Saturday, January 21, 2012

Beautiful painting: "ROSES". MOUTH-PAINTED (!!!) by JONI EARECKSON TADA, a formidable woman who was left quadruplegic by a diving accident at age 17. Later, she even survived BREAST CANCER! My non-traditional MAXICARD / DORINCARD with a folded card featuring her and her Roses painting. Learn more about this great person and role model, who overcame ANGER, DEPRESSION and SUICIDAL THOUGHTS!

Beautiful painting: "ROSES". MOUTH-PAINTED (!!!) by JONI EARECKSON TADA, a formidable woman who was left quadruplegic by a diving accident at age 17. Later, she even survived BREAST CANCER! My  non-traditional MAXICARD / DORINCARD with a folded card featuring her and her Roses painting. Learn more about this great person and role model, who overcame ANGER, DEPRESSION and SUICIDAL THOUGHTS!.
I am very impressed by Joni, so allow me to post here her biography from her official website.
Absolutely amazing!
Thank you, Joni, for showing us that life is what you make of it, despite all the problems in your path!

Joni's Bio

JONI EARECKSON TADA

Picture of Joni Eareckson TadaJoni Eareckson Tada, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Joni and Friends, is an international advocate for people with disabilities.
A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson, then 17, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, unable to use her hands. After two years of rehabilitation, she emerged with new skills and a fresh determination to help others in similar situations.
During her rehabilitation, Joni spent long months learning how to paint with a brush between her teeth. Her high-detail fine art paintings and prints are sought-after and collected 
Her best-selling autobiography “Joni” and the feature film of the same name have been translated into many languages, introducing her to people around the world. She also has visited 46 countries.
She has served on the National Council on Disability under President Reagan and President Bush and the Disability Advisory Committee to the U.S. State Department under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
She is Senior Associate for Disability Concerns for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and serves in an advisory capacity to the American Leprosy Mission, the National Institute on Learning Disabilities, Love and Action and Christian Blind Mission International, as well as on the Board of Reference for the Christian Writers Guild and the Christian Medical and Dental Society.
After being the first woman honored by the National Association of Evangelicals as its "Layperson of the Year" in 1986, Joni was named "Churchwoman of the Year" in 1993 by the Religious Heritage Foundation.
She has received numerous other awards and honors, including the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award; The Courage Award from the Courage Rehabilitation Center; The Award of Excellence from the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center; The Victory Award from the National Rehabilitation Hospital; and The Golden Word Award from the International Bible Society.
Joni has been awarded several honorary degrees, including: Bachelor of Letters from Western Maryland College; Doctor of Humanities from Gordon College; Doctor of Humane Letters from Columbia International University, the first bestowed in its 75-year history; Doctor of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary; Doctor of Divinity from Lancaster Bible College; Doctor of Humanitarian Services from California Baptist University; and Doctor of Humanities from Indiana Wesleyan University.
Joni has written over 70 books and numerous magazine articles. She was inducted into the Christian Booksellers’ Association’s Hall of Honor in 1995 and received the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.
Joni’s works cover topics ranging from disability outreach to reaching out to God and include: “A Christmas Longing,” depicting her best-loved Christmas paintings, and “Life and Death Dilemma,” addressing the tough issues of physician-assisted suicide. The mystery of suffering is systematically examined in “When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty,” a book written with Steve Estes in 1997 which won the Gold Medallion Award. In 2003, Joni wrote her memoirs, “The God I Love,” chronicling a lifetime walking with Jesus. Her current work, “A Lifetime of Wisdom: Embracing the Way God Heals You” recounts the hard-won gems of wisdom she has garnered during more than four decades of life in a wheelchair. Her newest books “A Place of Healing” (DC Cook) and “Life in the Balance” (Regal Books) will be released in Fall 2010.
In 2004, she received a Gold Medallion for co-authoring “Hymns for a Kid’s Heart, Volume 1.”  She has written several children's books, including “Tell Me the Promises,” which received a Gold Medallion and a Silver Medal in the 1997 C.S. Lewis Awards, and “Tell Me the Truth,” which received a Gold Medallion in 1998.
Beginning in 1982, she hosted “Joni and Friends,” a daily five-minute radio program of information and inspiration. Now four minutes in length, the program airs on more than 1,000 outlets and reaches 1 million listeners a week. Her one-minute inspirational program, “Diamonds in the Dust,” also airs daily on more than 800 stations nationwide. In 2002, Joni received the William Ward Ayer Award for excellence from the National Religious Broadcasters’ Association.
The 30-minute television version of “Joni and Friends” looks at people who inspire Joni by enduring the most difficult trials while continuing to trust in God. The television series has won three Telly Awards. 
She has been interviewed or featured on TV shows such as “Larry King Live” and “ABC World News Tonight,” in print outlets such as Christianity Today, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times and on radio shows such as “Focus on the Family.”
Joni and her husband, Ken Tada, have been married since 1982."
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Happy Pink Saturday! (still open on Sunday!)

Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here:


Friday, January 20, 2012

My non-traditional MAXICARD (because it's made with a FAUCET decoupage from a "junk mail" ad for LOWE'S, a great Home Improvement store), with the FIX A LEAK stamp from the GO GREEN series of USA

My non-traditional MAXICARD (because it's made with a FAUCET decoupage from a "junk mail" ad for LOWE'S, a great Home Improvement store), with the FIX A LEAK stamp from the GO GREEN series of USA.

No, I am not affiliated with Lowe's Company, but I like their stores.
I also like Home Depot stores, just to be clear. :)

"Lowe's Companies, Inc. (NYSELOW) is a U.S.-based chain of retail home improvement and appliance stores. Founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the chain now serves more than 14 million customers a week in its 1,710 stores in the United States and 20 in Canada. Expansion into Canada began in 2007, with the opening of a store in Hamilton, Ontario, in early 2008. Lowe's started the construction of two stores in the Mexican city of Monterrey officially entering the Mexican market.[3] In 2011, Lowe's released plans to build over 150 stores in Australia over the coming 5 years, hoping to compete with the AUD$46 billion industry. Lowe's Companies, Inc. is 43 on the Fortune 500[4] list. As of 2010, the chain is based in Mooresville, North Carolina, near Charlotte, North Carolina. Lowe's is the second-largest hardware chain[5] in the U.S. behind The Home Depot and ahead of Menards. Globally, Lowe's is also the second-largest hardware chain, again behind The Home Depot and ahead of the European stores B&Q and OBI."
=======================

Happy PFF (Postcard Friendship Friday)!

Please visit: http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/ (wait until Beth posts the today's Linky tool for the meme, then make your entry, if you want to join).

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Armadillo / Tatou on a MAXICARD / DORINCARD from PORTUGAL


The bottom-third of his body looks like a 90 degrees-tilted heart with edgy lobes, sort of.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

Guest Heart Thursday #93

Welcome to Guest Heart Thursday -
A place to share YOUR heart!


Monday, January 16, 2012

My non-traditional (simply because it has rounded corners; plus, it's not a commercial postcard) MAXICARD / DORINCARD with a SUNFLOWER (Helianthus annuus) [watch out: this last word is written with 2 Ns and 2 Us!]


"Heliotropism


Whole seed (right) and kernel with hull removed (left)
A common misconception is that sunflowers track the sun.[7] In fact, mature flowerheads typically face east and do not move. The leaves and buds of young sunflowers do exhibit heliotropism (sun turning). Their orientation changes from east to west during the course of a day.[8] The movements become a circadian response and when plants are rotated 180 degrees, the old response pattern is still followed for a few days, with leaf orientation changing from west to east instead.[9] The leaf and flowerhead bud phototropism occurs while the leaf petioles and stems are still actively growing, but once mature, the movements stop. These movements involve the petioles bending or twisting during the day then unbending or untwisting at night."



