No April Fools.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

That was this morning, at sunrise. We got somewhere between two and three inches here overnight (although I don't think town got anything at all to speak of). 

It was all gone by mid-morning, natch.

That's the mark of an April snow:  fast, heavy, wet, and gone before noon. We're supposed to have more this evening, but if we do get anything, it's likely to be more of the same.

It's been a day. It began badly for multiple reasons, none of which have anything to do with the date, but I hate this day anyway. In a world as murderous as this one is now, there's no reason to choose to create more mean-spirited bullshit. There are no April Fools here, but there's plenty of anger at the state of things.

We got the taxes dropped off, at least, and the moment we walked out, I felt a thousand-pound weight roll off my chest. The real pain is still ahead of us, of course, because we've got to pay the whole shot, cash, and we don't have it. But this part of it is off my desk, at least.

But I have GOT to bring in sales now. I don't know how, but it's got to happen. And preferably paid some way other than Paypal, because on top of the taxes and the expenses and everything else that's bedeviling me and imperiling my health right now, there's a new wrinkle:  PayPal, not content with making fees off us and endlessly greedy, is apparently pissed that I didn't leave the proceeds of our flash sale in there for them to make interest off a 21-day float. On our money. And so they're trying to cap what we can transfer per month, never mind that we've had this account for more than twenty fucking years, and none of this is outside normal patterns. It's pure corporate billionaire greed.

So, 1) do NOT donate to my Ko-Fi account or anything else, do not pay us via PayPal, in any way before April.  And 2), if you're in the market to buy Wing's work using plastic, let me know and I can put it through our VISA/MC payment processor and bypass these cannibals entirely.

Because I am profoundly sick of their shit.

This comes on top of the realization that last year damaged us more badly than I knew. Our practice has long been to give something [what folks now call paying forward] out of every sale. That's going to have to stop for a while. So many people came to us for help last year. We didn't turn any of them away, even when it meant tighter belts for us. Now? Now, the tax bill is due, and we don't have nearly enough to pay it. Why? In part because people have come to us this year already at even higher rates. The amount that we've given away/spent on folks in more immediate need . . . it's a lot. And they keep coming. This year has been one damn thing after another from so very many different requests, and we can't afford to do that for people anymore. Not right now.

In part, too, because we had to pay out nearly $10K [cash] since the leachfield failed on Christmas Day to deal with the septic disaster. And in part because my Patreon, our steadiest source of income, is down more than $700 a month since this time last year. Do you what that kind of hit does to folks like us?

 We have to pay this, and we have nowhere near enough to cover it. The only way to do that is to make several decently-sized sales very fast [NOT, obviously, via PayPal]. Because everything that came in prior to this went on the damn leachfield replacement. I'm tearing my hair out, because there is nothing I can do to fix it.

I don't know what to do. I can't force people to buy. Somehow, I have to bring in sales. If you're in the market, now would be a really, REALLY good time. There's lots of new work on the site. And as always, all the regular links are listed below, with sales, as always, being the most important:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here ( we'll always need the dog treats for the monsters, and Amazon and Lowe's cards [the Lowe's cards are probably going to have to go on a new fridge, so I'm hoarding them]); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim 2023, and with this year starting off MUCH worse, we really need to get 2024 moving onto 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.