We've all had a hard day here.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

Guard dog.

Poor Cricket had a hard day, too: First, the subcontractors came out around midday and were here until almost five, doing things and bringing things and taking things and how dare, and then a friend's son and grandson came to pick up our daybed, because a different son is coming home from the hospital Friday and needs that kind of bed during his recovery. It was always intended as a guest bed in the spare bedroom, but since the pandemic started, we never have guests, and it was always that little bit too big for the room it was in, and besides, they need it, so it's theirs now.

But I spent most of the day either outside dealing with the cable crew or inside and outside in 93-degree+ heat with Wings, disassembling the damn thing, hauling it out, and reassembling it. I have heat exhaustion again, albeit nothing like last week's episode, because this is purely heat, not all the other stuff that intermittently tries to kill me on top of it.

So there's that.

There's also Internet tonight. A couple of yers ago, in the cold months, we had an episode like this; they sent out three different techs then, and only the third knew what he was doing. He's the one who showed us how the fiber was run incorrectly 7 years ago, and they left zero slack in it. It's glass. It expands with heat and contracts with cold, and then, it contracted too hard and all the fibers broke clean through. This time, it was the heat expanding beyond its tensile resilience, and again, they ALL broke clean through. But the subcontractors, wow, these guys were GREAT:  They knew exactly what they doing and did it in record time, getting us up and running in about five hours flat.

I'm so grateful. Because I really thought, when they told me this morning they would have to run new cable, that we'd be down until next week sometime. 

But I am absolutely beat. I want to sleep late tomorrow, I do not want to go out in this heat for anything (but we'll have to, because today was supposed to be grocery shopping, a month overdue, plus picking up Wings's records and taking them to the new dentist and benefits coordinator at IHS, and I did none of that because I was stuck here all day). For now, I'm just glad to be in front of the fan cooling off, because we've all had a hard day here.

And I'm to tired for anything, and I'm still catching up missed work on here, so the rest is cut-and-paste. Because we still have to pay all of next year's quarterly taxes; it took everything we had just to get this year's covered, finally, last month, and there's nothing left for quarterly pre-payments now. Add to that the fact that my Patreon is down this month (i.e., the payout for June on July 1st,) by more than $250, a huge monthly hit that we can't afford, the payment for Miika's hay (she can't have alfalfa and grass is now impossibly costly), and Stormy's upcoming vet visit on top of the dental stuff, and . . . . Storm appears to have developed ovarian remnant syndrome (she's gone into heat almost three years after being spayed), and that will probably involve an ultrasound or a lap right up front, and then either surgery or lifetime meds, and frankly, I'm hoping for the latter, for her as much as for us. But we can't catch a break. Every time I think I have a handle on whatever's immediately in front of us, two or three or four new things pile on.

But the dental stuff is going to be $25k before we're done, and for us, thats all in cash, and . . . $25K. I don't even have words. Or anything else. I'm just numb.

But I can't let Wings go without this dental work; aside from the damage to his quality of life, for a diabetic? It's a medical issue, and two different dental institutions have spent years jerking him around and risking his health and well-being. 

So I have GOT to bring in more sales, NOW. 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). I posted the two new pairs of earrings here the other night, and the new gemstone bead trio is yesterday's feature, here. Meanwhile, he has more silverwork in rotation, too (two cuffs, more earrings. And . . . $25K. I don't have any other way to do this for him, especially with losing Patreon subscriptions at this rate; that's been our only "guaranteed" monthly income. 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, and things are grim here, 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.