By the stars.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

More clouds tonight than last night, when I shot that photo (a lot more, and they have snow in them so maybe we'll get lucky). It's bitterly cold now, with high winds and more of them to come. And we're in early, fires in both woodstoves, coffee brewing, and as we talked about on our way home, very, very blessed. Talk about living by the stars.

Which is good, because it's been a hell of a day and we're both wiped out. Wings had a couple of errands this morning that morphed into double that, mostly because one of them gave him a 45-minute runaround. I had his bureaucracy worries to attend to. And then I had my final follow-up for the year with my doctor, and fortunately, all seems good overall.  I learned years and years ago that there is no correlation between the severity of my flares and the severity of the disease, and for now, the hydroxychloroquine seems to be doing its job. More than that, so is the inhaler, apparently; she said that my lungs sound "really clear — really, REALLY clear."  In these days of COVID spiking again, that's some of the best news I could get.

Speaking of which, our doctor's practice is a certified community health center. They are currently in the middle of their year-end appeal, and since they are a qualifying non-profit, donations are tax-deductible. They treat a large cross-section of grossly-underserved local populations, and they need help now. Since this is the doctor who saved both our lives, we'll be giving again this year, no matter what. You should, too. You can do that here.

But days like this pull us off all our other tasks, and the work just keeps piling up. So do the expenses. I'm currently waiting for delivery of the other beads and cabs that Wings needs for his next set, and for several other things in the pipeline. And all of that means that I need to bring in enough to cover all that outlay, because the supplies don't come cheap.

Yeah, it always comes back to that: more sales. A lot more, because we have two years' worth of a shattered pandemic economy to make up for, by which I mean we need to gain more ground ourselves financially to be able to be sure of making it through the winter. And again, if you're planning on commissioning gifts for the holidays, DO IT NOW. [And that includes just ordinary orders for the holidays, too.] Yes, I mean NOW. We have about one more week for shipping, and then no guarantees on delivery in time. 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 continue to make sales, so links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the ladders, because see above);
• 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.