Running out of time.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019;
all rights reserved.

The aspens have been going gold for a while now; it hit the weeping willows yesterday. As of this morning, the fire maple is crowned with red. 

At this very moment, there's a chickadee on the feeder, very much a winter bird, and I'm beset by the feeling of running out of time.

It didn't help that, on a Sunday when I'm already beset by pain and was hoping to have a relatively easy day of getting things done, I got a rudely-worded rejection right out of the gate. One, some of y'all who write these things need to learn some basic courtesy. Two, you need to stop saying you're looking for emerging voices when all you do is publish and platform each other, mostly white folks with already-long histories of publication credits and professional creative writing jobs, so that I know not to waste what little time I have on trying to place anything with you.

Yes, I'm discouraged. I'm tired and disheartened, and some days I'm just sick of always picking up and keeping going.

The rest is cut-and-paste; I don't have the time, the money, or the heart for anything else right now, and I still have a seemingly endless to-do list that keeps growing no matter how much pain wracks my body.

Two new items by Wings, the viral post from Friday night here. I've got to make some sales this weekend, and weekends are always the worst time. I also have to get a lot of other work done, since school started this week and that leaves us without River to help out. Migraines and hip pain make me even slower than usual, so I need to get on it, which means that the rest is the usual. Links embedded below.

In the meantime, everything else marches on, including the autoimmune complex and the asthma and the coronary artery concern (all of which, hey, guess what, could all be bound up with this — not necessarily caused by or causing, but playing off each other, certainly) for me; including the knee pain and the prospect of replacement and the radiology labs and the other concerns for him. No end to the stresses, and my body is having serious trouble keeping up now.

Same with the expenses. Two hundred Monday for equipment and meds I haven't even had a chance to use yet; well over a hundred yesterday, with a followup in about ten days, and an appointment with my regular doc before then, with, I'm now reasonably sure, some very costly labs to follow. Two more immediate appointments coming up for Wings, too, the first today. No idea what they're going to decide to do with regard to the new and visibly-growing lump on the other side of my throat.

We had to pick up both the truck and the mower last Friday, and that was hellish all by itself (four figures between the two). We also have to get the hay cut, probably this weekend, to make it fit around the weather and not have it either burn up in the fields or drown, get moldy, and rot. So to make all this happen, I have to bring in a lot more scratch — a LOT more — to cover everything, and that means sales, which are way, way down. My pain levels are also completely out of control these days, the kind of pain that renders you utterly non-functional, except that I don't have a choice but to keep working at everything. So you know what comes next.

Sales here; testimonials here; wishlist (such as it is still — I've added some candles of the nontoxic variety to deal with the lingering mildew odor in the utility room while it's drying out from the plumbing disaster, the kind that are not supposed to impair my breathing, the kind we can't get locally; I've also added a couple of supplements I have to take and our one real vice, the coffee we prefer [cheaper by the case, and the thing that's probably highest priority]) here. 

Speaking of testimonials, new ones are posted at long last; if you haven't submitted yours, please do, because this helps us make sales (and we keep you as anonymous as you want to be; you can see the kinds of options people choose in the various entries). We need more folks to send them in, too. 

Wings dropped three new works Saturday, and they're posted here (one is also featured today at his site and in the post below this one). Please go to their respective entries on his site and share them all. And if you're interested in one yourself, believe me, you won't be disappointed; these are truly extraordinary. He also dropped three new pieces a few days ago, including an absolutely phenomenal pair of dangle earrings; the post is here. That's on top of several new bead pieces a couple of weeks ago; you can find the summary post here. The new butterfly concha belt dropped a few days ago, and it is absolutely incredible. We really need to sell it; that would take care of looming medical stuff, at least in part. And while I spend every spare moment chasing those sales, there aren't many spare moments for me these days, especially with my ongoing breathing issues and whatever else is going on that they haven't identified yet; new labs and meds and equipment to that end having to be paid for next week. So please, help us get the word out. I've got to bring in more sales somehow.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.