Clean, and new.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

That was the end of the storm, late yesterday. It didn't finally move all the way out beyond the peaks until well after dark, but as of this morning, it's gone. We awakened to a world that was bright and absolutely still, no wind anywhere. When I went outside about 8:45, the mercury had already climbed to 13, and even without my coat on? The air was warm.

December 1st, and it feels as though something has turned over. October and November were both almost unrelentingly awful, from the lack of sales to the weather to medical issues for family members to the fixes on the house to . . . well, everything. I never dare to count on such feelings too much; a lifetime of hard experience will do that. But today? the world feels clean, and new, and as though there is real, genuine hope.

Even so, there's no room for me to let up on the sales effort. Winter's already early and hard, and we've got about 7 months of it left. The rest is all cut-and-paste, but please read it anyway. It matters, because while sales are literally all that matters at the moment, what else the wind leaves behind is all the rest of the work, and ALL of the bills. But really, it's SALES.

SALES SALES SALES. That's all it's about now. A lot of y'all don't realize this, but the Pueblo closes for much of the winter, starting usually a month to six weeks after the new year. Even before Christmas, the whole month of December locks vehicles out of the village, and that reduces tourist traffic a lot. Even though we're not physically there anymore, the drop in tourism affects us, too — and the numbers are down all over town and seemingly getting worse every single year.

What folks also don't realize is that this means that holiday sales are what keep us alive, through not just the end of the year but essentially the first six months of the year to come. This is it; this is what the whole year leads up to, and even in off years, Wings would still be filling commissions beginning around the first of October. 

This year? NOTHING. None. Zip. Zero. And there are, effectively, fewer than four weeks left of the holiday sales season, because it takes time to make things, to say nothing of shipping them.

I don't know what we're going to do.

I'm back to using my rescue inhaler daily, along with the O2 at night, to deal with the breathing issues attending the sudden cold. My pain levels, especially after putting my body through so much these last few weeks to protect the house, are completely unmanageable now. And I'm looking at potentially canceling my doctor's appointment on the fifth, because . . . nothing is coming in, and we have a winter to get through. 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. 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.