Most of it is still ahead of us.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

It's COLD.

The wind has blown all day long; I don't think the mercury ever actually made it up to the freezing mark. The snow is supposed to begin overnight and continue throw tomorrow — another half-foot, supposedly, but we'll believe it when we see it — and then it's supposed to drop to -10 tomorrow night, actual temperature, with wind chills that'll hit -25 to -30.

Everything hurts.

All the more so because I had to spend the morning walking around on hard floors and standing in line. We haven't been grocery shopping in a good while, and we needed to stock up both because of the weather and because this week is supposed to begin the biggest peak yet in the current astronomical COVID spike. Sometimes I need to be there to do it, and I have no immune system anymore, so I needed to get this done and go back to hibernating.

My knees and feet are killing me. Of course, so are my hands and wrists. And every other joint system.

This is a brutal month already, and most of it is still ahead of us.

January's always hard anyway, regardless of weather. Aside from taxes, it's one of our two most costly months [the other being July], when we have a disproportionate number of one- and two-off expenses [insurance; several business-related renewals like site hosting, software platforms, domain services, etc.]. Coming on the heels of such a terrible sales year, it's not good. It's even worse since, once again, my Patreon is short ~$250, and made worse still by the new $600-800 a month for septic service all winter and half of spring ($200 of it paid out Saturday, and the next round will be in 5 days or so]. And while the MTX [the chemo], dose now doubled, is helping with inflammation and with things like focus and brain fog, it's not doing a damn thing, yet anyway, for the progressive pain. n days like this, with such terrible winds and deep cold, it's really bad. All of which, I suppose, I should expect, given the level of joint damage I'm living with now.

But that means the need to make at least one sale a week never lets up. We were blessed with one last week; now I need to do the same for this one. As I said earlier, the two new cuffs are done, and they're posted here and here (the second is gone already, a gift for someone dear to us who did us a huge favor the other day). Those who like turquoise in the greens, these will be for you. There will be two more new works to come, probably tomorrow [one necklace; one ring] never mind Wings saying that he was taking time off from creating new work from sheer fatigue; that resolution lasted all of two days. You might see something new in this week's #TBT post; and the new necklace is his fourth [recent] naja, done save for the bead strand. And also as always, all the links are listed below, and sales are the most important:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities now are Wings's Flex-Tape, and especially the vacuum, because mine has died a complete and ignominious death, and if I don't vacuum every single day, the dog hair takes over completely); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site [EIGHT NEW PIECES before Christmas [one sold], plus two new ones a couple of nights before that]. After such a grim 2023, we really need to get this year started off on a better footing, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.