And it's only Tuesday.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

[Note:  Our Internet service has been out again for the last three days, courtesy of cable having been run incorrectly at the time of installation. During that time, I've kept up with the posts despite not being able to publish them, and I'll be posting all of the missing ones this evening.  This is the post from this site from Tuesday, 10/26.]

Still no Internet, so who knows when this will actually post. In theory, we’re on the list after their regularly-scheduled service calls today, but they probably won’t get to us, which puts us on the scheduled list for tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, the whole week’s been trash, and it’s only Tuesday.

Wings had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, which was routine and went fine, but it was one more disruption to his schedule. Of course the whole damn day was a disruption thanks to the local telecom provider being hot garbage. It’s the same problem as last time, three short months ago: broken fiber-optic cables, because they were misinstalled without enough tensile leeway. Initially, they pretty clearly were going to blame it on the subcontractors who ran the cable from the pole to the box, but that won’t wash, because it was their own damn staff who connected it from the box to the house, and THAT’s where the problem is.

Also, weather. The storm clouds have been and are already going, but not before they kicked up one hell of wind-and-dirt-storm. [That's not snow in the photo; that's DIRT.  The same dirt that had jut gone blasting across our land a second before, one of several walls of it.] Hundreds of tumbleweeds and walls of dirt blowing across our land and getting into everything, and exactly while we were trying to bundle the pups into the truck to take them for their annual shots. They’re a month late with them because it took two months to get them when I called to schedule it, so we couldn’t afford to reschedule. Fortunately this year they could have their 3-year ones instead of 1-year, so we won’t have to wage this particular battle again for a while. Which is good, because the back of the truck is a muddy mess, Sunny peed on the floorboards, they blew coats and dander everywhere, and I have a ripped fingernail and subluxed joints from wrangling the little beasts.

Now, tomorrow, Wings has an early appointment for the next stage in. His dental work, and then presumably the Internet crap in the afternoon (always assuring they don’t show up today, which I think is a pretty safe bet). Meanwhile, after four (for me) good days, the pain came back with a vengeance on Sunday, kept me awake most of last night, and shows no signs of slowing, and I am frustrated beyond description. I can’t even turn on the TV for background noise, never mind get my work done or make any sales, because everything’s Internet-based now.

Meanwhile, this is our busiest season of the year; the holiday sales season starts roughly October 1st. So what this will mean is that I’ll have been put even further behind, and the need for sales will be more urgent than ever. We're $300 of the way toward the firewood, which means we can order one load this week. I still need to raise another $500 to order the rest. And then I need to raise more than a grand (probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,400 before it's all done) for my eye appointment, new lenses, new glasses, etc., etc. And that's getting increasingly urgent, because I'm not supposed to be on the lupus meds this long without getting them checked, even though I'm not having any symptoms. But I can't make the appointment until I know I can pay for all of it at once, and since it's out of town and the appointments themselves are expensive, I can't afford to break it up into two when I need both covered equally badly.

So here we go again with the endless chasing of sales to make everything meet where it needs to. And I need to bring in those sales. Desperately. They're already way, way down for the year because the colonial governments' pandemic mismanagement has trashed the economy. Also? Time is short, a lot shorter than you realize. For folks who are planning on Christmas shopping with us, you will need to order early this year, because thanks to DeJoy's damage, we can't guarantee shipping times.

Also, if you're planning on commissioning gifts for the holidays, DO IT NOW. We're dealing with the same supply-chain issues as everyone else, and at some point soon, Wings is going to have to get silver and stones to produce holiday inventory, and I'm hearing that the price is already spiking on the metals. More to the point of what customers care about, we also can't guarantee shipping times this year, because see above. But I've posted a ton of Wings's new work lately, and there will be more in the days and weeks to come. If I could sell one of the big works, like one of the belts, maybe I could get us on the drill list for the well that is the only thing that's going to keep this land alive. But I've got way too much to do and too few hours and other resources to do it. 

Anyway, I have GOT to make some sales, so links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the ladders, because see above, and coffee coffee coffee, which we're finding it harder and harder to get locally);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to cover all this staggering outlay somehow and get us through what's left of the year. And right now? I have no way to do it.  But there's lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of 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.