There are days, and then there are days.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

There are days, and then there are days. This should have been the former, but instead was predictably the latter [and in a positively Freudian slip, I just typed "ladder" instead of "latter" before catching it, because we've both spent far too much time on them lately, including today].

Today's our anniversary. We wanted very much to mark it somehow, and Wings had set his mind on taking me out to dinner. Of course, this being freaking Taos, the place was closed on Mondays anyway, but it wouldn't have mattered. The weather people have (for the moment, anyway) moved up the forecast; three days of rain and snow are now not supposed to begin on Wednesday morning, but instead tomorrow night — after a day, I might add, in which the high is projected to reach sixty degrees. Everything else had to take precedence, and I doubt I could move sufficiently by now to go out anyway.

And since we've spent virtually all of our free time the last four weeks and more trying to fix what should have been done right two years ago but instead nearly killed me, a week before the wedding and again a week after, and left the wood to weather and rot. I am too disgusted for words, both with the quality of the work and the quality of the window frames (or actually, in both cases, the lack thereof). But the upper level windows are done now. The putty work, such as we're doing, is done on the deck; tomorrow Wings will finish staining/sealing it while I get as far as I can on the downstairs windows. he puttied/sanded all but one of the smaller ones, plus the kitchen door, while I was working on the final touch-ups on the last big window upstairs. Nano came by with a thank-you letter from the priest (for the bingo prizes we donated a couple months ago), and helped us by fixing a broken track (the fault of the installers) in the small window in my office (just in time, because it would not close again, and snow's coming). And I got the three downstairs north-side windows removed, primed, dried, and put back, as well as one full frame and the relevant areas for replacing the window tonight on the other two. So I have my work cut out for me again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have to go transfer the laundry, put in the second load, and start the dinner I wasn't supposed to be cooking tonight, as well as do all my other work because none of it got done during the day today while we worked to beat the clock and the weather. I don't know when the hell I'm supposed to make sales, nor when he's supposed to get any studio time to build holiday inventory, but here we are, and I am at the end of my tether about all of it.

We have got to make sales. Normally, Wings would already be in the middle of multiple commissions in the works by now, but nothing's normal anymore. I don't know what to do at this point; I can't conjure money from thin cold air. I posted two new pieces a few nights ago (links here) and another the night after that (links here). The new bracelet in the works is turning out not to be a bracelet at all; I'll explain when it drops, which might be this weekend. He has a number of other things in process, too; I'll post them as he completes them.

At any rate, my stress levels are off the charts along with my pain levels now. For those wondering about my own health issues, see here, although now there's a new wrinkle I'm not even going to bother to try to explain (suffice to say there's no affording treatment); with regard to the work being done, some of the details are here. Thanks to my Patreon subscribers (not sure who?) who updated their cards; I'm now down only between $25 and $50 for October. Still, I'm going to need help to get all this, the plumbing and everything else, done and handled, and I can't do it alone. Folks can help in several ways, and we really need it now:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Wishlist here;
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

Please share everything, because I'm suddenly back behind the eight-ball on a whole additional front, and yeah, I'm scared about covering everything and surviving, too. Thanks.

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.