plans

Burger Kings

One of our family hobbies is making burgers. We always change or add something to achieve “the same taste” that you get when you visit a burger joint.

Sometimes we forget to add something (like pickles, which we may not have), sometimes we choose a different meat (not a freshly made patty). This time we took ready-made buns, spread ketchup on the bottom half, then a freshly made chicken minced meat patty (we made the minced meat ourselves), fried on an electric grill. Then fresh onions, pickles that we marinated ourselves, and a few slices of Cheddar cheese. All this is covered with the top half of the bun and put in the oven under the grill with convection.

This time the taste was already quite close to what you get in special establishments. I would say that it was about 85-90 percent “the same”.

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll open a burger joint on wheels? Maybe. Who knows… 🙂

And i become a…

I appear less and less “in public” (I’m talking about “And”), and I guess I should tell you a little bit.

I’ve always been used to thinking about how it looks from the outside. And in my head now “Hey, dude! You still haven’t moved on after that conversation? Are you depressed or what?” – but no.

It just so happened that I started cleaning chimneys. Along the way, a month ago I decided to part ways with my “partner” and make it a family business. So… we needed transportation. We had about $1,300 saved up, and… we took out a three-wheeled electric scooter worth about $2,200 in instalments for three months. I thought “hey! We’ll earn a little, use a little from what was saved, and everything will be fine!” – but the rains started and…oh. On the good news – in a month this transport allowed us to earn about a hundred dollars. This is a good result, because there was no work due to the weather. However…let’s get back to the stories.

At the same time as we got the transport, it became clear that the power outage due to enemy attacks would not allow us to do our work in the form in which we do it. So we had to buy a generator (this is another $ 350 in expenses). I thought about the fact that it would be nice for the future (and while I can find a buyer for the new lead batteries from my transport) to replace the acid batteries with lithium ones. And…oh. Well, you understand that I ordered another $ 800 worth of batteries. There were $ 200, another $ 600 was taken from the savings.

I sold my camera (which broke down, the other camera is still with me), and invested this money in our transport, which was bought for work. This allowed us to close almost a month of the loan, and in a month we have to pay the final $ 700 in instalments, most of which are due.

Along the way, I find goods at local markets, win them at auctions and sell them at regular prices. This has become a small profit during the times when it is raining outside and I cannot clean chimneys. Tomorrow I will go to get cells for the battery that I am collecting for my neighbours. This will also provide some income. In addition, I need to help my brother and collect a backup battery for his house. So… as you can see, I have enough things to do. And problems. Or rather, not problems, but issues that need to be closed.

When buying Zhuzhyk, I told myself that the next few months would be difficult. I understood that I would need to earn more and devote myself to work.

It also turned out that we need a generator a little more powerful, so…paying in instalments for the one we have now, we ordered another one – more laborious and expensive. It should be shipped tomorrow and then we can sell the one we got recently.

Usually I don’t like to have several things hanging over my head at the same time. But now it has become my rhythm of life. I don’t notice how the days fly by, and I hope that winter will fly by just as quickly. Because in the spring I will be able to work fully.
From all this, I think it becomes clear why I don’t make blog posts and, even more so, I don’t do creative work. I just physically don’t have enough time for this right now. Because now I have to continue putting up things for sale that I received a few days ago. It’s all hard and exhausting, but I like it. I like having goals, seeing the future. This is something that I haven’t had enough of for so long. This fatigue in my eyes – I love it. Because it says that I know how I will live tomorrow day.

Chronicles

Sometimes I disappear for certain things, and now is one of those times. It’s a crazy time, a lot is happening, a lot of things that scare me, but which could be my new path.

The thing is, a month ago we started cleaning chimneys and…we have some success in this direction. This month I worked with a partner, but I came to understand that I take on most of the work (not least the equipment), and we need to somehow separate ourselves, because either you do something together and build something, or someone builds it on you. I don’t really like it, so I decided to work separately and make it a family affair. As a result, today they are going to send me a three-wheeled electric scooter (this is a little more than we planned when we wanted to buy a three-wheeled one with a roof this year) with a large body measuring 1.8*1.3 meters. This will help us both transport the equipment ourselves and do additional part-time work. If everything goes as planned, I will be happy to tell you about what exactly we bought and why.

But it’s also a big responsibility and a big investment (especially before the winter period, when you won’t be able to work very much). So first of all, all I can do now is try to earn money as quickly as possible to pay off the installments for this transport. Plus, the cold weather has suddenly arrived and we will be closing urgent issues around the house very quickly to meet the winter in warm conditions.

Of course, I would like to really invest in creativity right now, but right now it’s a bit too late and there are things I have to decide by the end of this year. If everything goes as I plan, then we will enter the spring with the opportunity to have a stable and constant income.

My Schwinn Town & Country is also a bit “sick” now, and I still can’t get it back to normal working order. I might have to replace the rear axle with a different design. But for now, there are more pressing issues. However, if the experience is successful, I’ll definitely write about that too.

