First follow-up appointment set. Exterior plaster getting under way, & it's a major hit. $1,200 match on offer; sales/shares badly needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

This may be the last day the house looks like that; the guys began prepping today for the exterior plaster, the first color coat and the final coat before winter sets in. It's gonna set us back to the tune of a smooth $4,500, but it's got to be done.

Far from the only expense, either. We had to run a couple of errands today (and now, Wings doesn't like leaving me home alone after what happened Friday, so I ride along in the truck and the stops give me a chance to get out walk around slowly, per doctor's orders), and we stopped by the medical practice of the woman the attending physician wanted me to see. It was no sure thing; she's already booked until December, but the office manager said she might be able and willing to squeeze in this kind of emergency referral.  She told me she'd enter me into the system for Wednesday, but it would be only for the emergency appointment for setting up the nuclear stress test, and that it might get canceled. It got confirmed, instead. Then, in an amazing stroke of good luck, I got a message about half an hour later that my appointment was being bumped to Thursday, because there had just been a cancellation, and moving it would give the doctor time to do a full new-patient intake and set up other labs and whatever. Which means, apparently, that she is willing to take me on as a new patient, and given her rep, whatever it costs is just going to be what it costs, but I need to see this through. It doesn't hurt that when we walked into her office, we both got the best vibe we've had anywhere in town, from the clinic to any of the specialists we've seen for various things (forget the hospitals departments). So yes, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing, so you can take that lecture you were about to give me and zip it, LOL.

Meanwhile, Tony and Reynaldo are working furiously on the foundation cabinet for the kitchen sink; Marcos is at work on the interior stairs; and Sherm spent the day prepping for the plaster. It's crazybusy here, and nobody's letting me get off the couch except to answer questions, so all I can do right now is try to get my online work done and try to chase sales to pay for all of this.

Because with winter literally around the corner, sales are going to be crucial to finishing this, but we won't turn away donations, either. To that end, I'll point you to the diary that our darling Yasu posted for us tonight; please go T&R and share.  I had told her no more, but they pulled rank on me while I was in the hospital, and while I hadn't intended it, I will not deny that we could use the help.  There's also a $1,200 match on offer (yes! $1,200!) and we're just shy of a third of the way there as of this posting). We need funds for materials, and for increasing the crew's hours (and yes, we had to add a man on the weatherization crew, and we'll have to add one for the plaster). As I said yesterday, I'm so relieved and happy to be alive  that I'm no longer sweating the details of the wedding very much (it's a sobering thing to have to sit, immobile, for a full 30-40 minutes knowing that you might not actually survive it). But there's that whole snow and ice and cold thing coming down the pike, and I suspect this will be the last really warm week we have. So sales matter right now, desperately. But the registries still matter, too. And as always, all of the registry items 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. Winter weather has been stalking the door for the better part of a week now, and even though we'll allegedly be going back to higher-than-usual highs, the lows are a reminder that we have to get this done, and fast. And now, when he introduces me as his wife? Even the government will agree, LOL.

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.