Never enough.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Sunny, channeling the RCA-Victor pup. I told him he's over a month late for Halloween, but it's a nice idea.

Seriously, I have no idea how he got that black ring around his eye. If I had to guess, he was chasing a rodent that escaped into one of those black rubberized pipes, and shoved his eye up against it, thinking if he could see it, he could get it. Whatever; it's cute, and he's completely unbothered by it.

I wish I could be so unbothered. The dogs have it made, but we have to be the ones to make sure they're taken care of it, and ourselves, too. And that's hard to do with no sales. Our hits at an all-time low for this time of year, virtually nothing but bots and crawlers and scrapers and hackers [all of whom get blocked, but keep trying anyway]. But we are so far behind on sales this year that 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.

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 [BUT THROUGH MONDAY, BUY IT ELSEWHERE, SO THAT YOU'RE NOT CROSSING THE AMAZON EMPLOYEES' PICKET LINE; I HAVE THE SHIPPING ADDRESS IF YOU PURCHASE ITEMS ELSEWHERE]. 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.

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 one of Wings's newer works in its category, and a personal favorite. It's a necklace built around a phenomenal stone in the colors of twilight, ringed with fiery carnelian and cool metallic hematite and suspended from an equally spectacular strand of beads that catch all of their colors. What you notice first, though, is the purple. And there are three cuffs in current inventory set with purple in one way or another:

• "At Angles to the Night," a fabulous Art Deco cuff cut big and bold, with a wide solid sterling silver band and long, sweeping lines scored freehand all along it; the focal is, we believe, a really unusual [and OLD] manifestation of orbicular sugilite in quartz, finely beveled and set into a hand-made bezel framed with hand-made sterling silver ingot ball beads at the corner, here;
• "Desert Spirits," another newer cuff formed of two strands of heavy-gauge sterlng silver triangle wire, chased with freehand stampwork along all four outer angles, and set with a spectacular cabochon formed of a slice of cholla cactus immersed in swirling purple resin, here; and
• "The Arrow of Twilight," a sclassic slender cuff of heavy-gauge sterling silver deeply stamped freehand in a repeating pattern of arrow points, implying a sense of motion, and with four highly domed round cabochons of deep purple amethyst across the top, 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; another with old green turquoise in an electric shade], 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! 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.