves chasing sales, and as I said above, every single thing I do has to be geared around that goal right now. This should be the start of our busiest season, and it's dead, dead, dead, and I don't know how we make it trough the winter if things don't look up very, very soon. So the rest is mostly [but not entirely] cut-and-paste, but no less accurate or urgent for that. 

As always, I'll bump Ona's post back to the top in a moment, in a matter of speaking. I think people are simply ignoring it now, so I'm going to write a short update post with the same photo, and link to the longer one. This is urgent, and the GFM is not raising funds at anything near the pace of what's needed to keep him on track for recovery. We need y'all to keep sharing while the family tries to get transport issues sorted out and keep his recovery going simultaneously. [The transport stuff will require a lot of logistical finessing on a lot of fronts, not the least of which is the medical one, so it's a long process.]

With regard to the stuff referenced near the top: For those wondering about my own health issues, see here; with regard to the work being done, some of the details are here. We still have to get the plumber in to finish up, and I regard that as a bigger priority right now in practical terms, so whatever we take in sales-wise will have to go to that. Right now, we can't do even that, much less the weatherization stuff, and it's a big, big problem.

Anyway. Back to the grind; so I need help to get all this done. Folks can help in several ways, and we really need the help now:
On the wishlist, now the cold is here at night, the flies are getting chased out by the cold, so the top priority is the candles, to deal with the residual mildew odor in the utility room, which I hope the plumber will be here to finish next week now (the utility room work, not the mildew, and yeah, I know I said that last week and the week before and the week before that, too, but there's no money for it). Our electric bill for the summer has been sky-high, in relative terms, because of the need to keep the fan running to push it out the window. And the costs on all of this are killing us right now.

And as I said, sales are ideal, of course; one or two of Wings's bigger pieces would cover the whole shot for this round of work. Patreon subscriptions are good, too. Either way, it's a trade for value. But I'm already feeling panicked at what we thought would be our schedule being so suddenly and thoroughly upended, and we'll take it however it comes at this point. 

Please share everything, because I'm suddenly back behind the eight-ball on a whole additional front, and yeah, I'm scared about covering everything and surviving, too. Thanks.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

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