What joy looks like.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

I think this must be what joy looks like in its pure form. Spirit knows there's precious little of it out in the world these days. Every single day, I'm profoundly grateful that we finally have a home again, that it's here, where we can be naturally isolated, and that we have all these beautiful beings to share it with us.

Then there's all the rest of the crap that filters in from outside. It was made much worse this past week by the fact that several days ago, my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that yesterday, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. And I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work.

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch).

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Over the course of last week, I featured, on his site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here;
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, please share everything. Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.