It seems like an omen.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

That was this morning, around 9:30 or so. That's the smoke. Eight hours prior, between 1 and 1:30 AM?  It was positively eerie.  The moon was riding high in the sky, but those fields in that photo up there, between the various fencelines? The smoke was hovering at the ground, just like fog. I've never seen that before. It seems like an omen.

Unfortunately, not a good one at all.

They're still working on the highway; yesterday, they got the lower layer of tar and the first level of gravel on this stretch. Traffic is constantly backed up, because they're down to one lane and they have an escort truck that leads them through it. This is the slowest traffic has been here in sixteen years [the summer of 2008 being the last time they did anything remotely like this]. Normally, they're racing past at 70 mph.

At least we don't have yesterday's winds. They were hard, hot, sustained, and directly out of the north, which is also a first. We only get north winds with stormy weather [or, increasingly, with spring winds, which are their own storms, or at night]. These were terrible, and terribly unsettling, despite the fact that they sent the worst of the smoke away from us. You wouldn't have known it from the level that was still choking everything here yesterday. And, of course, again today. Omens, indeed.

As I said yesterday, our finances are feeling pretty singed these days, too. Based on the quote we got the other day, I'm guessing we can get the roof and the overhang [the water is going through and risking rotting the deck and front door and windowsills; we wanted to do an overhang originally, but then I almost died, more than once, and that got back-burnered along with everything else still unfinished on the house] done simultaneously for something in the neighborhood of $4 grand, so $4k in sales is my new immediate goal. That way we can get the materials ordered, even though they won't be able to do the work before September, probably, given the rains.

Of course, we're out the $2 grand-plus already for this part of the roof repair and the part for the truck. It'll be at least another grand, and probably substantially more, for the labor on the truck. I'll need to cover that, too, which probably means than a $4K goal. And we both have medical stuff coming up, including the fact that I have to keep a smooth grand set aside for my imaging next month. So while last week's sales/breathing room helps right this moment, over the long haul, it hasn't materially changed a lot of things. The expenses from last year and the first half of this year broke us so badly that we're still way behind on everything. I have GOT to put a big chunk on our tax bill, which is weighing heavily on me constantly. [You wonder why I don't sleep? Apart from pain, that's one BIG reason.] 

Over the weekend, I finally got the 7 new offerings [8 pieces total, 2 sold as a pair] up yesterday: Art Deco Labradorite cuff here; Art Deco purpurite cuff here [and already spoken for]; triangle wire youth bangle here; Art Nouveau vine pattern-wire youth bangle here; small Art Nouveau pattern-wire bangle pair here; malachite earrings here; and Picasso jasper earrings here [very haunted Gothic stones!]. He's finally getting a chance to get caught up a bit on stuff that he's had to back-burner since last year [more in the works already, a new wide silver cuff, another wristband, and three pairs of larger earrings with stones]. And I will still need to make sales at a rate of at least two per week for the rest of the year for us to catch up [and that's just breaking even]. So: Go buy! Please! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Amazon cards are probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already even worse than the last, we really need to get 2024 onto a better footing, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.