Finally, we are going on our first vacation this year. Whole country is back from the vacation but we are going now.
My husband must go to the conference in Brussels for 2 days, so we will take our first part of vacation there - in the country of pralines, waffles and beer!
I love fruit lambic beers most, especially Framboise! Yummi!
It looks like my husband found the second recipe for a good mood (first one was about the Alomond Chocolate Mousse). It’s a real recipe that passed a month long of testing and so far it always resulted in good mood.
So, here it comes:
- 2 slices of turkey meat (breast)
- little bit of: salt, pepper, garlic, curcuma and fresh parsley leaves
- olive oil (2 or 3 spoons)
- 0,85 cups of soybean cream (we use 0,2 liters, and I use this converter to calculate this for US metrics, add soybean cream during the last 5 minutes of cooking)
Just cook for a 20 minutes (add enough water to cover the turkey) and finally add: one handful of almonds, milled!
Cook some pasta (spinach flavored for example), and mix it up.
Salad
- lettuce, carrot, big red bell pepper - all threaded and mixed with olive oil, salt, freshly squeezed lemon juice, milled flax seeds and almonds
Dessert
After that, for a dessert, get some chocolate with almonds… and that’s it!
Allow up to 9-11 hours for the effect which has so far been always the same: a good mood.
Try it!
I’m stuck. Looking at the window (never helps, the view is awful), looking around the room, going through the art books, nose picking, nails biting… nothing. I’ve lost my muse somewhere today.
Sadly, I don’t know how to start drawing today. My husband is typing something (I think he has an inspiration), and I’m stuck even more!
I draw last week a lot. I finished four samples for Robin, something for the microstocks and I even went through one of my clients client’s web site’s design here in Croatia (created some simple graphics because programmers don’t know how to scan). It is amazing how those guys upload scanned material on the website without checking it’s dimensions and resolution! Then you have distorted images on the web and client asking: “why it that so ugly?”… well, I thought that this type of issues were left behind somewhere in the late 90’s.
Also, we opened one weird blog called”Collecting Donations for Nikon D3“. I even re-created a Nikon D3 logo in vector (as the original D3 part was not available anywhere on the net, the camera is just announced for November) so if you need it for whatever reason, it can be downloaded here.
Then I created a “Collecting Donations for Nikon D3″ t-shirt. T Shirt that has a banner on the front saying: “Collecting Donations for Nikon D3″.
Since it is forbidden to use the original trademarks on cafepress products, I did it using different typo.
Despite that, Cafepress guys contacted me later claiming that the logo used on the T Shirt is to similar to the origin (theirs content usage policy - CUP).
So, I did another banner in different style, and the t-shirt is up again.
This whole thing was just for fun. Nothing serious really. We were thinking about how to use top keywords these days, because NikonD3 is hot!
Right now, I’m going to create some brushes for Photoshop… maybe.
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I want it so bad, but why? Here’s the answer:
Croatia through the Eyes of Ivo Pervan (great image gallery)
So, what would you do with $404.039?
I know what I would, and I started the blog about it, but, how about you?
So, thinking about that, I did a little research on the Net… and found out a lot of interesting ways to spend that money (instead of my predictable boring way 
).
OK Here’s what some other people did with that money:
- U.S. OK! Magazine bought the photos for $400,000 of Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo having sex in a hot tub at the hotel. After, they didn’t published them but exchanged them for an exclusive interview. OMG. That piece of paper is now (and was, to me at least) interesting like “last year’s 45th snowflake that hit the ground”. I keep questioning myself: Who is Nick Lachey? Who is Vanessa Minnillo? Really, I don’t know. And, after all, he was (whoever he is) with his girlfriend!
- Ronald Tridico bought a new Lamborghini worth $400,000 and crashed it after few hours. Then he fled from a crash scene and left his injured wife in car. Injured wife. No comment.
- Nelly pipmed up his already expensive Rolls-Royce in mink fur for almost a $400,000. That’s a mass murder, man.
- Elton John spent for a less than a year 250,000 British ponuds (that’s more than $400,000) only on flowers. He likes flowers. Nice.
- Demi Moore spent around $400,000 on plastic surgery, liposuction and other beauty treatments in preparation for a Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle… and the movie is stupid.
- Ana Anisimova, spent about $400,000 to rent a house last summer. To rent. For a summer. And she’s 21. Wee!
- Mariah Carey paid for a Tommy Hilfiger’s estate almost $400,000 for the August only. What a vacation!
- Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes prepared a small cocktail party for ones who didn’t make it to theirs wedding in Italy. The evening cost was estimated about $400,000. Nice party.
- Mike Tyson spent monthly in the mid-nineties $400,000 on pigeons and cats only?
- Louis Eliasberg spent $400,000 on coin collection, but that was in period 1925-1950. Later, the collection yielded $44,5 millions… Imagine. I can’t.
- two people paid each $400,000 to sing a song with Aerosmith. A-a!
And, I wonder…. what would Paris Hilton do for a $400,000? I hear that her sister is right now here in Dubrovnik and she’s coming later… it will be wasted faster than you can imagine.
So much about the money that could change (even save) lives.
My head is big as a moon today! I felt so bad, and after a week without a proper resting I slept over 11 hours today. I woke up this the morning and all joints in my body were stiffening, couldn’t move for a half an hour.
