Monday, January 25, 2021

Finding the light in the storm.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

Snow everywhere today, not deep, but an inch on most visible surfaces, and Wings has been out already and says that where it hasn't blown and drifted, it's closer to three inches. Supposedly more flurries on the way today and tomorrow, and then tomorrow the real cold hits, predictably. That, frankly, is by far the worst part of it.

We take our blessings where we find them, and yesterday, the only one in evidence was that faint bit of iridescence in a storm the refused to deliver until after dark. The bigger challenge lately has been finding light in the storm at all, and I don't mean the weather. It's endless, the mess created and left to us by supposed "leaders" and equally supposed "government." And there's no relief in sight yet, so you'll understand if I don't share colonial optimism now. 

And still the work has to get done. Our outlay this month has been absolutely staggering, and I've got to start making it up somewhere. Meanwhile, I'm struggling daily with my health, and this weekend was murderous. I'm feeling a little better today, which means that I will necessarily overdo it just to try to catch up a little bit, and then I will pay for it later this week, but that's the way it has to be.

It wound up being something like $235+ for Sunny, probably because he was over 50 pounds while Stormy was under 50. At any rate, within the last week or so, we've had to shell out $225 for Stormy's spaying, $235 for his neutering, $40 for my remaining scrip, and we also paid $400, unexpectedly, for two loads of wood two days ago, more to help the guys trying to sell it than out of any immediate need. It won't go to waste; at this elevation, we use it nearly year-round. But it wasn't planned; it was just that someone needed the help. At some point, I'm going to have to make it up somewhere, and my Patreon still has nearly $300 in subscriptions for December still unpaid, so folks, please check your cards and the expirations

The last two weeks have been brutal on a whole bunch of fronts. I have had to justify my humanity repeatedly and be told that it's not enough, and I am done. No more. I don't care; I'm done. I'm so tired, in ways people who don't deal with my health issues will never understand anyway, and dealing with another episode of nearly dying last week is going to be with me for a while, physically and mentally both. And I have to get back to my own work, back to making masks for folks, and most of all, back to making sales, which are at record lows now.

There is no economy now. There's nothing. People are literally dying all around us from the government's failures, and I don't know how we keep them, or us, alive unless I can cover the bills. We have lost SO much to 2020, so very, very many people, and the gifts and the talents and the knowledge and the wisdom they carried too often lost with them. Because this state has followed the lead of the country and refused to do what was required, we are about to see a very big spike in new cases, probably as early as two weeks from now; the current spike in deaths remains sustained daily. People have needed so much more help than we could give them, but we did as much as we could, even when it put us in a bind, and we will need to do much more of that this year. So:

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? Marking the birth of 2021 would be a very, very good time to do it. There's even new work, here and here, and among other new pieces, so please watch for them and share the links.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

 

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