Entirely on-brand.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

Not a cloud in the sky for the whole first half of the day.

Not much snow left, either.

It was warmer by a good ten or twelve degrees today, but the wind canceled most of that out. Supposed to be a warming trend over the days to come, but they also pushed back the predictions of the next snow from this Saturday and Sunday to next Thursday.

So it looks like this year will go out entirely on-brand: dry as the proverbial bone, and full of problems.

I'm not going to repeat all the stuff about the plumbing and the [now] slow-motion septic disaster we're dealing with; you can read all about that in yesterday's post. But my relaxing final week of the year has gone up in a puff of smoke, or, more accurately, washed away in a flood of standing water. And I've been forced to spend the last four days straight on my feet, entirely too much standing, walking, climbing, and the pain is murderous now. I've got to start researching wheelchairs again, although with taxes ahead and at least four figures' worth of septic misinstall to deal with in early '24, I have no idea how we can afford that. The short answer, of course, is that we can't [given the details a power chair would need to have to make it worth the purchase for me], and the inevitable result is that I will simply become ever more housebound.

Which at least has the virtue of keeping me from others' unmasked, infectious selves, given that I now have no immune system whatsoever.

But it all means that there's no respite even now from the need to chase sales, either. It's been such a terrible year, in that regard but also in so many others, and there are . . . what? half a week left in which to make up this horrible sales deficit? We've had a half-dozen now since T-Day, but we'll need to sell a lot more between now and year's end, obviously, and since there are exactly four of those days left, I'm guessing we won't come anywhere close. Of course, we haven't brought in anywhere nearly enough sales all year across the board, even before recent developments that require a moral stand of us. It's grim.

Normally, I would've been pre-paying taxes quarterly, but not this year; we haven't had enough sales to do that, and I'm behind on everything else, too, all while my illness worsens seemingly by the day. Until those prepayments are off my desk, I can't relax, can't do anything other than push to get them covered. I really need help. As always, all the links are listed below, and sales are the most important:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities now are Wings's Flex-Tape, and especially the vacuum, because mine has died a complete and ignominious death, and if I don't vacuum every single day, the dog hair takes over completely); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, and there will be much more in the days to come [EIGHT NEW PIECES a few nights ago [one sold], plus two new ones a couple of nights before that]. The way this year has gone, things will still be grim for a good while and the holidays are already 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.