Well, yes. Yesterday wasn’t so good selling day: 57$ only. I had 193 visits on my graphics-illustrations.blogspot.com, but without sales on aStore. Maybe today will be better!
Some great news in order to get “the number”
I’ve just agreed with Robin that I’ll make set of 10 graphics/illustrations to try to sell on her web site directly to the clients!
She’s creating a photo albums for every occasion: wedding, engagement, birth… and they are all great!
OK, Guys, thank you all for your comments!
Filed under: Close and personal
Oh, I’m so happy! My idea (blog) is not worthless!
Thanks Robin, I’ll contact you…
Filed under: The beginning | Tags: agency, design, graphic, illustration, images, microstock, photo, photography
As I said, I’m trying my best to sell my images.
Yesterday I earned 88$!
It was a great day, and I’m happy. I’m barley sleeping, working late, sticked to the screen 16 hours a day. I have a pain in both legs every single day and I’m drinking too much coffee. Luckily, I quit smoking month ago after 22 years. Now I’m overeating myself. You know, one has to do something when working on computer
Yes, I’m thinking about opening a new blog about arts and crafts, hand-made stuff and that. Maybe use some affiliation links and try to earn some money. I must say: I will never even consider to open a blog by myself - I have one at the blogger and this one thanks to my husband who is taking one free marketing course !!! (30 Day Challenge)
Right now, I’m earning with :
- seller account at StockXpert, I like this one because they have great design and easy navigation. FTP upload is not working well, but they’re great agency overall. I earn somewhere in between 0,50 to 5$
- seller account at Shutterstock, this is a great agency, steady monthly downloads, but cheap: 0,30 $ per download.
- seller account at Fotolia, ugly design and last two months they have a problems with uploading and thanks to the new system sales are going down… earning from 1 to 5 credits per download, thanks to stupid system I never know how much it is in $$$ (between 0,37 to 19,90$ per download: many 0,37 downloads and rarely 19,90)
- seller account at iStockphoto, I don’t like this one because they are taking 77% margin of each sale! Slooooow earing, complicated upload system, heavy site. Earning: 0,12$ per download! Greedy/Getty
- seller account at Dreamstime, nice agency, earning between 0,25 and 4$ (luckily, 0,25 are rare), easy upload, easy keywording. Love it.
- seller account at LuckyOliver, nice agency too, fresh one. Still don’t have much downloads, but earnings are between 0,30 to 25$. Like those 25 :)! Thanks everyone!
- seller account at Bigstock, well… slow earnings between 0.50 to 1$.
- seller at 123 Royalte Free, not much downloads, earnings 0,36$ per download. Earned 100$ in two years, horrible.
- blog about graphic and illustration with links to my stock agencies and Amazon “aStore”. Fresh blog and fresh store, little earnings, hope that will sell more in the future.
Right now we have around 150$ on our accounts, so I have to draw something to get more. The life is expensive here, the prices are killing me. The refrigerator is empty, shelves too. My husband is getting payed on 27th, so we’ll have to be patient.
Cheers!
Filed under: The beginning | Tags: croatia, freelance, illustration, microstock, photography, zagreb
404 039 is the number.
Yes, I’m talking about the money. The Money. US dollars, of course. And here is the first problem: I live in Europe. As you know we use Euros, but exactly I’m in Croatia so I don’t even use an Euro but Kuna. Kuna is our Croatian currency, for now (until we join the EU, but I kinda don’t like that story).
So, let me explain it. Short version. I promise.
I used to work in big telecommunication company as a designer. And I went totally crazy. My boss was an idiot, his boss was an idiot even the CEO president was an idiot. They were using theirs one borg corporate mind. So, I left after two years. Before that I was self-employed, and then again I am. And my brain is now back to normal functioning.
My husband is working in some kind of governmental structure of EU here. If you ask anyone here - no one doesn’t know what is it. Huh. He is an IT Manager. Tough job.
Well. Well. I’m trying my best to work as a freelancer. I’m shooting people in my living room (with a camera!), drawing some illustrations and then trying to sell to the agencies. Microstock agencies. They are paying me about 0.20 to 5$ per image. It’s slow earning. But I can manage with approx. 1.800,00$ per month. I know lot of people earning that amount weekly there, but I’m not the one.
We have an apartment on the west side of our main city Zagreb (if you ever visit, send me a message). 4th floor, without elevator, 90 square meters, 25 years old building - wanna buy? (I’ll post some images, maybe later). The apartment is purchased on a credit and we have to pay monthly 500 Euro. Quite an amount regard to my 1.800,00 $ because there is a big difference within dollars and euros. Not to mention that here, everything is about 35% expensive than in the US. And I’m payed in US $.
My husband is getting approx. same amount (ok, little more) as I’m earning as a freelancer, but he has a steady job. Not to mention that he’s half a crazy, totally nervous and rare at home. His job is underpaid.
Today, I was counting what we need to get a peaceful life and I came up with 300.000,00 Euros. According to the x-rates web site that is 404.039,00 $
On this blog, I’ll try to explain what are we going to do in order to earn that amount… and a peaceful life.
Well, yeah. He’s (my husband) better English speaker than me so maybe I’ll ask him to check my grammar. Maybe I won’t, so that blog will be more “natural”
That’s all for the first time.
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Learn more about Croatia:
Croatia: Development of Culture and Arts
