Surprises of all sorts.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Sixty degrees today, felt like late spring. And that's what the sky looked like at sunset: Allegedly, we're getting snow tonight after 11 PM. Surprises of all sorts.

That's the way of things here, though, swinging wildly between polar opposites on nearly everything. If only we cold get it to calm down a bit on other fronts, maybe we could get some work done and I wouldn't be so exhausted all the time.

I did take care of one thing today: Got a good pound and more than two feet of hair cut off my head. It's been tormenting me for a while now, because my hands are so bad I can't even braid it myself anymore, and there's so much of it and it's so heavy. I should have been cutting it intermittently all this time — we do that for mourning — and I just . . . didn't.  Maybe because the instances of it just kept coming and coming and coming and my spirit couldn't keep up, I don't know. I haven't cut my hair, except for bangs and trims of split ends, in nearly twenty years. But I think the grief has been weighing me down rather literally at this point, so now I have a pixie cut, and another big surprise: My hair is still heavy, even short, but it's turned curly! [I know, I know; age, and I'm old.]

Anyway. I also got an unpleasant surprise today in the form of another $450+ expense. The frames of two of the pieces of wall art in our inventory had gotten damaged a long time ago, so we took them in to the frame shop back in . . . I want to say maybe end of November. A good long while ago, anyway. She told us she was backed up, and we told her just to get to it when she could . . . and promptly forgot about it. Anyway, the new frames are done, it's absolutely outstanding work, and it costs accordingly, and I was not prepared to lose that today with the same amount needing to be paid out on Sunday for firewood, but here we are.

On top of all that, we have ~$900 in unanticipated expenses due now, the first half of that this weekend, and I simply don't have it. Second, there will be yesterday's medical bills (they weren't in the system yet when we left the doctor's office, so I'll have to pay them online), and that will be easily another $200, plus another $40 for my newest Rx.

And then there's what's to come.

We all agree that it's not safe for Wings to have knee replacement surgery while this pandemic rages unchecked. The hospital has a rep, and not a good one. I mean, it's not as though there are any beds for elective surgeries right now anyway, but for a diabetic, it's double risky. However, our doc's office is approved for a couple of new injective therapies that are showing great promise, and we've decided to go that route.  The first one will be ~$200 a visit; the second type, which come after, will be ~$600 per visit. But he is without cartilage in both knees, so the pain can be excruciating; if it gives him better function and less pain without the current risks of very invasive surgery, we need to do it.  [Also cheaper than surgery, too.]

The second is for me, although mine won't start before late April. I have a new med to take to try to help with the pain and insomnia in the meantime, but it's not a long-term solution, and the feds would love to strip me of the one opioid med that is the only thing that helps take the edge off my pain. However, for the quarter-century I've known that I've had autoimmune disease, there's a treatment I've wanted to try, but the U.S. would not permit it, although it was showing great success in Europe: ketamine. It's finally legal here, and the practice has taken on an M.D. trained in its use, and our doc says that I am absolutely a perfect a candidate for trying it. I have my intake in the last week of April, which will be a few hundred bucks. If I'm approved, it will be $500+ per treatment, for a likely total of 8 treatments over a period of months. Yes, that's $4,000. If it works, though? It'll be worth every single penny and then some. But I have to start raising and saving funds for it now, because April will be here before we know it, and in the meantime, there are taxes to be paid.  So, yes, we need help raising it.

So I'm carrying a lot right now, as always this time of year, but I'm less strong physically than I used to be, and that's spilling over into other areas. There are all the newish concerns now with the lupus itself worsening, and they're adding to my already considerable stress, which by now is off the charts and affecting more than just my sleep. January is always our most expensive month of the year (followed very closely by July, and that's not even counting April, which is tax month, in this). We're out the other side, but there are still bills yet to pay that followed us into February, never mind taxes upcoming and the rest of the year, so I have GOT to make some sales this week. I need help. I can't do this alone; hell, I can barely walk most of the time right now. But there are ten new pieces since two weekends ago: the new trio in his gemstone-bead series Sunday, here; Saturday night's all new vintage-style cuff, here; a new hook bracelet the other day, with a fabulous flame-red Rosarita heart, here; you can see the previous new gemstone beadwork set, the next in his Elementals series, here; and the really phenomenal big works from two Saturdays ago are here. Those other two new pieces I mentioned last Monday night are both up here and here. And then there's the brand new one linked above. More hearts are in the works, albeit not complete in time for Valentine's Day; including, at least in theory, another hook bracelet and a pair of earrings. And we urgently need to sell them all. Please share, and buy if you can.

Links are here, and there's new work up, with more to come this week:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the other ladder and the Bissell vac);
• 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 twelve whole months of a new year, plus put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring. And 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, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.