An auspicious start.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Beautiful morning. We had to be up and around and fully caffeinated very early, because the roofers were due at eight, and as we knew they would, they showed up twenty minutes early. I think I shot that about 7:30 this morning, just before they got here. 

The light here is a living thing.

Seemed like an auspicious start to the day, and we're supposed to have rain later — gifts, both, on a day that is an anniversary of sorts for us, the date on which we first met all those years ago. We've been together ever since.

Let's hope it proves to be an auspicious start in more ways than one.

As I said yesterday, I knew last week was going to be a bad one. I was not, however, expecting to shell out $2K in cash between Thursday and yesterday, never mind the additional thousands coming this week, and now I have to make that up. Fast. Half of that was paid out in one go to order the part for the truck; it'll be at least that much, and probably substantially more, for the labor. The other half was roofing materials and supplies, and there's still the labor to go on that, too. Worse, that's only a stopgap; when everything dries out in the fall, we need to cover everything with sheet metal. I refuse to think right now about what the materials and labor for that are going to set us back, but it has to be done before the snow arrives, which is typically in October for the first round[s].

So while last week's sales/breathing room helps right this moment, over the long haul, it hasn't materially changed a lot of things. The expenses from last year and the first half of this year broke us so badly that we're still way behind on everything. I have GOT to put a big chunk on our tax bill, which is weighing heavily on me constantly. I finally got the 7 new offerings [8 pieces total, 2 sold as a pair] up yesterday: Art Deco Labradorite cuff here; Art Deco purpurite cuff here [and already spoken for]; triangle wire youth bangle here; Art Nouveau vine pattern-wire youth bangle here; small Art Nouveau pattern-wire bangle pair here; malachite earrings here; and Picasso jasper earrings here [very haunted Gothic stones!]. He's finally getting a chance to get caught up a bit on stuff that he's had to back-burner since last year. And I will still need to make sales at a rate of at least two per week for the rest of the year for us to catch up [and that's just breaking even]. So: Go buy! Please! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Amazon cards are probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already even worse than the last, we really need to get 2024 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.