Hot and arid and dangerous.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

Ugh. The last two days have been nothing short of terrible. And look at that bleached-out sky. "Bleached-out": yeah, if only. It's nothing so clean; that's wildfire smoke haze combined with dirt. Tomorrow's gale-force winds are already here, if not as high as they'll be tomorrow, and it's hot and arid and dangerous out there.

I got reminded yesterday of just how dangerous it can be.

I felt lousy when I got up yesterday, but when you have multiple autoimmune diseases, that's nothing new; happens all the time. But as the day wore on, I began feeling worse and worse, as though my blood sugar was in freefall, and nothing made it feel better. By last night, I was feeling almost as bad as six years ago, when I almost died twice. It's the first really bad episode since getting my CF oxygen concentrator, but it was really bad. It was a relief, to say the least to wake up this morning.

I still don't feel well. But if, as I suspect, yesterday's episode was worsened by heat exhaustion (I had to be outside helping Wings move a trailer, because there's literally no one else to do it), then it will take a few days to get back to feeling what passes for normal with me. At least at the moment there isn't that terrible feeling of impending doom, so that's something.

Speaking of impending doom, I've got to pull in some sales. We still have to pay all of next year's quarterly taxes; it took everything we had just to get this year's covered, finally, last month, and there's nothing left for quarterly pre-payments now. Add to that the fact that my Patreon is down this month (i.e., Saturday's payout for June) by more than $250, a huge monthly hit that we can't afford, the payment for Miika's hay (she can't have alfalfa and grass is now impossibly costly), and Stormy's upcoming vet visit on top of the dental stuff, and . . . . Storm appears to have developed ovarian remnant syndrome (she's gone into heat almost three years after being spayed), and that will probably involve an ultrasound or a lap right up front, and then either surgery or lifetime meds, and frankly, I'm hoping for the latter, for her as much as for us. But we can't catch a break. Every time I think I have a handle on whatever's immediately in front of us, two or three or four new things pile on.

But the dental stuff is going to be $25k before we're done, and for us, thats all in cash, and . . . $25K. I don't even have words. Or anything else. I'm just numb.

So I have to bring in more sales, and soon. Thinking that we were okay for now was entirely predicated on the assumption of consistent sales for the second half of this year; if we don't make them, then no, we're not okay now, because I have to make everything stretch a lot further than it can possibly go. There's a lot of new work on the site already, including Wings's absolutely phenomenal new cuff, which you can see from all angles here (and you want to see it from all angles, believe me). I posted the two new pairs of earrings here last night. Meanwhile, he has more silverwork and gemstone bead items in rotation, too (two cuffs and a bead set of necklace, earrings, and coil). And I really do need to start bringing in consistent sales again; the year's only half over, and there's a lot of expense to get through yet. All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (current priority still the Zero-Odor sprays, because these days we're back to wet dogs again; and the liquid soaps, which we can't get locally); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.