Moments of awe.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

What a day. And still time for some moments of awe.

The photo makes it look so big. It's actually very small [for which we were profoundly grateful earlier today] but the deck extends way beyond it, and that makes it seem large. I just love the light.

Especially after this morning. 

We got up a little after 6:30. Wings was the first one down the stairs, and he started yelling immediately. There was an inch of standing water all over the ground floor.

Everywhere.

The living room rug? Ruined. Countless towels? Ruined. The grandkids gifts, which circumstances these past two weeks kept us from getting organized and wrapped and shipped? Ruined. Everything on the floor of the pantry? Ruined.

It's been much colder here than it was last night; I left the taps dripping, too. But circumstances [probably, among other things, a cold north wind that we slept through] combined to freeze part of the septic line solid, and everything backed up into the house. My dominant wrist dislocated last night, so Wings did most of the heavy work of getting the flood out [turns out it had already receded a lot by the time we got up; wall plaster above the baseboards? ruined]. We had it mostly dry by shortly after noon; it took me another 3 hours or so to get it sanitized. A lot of stuff will have to be thrown out.

But through it all, we kept our tempers and our sense of unity and our love for each other, and that was a greater gift than anything. Also, we've since opened our gifts to each other this evening, and I made out like a bandit; Wings feels like he did, too. I just have to make the gravy, and we'll eat.

And then tomorrow, I have to get to work bringing in enough to cover whatever it takes to fix it all and replace what's damaged.

So 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? seven days left in which to make up this horrible sales [and Patreon] 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. My Patreon for the month is still down ~$250 at the moment [that's how much it was short on the December 1st payout for subscriptions for the month of November, and so far, all of those still haven't been paid]. My guess is that those won't materialize later in the month; that will be the penalty [or one of them anyway] for taking a vocal stand about the genocide being perpetrated against Palestine and its people now. 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.

And aside from all of that, I also need to bring in at least $6K in sales between now and year's end to cover tax prepayments, and we haven't hit the $1K mark on that yet. Normally, I would've been paying them 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.