Additional $2K+ weatherization expense coming up next Tuesday; $1,000 match on offer tonight. Sales/shares (registries included) badly needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Thanks to Wings, we got the bedroom chaise put together this morning. A dear friend had ordered us some blankets, and the gray one just happened to be the exact same shade of gray, so it has a home now. My office space won't be ready for a while, because of the need for furniture, but at least now when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, I can work from the bedroom without worrying about either waking Wings or having to go down to the living room. We finally have some furniture again, furniture uncontaminated by mold. [Every time I have to walk into the RV now, I can smell it. I swear, I don't know how we survived all these years in the middle of it.] 

The small console table got only through stage 3 out of 18. The rest is for tomorrow, when I hope I'll be without this migraine and better able to focus. (The migraine is from that old injury to my neck; even with the new bed, it's still possible to sleep on it wrong, but I think it actually comes from having lifted some heavy stuff yesterday, and done it awkwardly.) We also got two other items taken care of rather late in the day: The adapter for the gas range arrived, and the plumbers showed up to install it, so I now have a working range with both a real stove and a real oven for the first time in seven years. Lowe's also finally found the sink drain, so they're overnighting it to us here. 

The less good news came in the form of the estimate for weatherizing the wood deck. It has to be done; it makes less than no sense to build the deck and then let the wood get ruined by our extreme winter weather. But it's going to be another +/-$2K, on top of the regular crew's labor. Tony and Reynaldo will be pushing hard to get the fundamentals of a countertop done sufficient to hold the kitchen sink so that it can be hooked up. And then there's the color coat on the exterior walls that has to come right on the heels of the wood treatment, and it will probably be at least as much. On that note, darling Ono has a diary up for us, with a $1,000 match on offer. As of posting this, we're almost halfway to meeting it, so please T&R and share it. 

Beyond that, though, there's still that "nowhere near done" part, combined with the now "less than three weeks" part and the "winter weather" part. I've had to do some creative shuffling, and now in addition to next week's labor costs, I have to bring in some more scratch before then to cover materials, too. Sales are going to be crucial to finishing this over the next few weeks, but we won't turn away donations, either. We need funds for materials, for increasing the crew's hours (and potentially adding a man, if it comes to that). But the registries have suddenly also become particularly important. The most immediate needs are listed first, and the priorities are the lamps. We have overhead lighting, but indirect lighting for purposes of reading and writing and frankly just not having the glare on all the time are the issue, so the lamps it is. The next big thing will be my office space, and yes, I really, REALLY want (and need) to get that done ASAP, but that stuff is pricier, and for now, I just want to finish off the downstairs as much as possible so that when folks are here in three weeks, it's comfortable for them. And another shout-out to the generous soul who took three other items off the list overnight; I'm told that all three have already shipped. And as always, all of them can be crowdfunded, so kicking in $10 or $20 on an item is extraordinarily useful; a few donations that size to a single item, and it's fulfilled and on its way. All of this, of course, means that we still need shares, daily. So here are all the links:

• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• Wings's site, for sales;
• Lowe's cards (the physical version) via our Amazon wishlist;
• Lowe's e-cards (delivered via e-mail) here; and
• Home Depot cards via the company site. The e-version using my e-mail address is great; I take the tablet to the store with me, and they scan it off the screen.
• Our Amazon wishlist generally.
• Wayfair gift cards, to replenish all the furnishings that the RV has destroyed in one way or another.
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It's not complete; what's left on it now are doormats and a few other miscellaneous items, although there are more that need to be added.
• Partial registry #2, from Wayfair. Also not complete, but I've finally added a bunch of items to it, mostly now furniture items. But about Wayfair, and VERY IMPORTANT: They make it possible to crowdfund each item. So if you'd like to help, but the prices are too much for one person? You can kick in 20 bucks, or ten, or five, on any one item; many small donations can add up to one item. Even the backordered/out-of-stock items can be crowdfunded in advance. Right now, the most pressing items are the ones outlined above. I've just added the furnishings for the rest of the upstairs (i.e., the guest room and my writing/office space, which also includes the desk and chair further down the list, and the last three rugs on the list, two of which are back-ordered). The chaise and daybed are for the two upstairs rooms: the latter for the guest room, the former for my office, which is where I will be spending most of my time, and my AI issues require working on a laptop with my legs outstretched, so that's why it's a pricier piece; it'll probably be the primary means to my role in our living. There will also be more items that fall into the badly-needed category (lamps, particularly, right now), because the wiring and mold and lime and everything else in this toxic tin can has destroyed so much of what we used to have. I'm sickened by the amount of stuff we have to throw out (on top of the things that were simply ruined, such as the microwave fried by the wiring in that place).

Thank you all, once again, for everything you've done over the last 16 months to get us safe and keep me sane. We are both so thankful for each and every one of you who made it possible for us to sleep (and shower!) now, for the first time in seven years, in a safe and healthy (and warm!) place. I'm going to be mostly unavailable for very nearly anything for almost three weeks now, and it's all complicated by the cold weather and seven years of breathing toxic air. As I said the other night, I will miss everything under the sun, I will forget things, I will screw up things thought to be un-screw-up-able. That's just life with autoimmune disease anyway, and now it's severely exacerbated by all the rest of it. But we have a long way to go, and an absurd amount that needs to get done in three weeks, so please bear with me a while longer. It was unseasonably warm today, but the cold outside now at night is a reminder that we have to get this done, and fast.

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.