Refuge.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

It's an absolutely perfect day out there. Yes, I know, this is too warm, but the wind is rising now; we're also supposed to get high winds later this week to usher in a ten-degree drop in temperature, so it'll feel a little more seasonal.

This place has always been our refuge, our sanctuary. Given what this day is, and given the horrors of the outside world right now, it feels more like that than ever. Even if I could walk properly these days, I still wouldn't want to leave.

It's helped today by having finally slept last night. So deeply, in fact, that I never heard the dogs, never heard Wings get up; the odd thing is that when I woke up, I woke up the way I suspect normal people do, not ripped from a sound sleep with my adrenaline spiking, or constantly tossing and turning in pain, but just . . . waking up. If only every day could start like this.

If It were, I can only imagine how much better this year might have been, even with the awfulness of the economy and our sales and everything else. And it's been terrible on virtually every front, so much so that we're really up against it now. This year has been so slow that we're way behind on everything, including prepaying next year's taxes [that's a zero; a big fat zero]. The rapid progression of my autoimmune disease this year isn't helping, especially not these last couple of weeks. With my dominant-hand dislocations, and those in my knees and feet, it's meant that I can't DO anything, for weeks now. It's also meant that Wings has had to take over all the stuff I would normally do, and so he hasn't been able to get much studio time. And I'm so much farther behind on everything, even more than I usually am: pushing sales, paperwork, housework, you name it.

We have to make up a LOT of ground financially over the next three+ months. A LOT. And it's clear that, even if my dominant hand and wrist weren't functionally unuseable, I cannot maintain the pace or workload I have in years past. Half the time I can hardly walk, because my hips, knees, and feet are the same situation. That means that we need help with shares, and with testimonials, too. If you have some of Wings's work and are willing to have a testimonial published on the site, send it to me via the Contact form (we will list you however you wish, by name, name and initial, initials only, some other way that doesn't identify you; you can see an example n our newest, here). All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (apparently the sponges are unavailable, but the other two things I need that I can't get here are the Bar Keeper's Friend coffeemaker cleaner and descaler; we're entirely out of both [or Amazon cards, and I can order them myself]); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, and there wll be much, much more in the weeks to come. The way this year has gone, things will still be grim for a good while and the holidays will be here before you know it, 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.