Something that looks like hope.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

New flowers from Wings, mixed with the old. It feels thoroughly like winter here, so it's nice to have something warm and sunny indoors. Also nice to have something that looks like hope.

That mask screwed up my neck yesterday, so of course I'm battling a monster migraine today. [My neck is permanently a mess because of an accident decades ago, and the lifetime of unDX'd EDS has only made all of that much worse.] Once the filters get here, I can make myself a fabric mask with ties instead of straps. Because the sewing machine is here! Now, it's just the filter fabric for the inserts (half activated-carbon, half polypropylene medical-grade, all antimicrobial fabric). And then I can start churning out masks for everyone, I hope.

Because yesterday was frankly terrifying. Wings told me last night that he was embarrassed at first, going out masked and gloved, but now he's proud to be doing it. And yeah, we both saw the smirks yesterday, plenty of them. People are assholes. But we intend on us being well after this is all over, and we also intend not to spread any opportunistic bugs to innocent people while we're at it.  Because what we saw EVERYWHERE locally yesterday? Criminal recklessness. Oh, and also? yesterday's county breakdown was incomplete. Taos County does not have two new cases; it has FIVE. Total of eight confirmed now. Given people's behavior, that's going to spike in another couple of weeks. Badly.]

And now, I hope we're both in for another 2-3 weeks without needing to leave for anything but picking up mail.

But speaking of mail, my primary source of stress right now is the bills. Sales are nonexistent. I just paid a monster electric bill, because apparently they lost a bill in the mail or some nonsense, and when we thought we were paying the February bill, we were paying January's past-due instead. Between February and March, courtesy of the need to run an electric heater for longer ours in his studio, I shelled out almost $500 in cash today just to get us into April. And with having made only three sales all year, I need to bring in about $4,500 to feel confident of getting through whatever's waiting for us with this pandemic. We've spent far more than we would ordinarily have done over the last six weeks getting ready to quarantine ourselves, because we saw what was coming even if the so-called "leadership" of this country still refuses to acknowledge reality. We also shot what is for us an extraordinary (I mean that word; by any measure, it was A LOT) amount of cash to various folks, mostly Indigenous and disabled, over the last few weeks, precisely because we could see what was coming, and most of them don't have the privilege we do of an isolated home with natural resources and hard experience to help keep us going.

Three sales are not going to keep us alive, and we still have taxes and other expenses to pay. Just to cover all of the outgo over recent weeks, I need to bring in $4,500 fast; I've got to make sure we can get through the rest of the year. So please share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is going to be next to nothing otherwise, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. Also, I added some new items to the wishlist, so that breakfast is less boring, and because I'm going to have to return to sewing (supplies, mending, etc., and eventually maybe other stuff for local folks). Oh, and I also added candles back on, because we're going to have to cancel the plumber AGAIN, so there's no fixing the mildew problem until we can reschedule, which may be months out yet; the candles help deal with the smell. Why cancel? Because in his spare time, he was an instructor at the Ski Valley. You know, where a person who should never have been traveling by then in the first place went and exposed everyone. There are some other new items on there, too, things that have always been sort of on my mental wishlist but I cold never justify the indulgence (waffle iron, bread machine). Now they're much less indulgent, given that we're going to be here for a very long while, and bread would be nice occasionally (and so would waffles).

Speaking of sewing, a huge thank-you to whomever took the sewing machine off the wishlist the other night. I've started the process of keeping up my end of the bargain, and the elastic bands and filter layers for making medical masks are already ordered and on the way. Here I can think of at least four facilities that can use them: IHS; our own doctor's office, which is a certified community health care center (and, last I knew, nearly out), the local urgent care center, and the local hospital. Thereafter, I'll use it for our mending and alterations and sewing for tradish purposes.

Meanwhile, I paid the last three bills for the month day before yesterday, and this week, I have to get cracking on our taxes, so there's been a lot more outlay, with a lot more yet to come. As I keep saying, we need sales, very badly. The links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here;
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

Please share everything. Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.