I hope we get some real weather.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

I said elsewhere that last night's red skies were in fact a sign of a storm coming, and I was right. Now, whether we'll see any rain or snow out of it is another matter, but those clouds up there? They've been clinging to the peaks all day, so there'll be some snow falling right now.

We'll take what we can get, but I hope we get some real weather.

It's going to be a busy week despite the impending holiday. Today is actually another one of those markers: Seven years ago today was the second time I almost died, and the one that kept me hospitalized here, then carted by ambulance down to a hospital in Albuquerque to have surgery there [cardiac cath], only to find that my heart was perfectly healthy and that no one had the faintest idea why my body kept trying to die on me. It's not an experience I'd recommend to anyone [the dying part, I mean], but despite the fact that I had another episode just last week, for whatever reason, I'm relatively unbothered by the memory now. Probably because I'm too busy to spend much time thinking about it. I used to get those episodes multiple times a day, and just . . . bit my tongued and forced myself to breathe until it passed and said nothing to anyone. Now, they're rare, thank all that's holy, and I might finally have solved the cause on my own [but there's no real treatment for it, natch, at least none that I can afford, so I'm not sure what that's worth, but here we are].

As I said yesterday, I have some things in the works that I'm was going to be asking people to help with with regard to our local population of unhoused/unsheltered folks [and their animals]. This is supposed to be the week for gratitude, so it would involve asking folks to put their money where their mouths are, quite literally. Not gigantic amounts; just enough to cover 100 shower passes and 30 hot meals, plus some kit-bag stuff to keep on hand to give to folks as we encounter them. The kind of money that can be raised in $10 increments, but enough that would be $300 for the shower passes and $350 for the meals.

And y'all did me one better: We raised just shy of $700 in under an hour last night, thanks to several of y'all. We'll make up the difference and purchase 35 meals instead of 30. Hoping to be able to do all that tomorrow, and THEN I hope to be home, period, for the next . . . what, five days straight?

But all this needs doing because the housing crisis worsens daily here. On that note, also go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now have new priorities: hand warmers, snacks, tarps, duct tape, two-person tents [only $22 each!], the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog coats, further down on the list.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

Today's feature is a series of three gorgeous fall photos linked by two recent cuffs, both of them fabulous, with equally fabulous turquoise cabs as their focals: one here, the other here. So what goes with turquoise cuffs? How about turquoise rings? Ungendered, all of them solid and substantial, all of them resizeable. There are four:

• "The Storm At the Edge of the Sky," sterling silver and old Morenci turquoise from Wings's private collection; freeform rolling surface, electric color, and phenomenal mirror-image silverwork around the band, here;
• "Where the Eagles Gather," sterling silver and boulder [ribbon] turquoise, likely Kingman; a bright sky-blue patch in rich golden-brown host rock, with eagle-feather mirror stampwork on the band, here;
• "Love Spiral," sterling silver and natural American turquoise that is most likely Turquoise Mountain [AZ], with gorgeous golden "raindrop" stippling through brilliant sky blue, with a hand-forged asymmetric wrap band, here; and
• "Freeform Skies," sterling silver and OLD natural American turquoise from Wings's private collection, possibly Royston or I think more likely Fox, with a deeper blue veining through sky blue material and a gorgeous band sculpted and hammered by hand, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [one hopefully going up tonight, and it's incredible, with a stone like pure foxfire], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight, really, this time, or not, depending on how long I last tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, 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 what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, 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.