Weatherizing begins; so do stairs. More crew, more labor, more materials costs. $250 match on offer. Sales/shares (including registries) badly needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

So I awakened at four in the morning to a panic attack. A few hours later, Wings talked me off the ledge, and then took care of everything. I've been doing this for far too long now, winter is coming much too fast, my health is still too fragile, and I have to keep the stress from breaking me so that I can, you know, keep going. And the stress with all of this? It's been, truly, an indescribable load, and my fatigue levels now also defy description. 

The upshot is that Stage 1 of the wood weatherization happened today (with four guys instead of three, so more $$, but less time when the weather's as capricious as it is right now). You can see what they did today up above; the darker areas (posts, rails, steps, undersides, lintels) are all done; the lighter areas will get sprayed. 

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Reynaldo came back over here to work for a few hours today with Marcos, and the interior stairs are finally under way (also more $$, for both labor and materials). Like Tony, he's incredibly skilled with woodworking, and they're moving pretty fast; they've got new stairs and risers on the few steps of the upper flight, and tomorrow, they'll do the three triangular landing steps and start down the full lower flight. I've also heard through the grapevine that they'll be bringing the first round of cabinets, the ones to hold the sink and dishwasher and give me a small amount of counter space for now, over to install on Monday. The rest of the cabinets will be built gradually over the winter. For now, we're getting very, very close to a sort-of-although-not-quite end, enough to allow me to stop pushing these posts every single day and allow Wings to get studio time to fulfill what I hope will be many holiday orders. 

But we're still running out of time on this segment of it all. There's still that "less than ten days" part and the "winter weather" part. Sales are going to be crucial to finishing this, but we won't turn away donations, either. I need to raise about $4K over the next week-ish, and there's a $250 match on offer: We need funds for materials, and for increasing the crew's hours (and yes, we had to add a man on the weatherization crew). Sales matter right now, desperately. But the registries remain particularly important, too. The most immediate needs are listed first, and the priorities are the first four or so items, particularly one and four. We do really need to get both my writing space and the guest room done ASAP, although with the exception of one console table, the downstairs will be about as finished off as it can get without the kitchen cabinetry, once the items from the list arrive. 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.

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.