Today was brutal.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Today's lead photo at The NDN Silver Blog? An 8-year-old view of that same shot, albeit with a storm in the background, and weeping willows that are, you know, ALIVE. Not so much of that now, either the storm or the alive part. 

Today was brutal. There's no other word for it. It was much, much colder today in terms of actual temperature than it was yesterday, and the winds were even worse. And there is nothing in existence that jacks my pain levels and my inability to function like high winds. I can deal with cold, heat, rain, snow, you name it . . . anything but these stupid awful winds. It's fall! We're not supposed to have these, absent a storm, until spring! But here we are, year-round now.

And it's supposed to get down to twelve degrees tonight, which means the wind chills will be single digits, at best. That cold is an issue here, and it's why some of us are doing the work we're doing [although in my case, it's mostly from home and online; other folks are doing the harder stuff out in the streets]. As I said, some of us met on Saturday to try to figure out where we could put a dent in this mess. This was very introductory, but that was the point: figuring out what exists [very little] and what doesn't [nearly everything] and where we might be able to fill in a few of those gaps. I'll have more info in the days and weeks to come, but for now?  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 consists of two photos linked by one newish work of wearable art, a pendant that Wings completed only near the end of October. It's called The Bare Blue Bones of Night, and it's a fabulous mix of natural and human-made materials, actual pinecone in intense swirls of deep blue resin. And mindful that we really, really need to make some holiday sales and knowing that we have eight additional pendants in current inventory, here they all are:

• "The Sky Sheds a Single Tear," all new, a freeform teardrop of absolutely phenomenal ultra-high-grade black-web Kingman turquoise, here;
• "The Bluest Waters," also all new, with an inverted shield-cut cab of azurite in malachite, the azurite unbelievably intense in hue, here;
• "From Sparks and Smoke," created a couple of weeks ago, a dazzling tiger iron cabochon beneath a complex naja-like sub-bail, here; 
• "Meeting On the Bridge of Stars," a traditional naja with an internal pendant of a local indigenous rare material, staurolite, here;
• "The Breath of the Light," a nested dual naja, fiery small amber suns bookending the outer arc, here;
• "The Last of the Storm," with an extraordinary OLD cabochon of beautifully beveled apple coral, with three shimmering Labradorite "raindrops" below, here;
• "Eagle Carries the Medicine of Earth and Sky," with the great raptor as you've never seen him before, saw-cut, scored, and stamped freehand with a spectacular rounded trillion cab of chrysocolla in orbicular malachite in a hand-made bezel, here; and
• "Growing Together," a talismanic work featuring more amazing freehand flowing line work and an OLD freeform cabochon from Wings's private collection that we reliably believe to be old Orville Jack turquoise [zinc creates the lime-green faustite], here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here yesterday], 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], 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.