Up on the scaffold again (me this time). Expenses and pressures ratcheting up hard. Shares needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

So I was the one with my ass hanging off the ladder up on the scaffold this time around. I couldn't have done it without Wings, who built the scaffold and then did for me what I did for him two weekends ago: held the ladder, brought the paint, gave me the roller, the brush, the sponge, whatever I needed. He literally handed me every tool as I needed it, rinsed out the sponge each time, over and over and over again. But it's done. That white space up there is all that remains to be painted (other than touch-ups), and that can't be done until Ice comes and completes the texturing at the lower part of it. The whole thing will have to be reprimed again, which is why we didn't worry overly much about a little blue here and there.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

That up there, the little short wall on the left side of the stairwell? That's what we did first, because it was by far the hardest. Well, hardest except for the edging of the ceiling up there, which, at its middle 3/5, had me literally hanging off the ladder. No, that's not actually my idea of a good time. No, I didn't look down.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Then it was on to the other wall, half of which could be done fairly easily (relatively speaking), with the ladder fully up on the upper-level floor instead of hanging in place on the stairs. What you're looking at up there? Yeah, not that part. That was the part with the hanging-ladder business. The big stepladder. Yeah.

This was the easier part:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Easy being relative, of course.

Then there was the part about patching a gouge in the south wall where the guys got careless and took it down below the texture on the drywall. I've got other patching of their screw-ups to do, and we'll be having yet another conversation about the need not to fuck up my paintjobs, because I have only so much energy for this.

And I'm somewhere way past wiped out. There was so much I was going to get to done this weekend, but the mica has still not arrived (and now obviously won't before Monday, meaning that no plasterwork gets done this weekend), and just pushing myself to get this done took everything out of me. My pain levels have been ratcheting upward daily, and I'll be hobbling tomorrow.

In the meantime, stuff still has to get done. The stucco is going to be another $500, preparatory to the final coat on the exterior starting July 7th. There's a lot of lumber yet to be bought so the balcony can go up before then. And then there's all the interior stuff, which is making me crazy because there's only so much we can afford, even with the Lowe's cards we have, and the tile is going to have to come from Home Depot, apparently. That's not even counting the water heater, the appliances, the upstairs flooring, and it's really not counting the $12K that evaporative system is going to set us back just to make the septic system functional.  

And as I keep saying, I have to have all this stuff rattling around in my head all day every day and most of the night, and every second is spent, even unconsciously, trying to juggle it all and figure out how to make it work. The stress is killing me, and I don't mean that metaphorically. So we need consistent link shares for all the rest of it:

• First, to donate, the PayPal link is here. 
• Second, for sales (which we really need to make, and I'll be highlighting some of his high-end stuff on the site this week), the link to Wings's site (preferably with a testimonial, if you have some of his work), because sales are gonna keep this thing rolling. 
• And finally, the link to our wishlist (which badly needs updating), with an emphasis on the Lowe's gift cards, because those are what will help us pay for all the stuff that will make this place liveable, like a water heater and flooring and so forth. A note here: To tile the downstairs, we'll need to go to Home Depot, which doesn't sell gift cards through Amazon; they can be purchased through the company's Web site here.

As always lately, I have a lot more work this evening, and I have to get on it. Many thanks and much love to everyone.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.