A hot blue.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

Colonial holiday notwithstanding, we were up and at it very early this morning. It's a hot blue out there, and unspeakably dry, and tonight through tomorrow night will put us all at wildfire risk because of people's fireworks nonsense.

We spent more than two hours today in the dentist's office, a different one, and wow, you can really, really tell. I mentioned a few months ago about a situation in which a certain professional screwed us out of a huge amount of money only to produce less than nothing and leave Wings essentially abandoned. That was the situation I meant. Apparently said dentist is in bankruptcy receivership, and I'm sure there will be no getting any of what they owe back. But at least we have a professional place to go forward and try to get his dental issues resolved once and for all. For folks who don't know, diabetes raises dental problems to the level of a medical emergency, and he's been dealing with these for literally decades; this is one of those things that has to be fixed for his own health, and I will go without whatever's required to scrounge up the funding to do this. All told, we're probably looking at $25K, but unlike they who shall not be named, these folks are doing it properly, as a process, and I can have some time to scrape together the amount for each stage. It was about $300 out of pocket this morning, and the next phase will be about $1K; then it gets much more expensive from there, but at least it's a start.

But it doesn't help that June was a damnably expensive month, particularly these last two weeks. Part of it was local relatives in dire need right now. Then there was the hay yesterday morning, cash. And my Patreon is down this month (i.e., yesterday's payout for June) by more than $250, which is a huge monthly hit that we can't afford. I don't know whether it's just folks' cards being reissued with new expiration dates and thus not going through, or whether there's been that much drop-off in subscriptions, but at the moment, it's a big problem, and I have to find a way to get the numbers back up, but right now, I don't even have time to write, never mind anything else. Oh, and Stormy has to go to the vet in two weeks; might require surgery (or lifelong meds) to treat, and if so . . . ::sigh:: I don't know how I'm going to pull all this together. 

Damn.

So I have to bring in more sales, and soon. Thinking that we were okay for now was entirely predicated on the assumption of consistent sales for the second half of this year; if we don't make them, then no, we're not okay now, because I have to make everything stretch a lot further than it can possibly go. There's a lot of new work on the site already, including Wings's absolutely phenomenal new cuff, which you can see from all angles here (and you want to see it from all angles, believe me). Meanwhile, Wings has more silverwork and gemstone bead items in rotation, too (two cuffs, two pairs of earrings, a bead set of necklace, earrings, and coil). And I really do need to start bringing in consistent sales again; the year's only half over, and there's a lot of expense to get through yet. All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (current priority still the Zero-Odor sprays, because these days we're back to wet dogs again; and the liquid soaps, which we can't get locally); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.