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| Photo copyright Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. |
Look at this glorious color; no, really, just look at it. It's extraordinary. It also might be the last we really have this year, if the forecast for regular rains over the next two weeks, starting tomorrow, holds true. That's because any rain now has the potential to turn to snow, the overnight lows are guaranteed to hit the freezing mark, and wet leaves don't survive that.
But this particular bit of color is a gift in another way, too. That's the smaller fire maple tree, the one Wings planted for me in late '17 or early '18, when I had nearly died more than once and was mostly confined to the couch, recovering. He put it right where I could always see it. and it's been one of my touchstones ever since. And this year, the drought almost killed it.
We really thought it might not make it. But he refused to give up, and while yes, there are some dead branches, the rest are alive like this. [And so am I.] We're both grateful.
This week just flew by; it really feels, as I said elsewhere this morning, that it should be no later than Tuesday. And I've still got work from Tuesday to do, too. But this is the season where we stretched to the limit now, and it's going to be nonstop between now and the end of the year.
In the meantime, I've GOT to bring in sales, and I've got to do it regularly, at least, if not actually daily. We were incredibly blessed to make three sales this week, which helps get us back on track a bit, but we'll need to bring in substantially more if we're going to bring the guys back to finish the repairs next week. [If I'm honest, there's a part of me that likes that idea, because it's so exhausting, but it needs to be done before winter, and we're already supposed to be getting rain most of next week.]
And that holiday creative season effectively began yesterday, and we're both already running 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. And it'll be that way until the end of the year. He also has to finish the last half-dozen or so commissions that are in the works [all of which are in various stages of completion] before he can turn his attention to cranking out holiday inventory in any real way. And we need to bring in sales now, both to cover his work building new inventory and simply to meet all the costs of this stupidly expensive year [on top of last year being the same; hell, last week, set us back about $1K in cash, between the repair and the guys and scrips and medical stuff]. If we could just continue to make regular weekly sales, we'd be fine . . . but we need to make those sales now, and so far, that's not happening. There's a lot of gorgeous new work up, but I've got to sell it for it to make any difference. This kind of stress is also not helping my health. I need that to change now, and fast. And to that end, links are here:
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
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