"Mathematical model of floret arrangement


Illustration of Vogel's model for n=1 ... 500
A model for the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979.[18]This is expressed in polar coordinates
r = c \sqrt{n},
\theta = n \times 137.5^{\circ},
where θ is the angle, r is the radius or distance from the center, and n is the index number of the floret and c is a constant scaling factor. It is a form of Fermat's spiral. The angle 137.5° is related to the golden ratio (55/144 of a circular angle, where 55 and 144 are Fibonacci numbers) and gives a close packing of florets. This model has been used to produce computer graphics representations of sunflowers.[19]"



All this mathematics...does it look to you like BLIND EVOLUTION?
Or GENETIC ENGINEERING...from above...and outside Earth?
:)
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Happy Blue Monday! (meme)


Sunday, January 15, 2012

KIWIFRUIT on a traditional MAXICARD / DORINCARD from USA


"The kiwifruit, often shortened to kiwi in many parts of the world, is the edible berry of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia.
The most common cultivars of kiwifruit are oval, about the size of a large hen's egg (5–8 cm / 2–3 in long and 4.5–5.5 cm / 1¾–2 in diameter). It has a fibrous, dull brown-green skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture and a sweet but unique flavor, and today is a commercial crop in several countries, such as ItalyNew ZealandChileFranceGreeceIranJapanUSAPortugalSouth Korea and Spain."

"Also known as the Chinese gooseberry,[1] the fruit was renamed for export marketing reasons in the 1950s; briefly to melonette, and then later by New Zealand exporters to kiwifruit. The name "kiwifruit" comes from the kiwi — a brown flightless bird and New Zealand's national symbol. Kiwi is also a colloquial name for the New Zealand people."


Chinese gooseberry was too long of a name; also too long was Hairy bush fruit (毛木果 máo mù guǒ).


"The fruit had a long history before it was commercialized as kiwifruit, and therefore had many other names.
  • Macaque peach (獼猴桃 Pinyinmíhóu táo): the most common name
  • Macaque pear (獼猴梨 míhóu lí)
  • Vine pear (藤梨 téng lí)
  • Sunny peach (陽桃 yáng táo), a name originally referring to the kiwifruit, but often refers to thestarfruit
  • Wood berry (木子 mù zi)
  • Hairy bush fruit (毛木果 máo mù guǒ)
  • Unusual fruit or wonder fruit (奇異果 Pinyinqíyì guǒJyutpingkei4 ji6 gwo2): the most common name in Taiwan and Hong Kong, a quasi-transliteration of "kiwifruit", literally "strange fruit""

============
Happy Sunday Stamps meme!


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Top 30 Stamp Collecting Blogs, by guidetoartschools.com

#2:
"Dorincard: Blogger Dorin C is a stamp and postcard fanatic, and luckily he's more than pleased to write prolifically and charmingly about his obsession. He has a particular bent for stamps with wild mammals on them, but his blog demonstrates an affinity for stamps of all forms and backgrounds, as long as they offer a special narrative that's worth sharing with his readers.


  • Source: http://www.guidetoartschools.com/library/best-stamp-collecting-blogs#ixzz1KirbuA4p
    "

    Some feedback received about me and my blog here

    [DORIN'S NOTE: There are over 100 million websites.]

    From alexa.com traffic rank site

    "There are 1,699,250 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Dorincard.blogspot.com.
    About 43% of visitors to the site come from France, where it has attained a traffic rank of 152,077.
    About 80% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces).
    Dorincard.blogspot.com's visitors view an average of 1.5 unique pages per day.
    Visitors to the site spend roughly two minutes on each pageview and a total of three minutes on the site during each visit."



    inkling (Enthusiast)

    The best use of this site is Other.

    Likes
    • Good content

    Comments:
    Postcards and stamps, mainly featuring mammals and birds but Dorincard also has other creations
    and interests he likes to share.
    His enthusiasm for Maximum cards (a postcard and a similar themed stamps sent through the
    postal system) shines through.
    He shows how he gets the right card, stamp and postmark together.
    Visiting his site you will also learn things about the natural world told with a dry sense of humour,
    possibly with a play on words, and a unique style of headings.
    Topical and informative both for the enthusiast and casual visitor.
    • Was this useful?
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    • 1 out of 1 person found this review useful.



    1 Review
    Global 1,699,251
    Alexa Traffic Rank
    France Flag 152,077
    Traffic Rank in FR

    28 Sites Linking In "


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