That's hope.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

If you're lucky enough to live long enough, you sometimes get to see how the world comes back to life.

That's hope.

You see that green on the slopes up there? Those are the burn scars. It took twenty years for the green to start returning in any real way, and even then, it was very sparse, very fragile.  This is year 21, and it's suddenly lush in spots. There's a lot of growing left to do, and it needs a lot of protecting and defending, but it's very real.

And that's hope.

I've needed a lot of that lately, and still do, but at least today we crossed off one very big expense and already have the results: We drove down to Santa Fe this morning, arrived early, got in early, got mammogramed and ultrasounded early, and got out early. Because I was paying cash on the barrelhead, they whacked 50% of the bill, and it came in at just under $1K, so it's better than I feared it might be. Also, they've improved their service in the last three years since I had all this done, and while I don't have the mammogram results, they've been read, and I DO have the ultrasound results, and with them those two magic words: "All clear."

Now, of course there's an asterisk, one that will require me to go back in a year instead of the new CDC standard of two years and go through all of this all over again. They still can't explain any of it, and the doctor even admitted that normally, when they see a presentation like mine, it's something very specific, and very bad. But despite all the outward symptoms, they can find no trace of tumor, no mass, no duct blockage, nothing but all the superficial symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer with apparently no cancer underlying it. There's an old med-school saying [that's used to deny treatment to folks with autoimmune diseases, and no, don't ask me how I know]: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The idea being that [in the U.S.] horses are common and zebras aren't, and the most common interpretation is virtually always the right one. Except, you know, when it's not. My doc and I joke about me being one of those actual zebras, and apparently my body is continuing to make me the zebraiest zebra that ever zebra'd. In this case, for once, it works in my favor, so I'm good with it.

The other caveat is that because my symptoms are SO extremely on point for the big bad, I have to keep a very close eye out for any changes. But they already know I do that; I could tell him the exact date when they started [and there's a logical reason for that, but he admitted that that was a first for him], so they know I'm watching myself like the proverbial hawk.

And I'm so, so glad to be home. But I've still got a lot of work and a lot of bureaucratic and other tasks ahead of me this week, and I'm trying to fit everything around the pain [yes, that hasn't improved any, and likely won't] and fatigue and around the desperate need to bring in immediate high-volume sales now. We have come to the point where the IRS is openly hassling us, threatening us, demanding money we don't have on a timetable we can't meet. That leachfield/septic failure early in the year, coupled with the complete lack of sales for months on end, set the stage for this mess, and our expenses have only gone up since then. I have to hold out at least a grand for my imaging later this month [because if something truly is wrong, catching it now could be the difference between living or dying, and I'm not cavalier enough to ignore that], and at least another grand on the truck, when ever that stupid part comes in. But I was only able to send them a token payment in April [see $10K leachfield failure], and now I have to give them a much bigger chunk.

I'm going to need to bring in at least $4K-$5K in sales this week alone, and that feels like such an impossibility that I don't even know where to begin. I mean, other than cry, which I did a few days ago, but now it's time to get to work. One thing I do know is that, barring a miracle, the roof repair is out of the question. And that's horrible, but here we are.

I HAVE GOT TO BRING IN SALES NOW, NO MATTER WHAT.

There is a ton of new work on the site from just the last couple of weeks: 

• Three new cuffs, two set with incredible turquoise focals, one solid silver; go here, here, and here.
• Six pairs of new concha floral earrings in the Earrings Gallery here [larger are garnet, golden rutilated quartz, and malachite; smaller are amber, carnelian, and iolite];
• Art Deco Labradorite cuff here;  
• triangle wire youth bangle here; 
• Art Nouveau vine pattern-wire youth bangle here; 
• small Art Nouveau pattern-wire bangle pair here; 
• malachite butterfly/leaf-wing earrings here; 
• a big solid silver classic cuff here; 
• ten new pairs of the gemstone-bead earrings are also up in the Earrings Gallery;
• and another new cuff is also here. 

There's more on the way very soon. And I need to sell them all, because I 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; I'm already behind on that, which means I need to make FOUR sales this week just to catch up]. 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 far 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.