Every day, and it's heavy.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019;; all rights reserved.

Every day, and it's heavy. He loads up the wheelbarrow and brings it over to the house; I carry it in load by load in the woodbag and stock the woodboxes. [Our main woodbox is the whole area under the stairs, so it's . . . a lot.] We needed it; it was down to five degrees by bedtime last night; after sunup, still only one below actual temp this morning. We've now beaten the projected high by one degree, but that's still only 25, and the wind chills are ferocious.

And I'm operating on no sleep, which means awful brain fog and jacked pain levels. I'm so tired, and the stress is endless. I also  needed to make a good-sized sale yesterday, and I failed. We're working on an order, but it's going to require me to go to the bead supplier (his kind of beads, not my kind) and get several strands of specific types in order to be able to fill it. It's now been delayed for two days, and we're running out of time for creation and shipping, so I have GOT to bring in something today..

I had also said that if all went well, another fabulous new piece might drop yesterday, first in a collection of four works, but that was also a nonstarter. Maybe today; maybe not. I am beyond frustrated, and also scared. And I still need to recoup the $91 I had to spend Monday on replacing the propane heater for Wings's studio, which is STILL between $50 and $60 cheaper than buying it locally. It finally arrived yesterday afternoon, despite being in town since the wee hours of Saturday morning. 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. If we could sell the belt featured below, it would keep us going well into the new year. 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. 

Pain levels are terrible this week; nearly debilitating completely. As miserable as my chronic pain is, it's nice finally to have a name to put on this thing that has caused me incessant pain literally my whole life, the thing everyone else dismissed. It happens to me virtually daily, at least in some small way (and very often in very large and debilitating ways), and at least now I have labels and language for what's happening to me and causing me so much constant pain. For those wondering about those and my other health issues, see here, although now there's a new wrinkle I'm not even going to bother to try to explain (triggered by this year's flu shot and confirmed by my doctor, and suffice to say there's no affording treatment); with regard to the work done and not done on the house, some of the details are here. Folks can help in several ways (I've added some new practical items to the wishlist, including organizers for electrical cords and replacement Thermos mugs; after . . . I don't even know how many years we've had them, the seals on our old ones have quit working), 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.