First Day

The first day at work turned out to be oversaturated. But…from today we are officially (almost) engaged in chimney cleaning. I have been going towards this idea for a year, and finally the possibilities coincided with reality. How is it? Well…

I am always scared of something new. Especially when this “new” is a service for some other people. Because I am never confident in myself, so I always think in advance that I do not know anything and do not know how. Therefore, one can only imagine what a big step it was for me to declare that…we are engaged in chimney cleaning. I did not specify the word “professional”, although I understand that the method we use refers to such. Despite the fact that the earnings are divided by two – I think that this is a good income for such work. We immediately had several first clients (three in one day), and I think that this number will only grow further. However, we are ready.

I’m trying to think of something else I could do that would have a certain level of success and generate some income. It would probably be nice to earn money for a three-wheeled electric truck that I could use to deliver various goods from hardware stores or the post office. Why not? This could be another way to make money. If you can’t change a system you live in, try to adapt to the way it works. And then you can get the most out of the least. I’ll just find new loopholes in this system to find my way. In general, having my own transport would allow me to expand the range of services I could do. For example, why not paint roofs? Just buy a couple of compressors, load them onto your transport and…to the stars. Or take a semi-automatic welding machine, learn how to use it, and do such work for yourself and others? Also a good option for working from home.

I think this is just the beginning. Over time, I will open another business of my own. And I will develop in several directions at the same time. I have already assembled a battery for my electric bicycle and plan to continue working in this area. Of course, if possible. So… who knows what will happen next. But I am starting to believe that there will be “more”.

Fire up the engine, I’m leaving home tonight..

My creative engine is running, and I like that now I have more inspiration and ideas than before. I regularly publish something on Reddit, on Patreon. From time to time, Redbubble receives new works. And that’s good. I don’t believe that it will ever bring a full-fledged income, but it’s enough for me that I live from it. I see the point in creating something new every time. That I manage to find fairly cheap materials for my creativity. That I have the equipment for this. The idea of going to work is scary only because I won’t have all the paraphernalia that I have at home, but I think that if I want, I can always come up with something. Because I like the path of creativity, not even in terms of earnings, but in terms of self-development. And that’s already a story. This blog is a story. The creativity that I publish is all the beginning of a big story. My story.

First successes

My profile has been accepted for work with Redbubble

There are certain steps in life when you are happy about something, even seemingly insignificant. At the end of last year, I started creating new content for my new self. And in those 8 (or 9?) months, I have a hundred followers on Deviant. But that is a relative achievement. The real achievement is that I started to pay attention to creativity as such, trying to promote myself. I also managed to create an account on Patreon, where anyone can support my creativity. And now, today, I was given permission to sell things with my designs on Redbubble.

I hope this will be one of the first steps towards creative work and independence. Of course, I understand that not everyone succeeds, and I do not bet that my creativity will be as unique, but this is at least an attempt to declare myself as a content creator.

All sorts of nonsense

The last few days my head has been filled with all sorts of nonsense, like assembling a battery for an electric bike or making a box that will cover the heating pipes near the boiler. Actually, these are useful things, but somehow they feel “not right”. It seems like I have to constantly post something somewhere, like that model whose earnings depend on it.

It’s sad that I’m not doing anything to get better conditions at my future place of work, on the other hand, today I thought that if we talk about a “family business”, it’s either trade (from my mother) or repairs of something (from my father). That is, purely technically, you (most likely) will work in either the first or the second direction. And I think that “somewhere out there” I would be in demand, provided that I knew the language and took at least some minimal courses. Time will tell. I still believe that it’s better to learn a language in other country, than to try now and make a bunch of mistakes. But here too, time will tell how it was better.

And I haven’t learned to “switch off” when I need to. That is, when I don’t need to “do something,” but to switch off and do nothing. Even if it’s playing games, or crafting something, I just want to forget about the “importance of the world around me” and immerse myself in myself. Do what I want, not what I have to.

Summer is a difficult time, from all sides. On the one hand, there is always not enough money, on the other hand, there is a feeling that you are constantly running out of time somewhere. Plus, it gets dark quite late for creativity. On the other hand… I would like there to be more warm days, and I could go somewhere in the forest with a tent for the whole day, as planned. A kind of mini-trip. And when the weather is good and the second battery is ready, I will test them by going to the nearest settlement. It is not far from here, about 25 kilometres. The battery should be enough for the trip there and back. But this is in theory, in practice who knows how it will be. However, it would be a very interesting trip precisely because of the reality that you can get there by bicycle with the cost of the road being a penny.

Whatever it was, this year should be the most productive in terms of the number of things done. And I hope that before leaving I will be able to put the house in order and go with a calm soul, at least, to earn money, and there we will see what and how. I don’t want to guess anything. I would just like to live a different life for a little while. Without war and news….