It's what we've got.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

No snow, but plenty of smoke. That's the inversion layer from the smoke of local fireplaces and woodstoves, and it's an indicator of how cold it gets in the early-morning hours, even if it feels like late May the rest of the day.

It's not good. But it's what we've got.

What we've also got is a disaster when it comes to the holiday business season. Our sales are next to nothing. But the bills and expenses won't wait. As it is, there will be no gifts this year, for anyone, if something doesn't break soon. I have to pay too many things right now; the whole of my Patreon is already spoken for just on everything's that's coming down the pike, or already here. I don't know how we make it if people don't shift into holiday-buying gear soon. Because at this rate? We can't. Not even through the month on basic expenses, never mind the fact that I have GOT to replace my laptop before the new year when prices skyrocket thanks to that asshole's tariff announcement. We are nowhere near maintaining that kind of pace, and with the well pump and the laptop and the taxes and the medical and everything else? All it would take at this point is a feather to break everything completely.

I don't know what to do. I'm doing everything I can, as fast as I can, and here we are, new week, new month, and it's never enough. I need help, but there isn't any. What I really need is to bring in sales, but I can't force people to buy. And it's looking really grim.

And yes, I know we're lucky. 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! and they've given out all the existing tents already], 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. Also? On our way into town today, we met a young man, living out of an abandoned van, who needed a sleeping bag, and we didn't have one. The outreach program is giving them out as fast as they get them, and being mostly housebound now, it's hard for me to get out to pick up any before they're gone. To that end, I'm putting some tents and sleeping bags and other essentials on our own wishlist, with a note that they're for the outreach effort, and if folks would like to hit it up [because I cannot spend $145 on a 10-pack of sleeping bags right now because we don't have the money, but they are so very badly needed] we would be grateful.

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 prepay 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 all new, a pendant completed only two days ago [less than, technically; at day's end on Thursday]. It's set with rare spectrolite, with an incredible color and light shift within it. It's also such a spectacular stone that it needs no other ornamentation; it's one of three pendants in current inventory in which Wings has simply set the stone in an elegant bezel and added a chain, nothing more. The other two are these:

• "The Sky Sheds a Single Tear," another freeform teardrop cabochon, this one of fabulous ultra-high-grade black-web Kingman turquoise with some faint water-webbing, here; and
• "The Bluest Waters," an incredible shield-cut cabochon, inverted, of cobalt-blue azurite in malachite, colors intense and electric, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [a green turquoise one and a rainbow moonstone one that, AGAIN, I hope to get posted yet today, for two of them], a couple of pendants [the one set with incredible genuine spectrolite is today's feature], potentially several new pairs of earrings, 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 AND now the well pressure pump, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! PLEASE. 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 far worse than the last, we really need to end 2024 on a better footing before 2025 and taxes take every cent, 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.