More color! Cabinets! No water to the kitchen yet, though. Good medical news, but it'll be very costly. Sales/shares badly needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

That is what the house looks like as of this evening. There's more to do, namely the lower story on the west side and the entire back. And, of course, the window/door trim, but that won't happen before next week at the earliest, although we've got at least some of the primer and paint already.

The color coat was actually a lot more impressive in the sunlight this morning:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

In the sunlight, it absolutely glows. So does the wood of the deck. I've rarely seen anything so beautiful, not least because it has been such a long, hard road to this point.

And speaking of rare and beautiful, there's this, too:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

The first round of kitchen cabinets, at long last! No, the water's not hooked up to them yet, so they don't work; the tiling of the countertop has to come first, so tomorrow I need to find out how Home Depot managed to lose this order. But that may happen next week; as soon as it does, we'll have a working kitchen sink. The cabinets are pine, like the rest of the woodwork in the house (save the lintels and twisted posts), and finished with same stain and sealer, so the whole thing's a match.

Tomorrow, they'll be finishing the exterior plaster, weather permitting, and the interior stairs (steps only; rails and so forth will come next week). The lumbers have to be out, because the water heater crapped out somewhere along the line today with an error and won't reset, and we WILL have hot water in this house before tomorrow is out, if they have to bring it themselves. That kind of money for a water heater, I'm not putting up with no hot water for the wedding.

For those wondering, I had my initial doctor's appointment today for the emergency referral stuff, and it went so well that it actually reduced me to tears. Those of you with chronic illnesses, especially those in the various AI complexes, will know what I mean about the pat-on-the-head routine, and there was absolutely none of this today. There was also absolutely no attempt to railroad me back into the hospital. I met with the NA first for vitals, then a med student, and then the doc, and it was an amazing thing to have medical professionals actually listen to what I had to say about my lived experience in my body. More, we have a plan of action, not only for the immediate emergency testing, but for follow-ups as a regular patient, with an option already on the table for help with my autoimmune disease. For now, though, the first thing is to rule out major cardiac disease, so that's the focus. And "rule out" is the phrase they both used; it is still entirely possible that there is something very wrong with my heart, but based on my descriptions of what happened to me both Friday and since, they are indeed leaning more toward something vasospastic (that would be something like the Prinzmetal's), or esophogeal, or AI-related. She is talking to a cardiologist about my specific presentation to determine whether I should have a nuclear stress test or a stress echo, and will set that up as soon as she decides; she's also sending me for a CT cath, which is a virtual cardiac catheterization: Instead of the tube up the artery with the camera in it, it's CT imaging of the heart, higher-res, apparently, and also 3D. She says that if there's any blockage or other issue, it'll show, and it'll be only a few hundred bucks instead of a few thousand. Also, that whole non-invasive thing. After all that, I go back in a month for the follow-up, and a possible pharmaceutical treatment for my AI disease that is very low-dose in medicinal terms, and also very new but apparently successful in those cases where it's been tried. Yesterday was such a bad day, symptom-wise, that I was literally afraid to sleep for fear I would not wake up. After I walked out of the examining room today, Wings said I looked absolutely radiant. Relief will do that to you. Not a single nitro today; I'm managing it all with breathing and concentration, and the docs approve.

Speaking of concentration, the wedding is less that two days away. Rain and possible snow, however, are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Sales are going to be crucial to finishing this, but we won't turn away donations, either. As I've said, I'm so relieved and happy to be alive  that I'm no longer sweating the details of the wedding very much, other than it actually happening (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. There will also be more items that fall into the badly-needed category eventually (probably mostly kitchen stuff), because the wiring and mold and lime and everything else in this toxic tin can have 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. This whole snow possibility thing for tomorrow? That's 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.