Republic of COLUMBIA

stamp: 1300 pesos

year: 1999

reptile: turtle – Chelonia mydas

Republic of TOGO

stamp: 300 francs

year: 1996

reptile: turtle - Puxidea mouhoti

number 20

Artist :  Nilgün Dabancalı

Work:  Number 20

Artist’s Words :  Wellcome to my house, number 20. My house; my life; a bit sophisticated, a bit surprising, sometimes melancholic, sometimes cheerful but always with a great energy of life..My spirit flows into materials with the affinity of colors, shapes and sounds..Here you are; wellcome to my world.

Cennet Kuşları

Artist : Sezgin Oktay

Work : Cennet Kuşları

Artist’s words : When studying the Cennet Kuşları that has all the colours of the rainbow,  I felt myself on heaven. I wish everyone can see the same colours with me when looking at it.

Two people on a turtle

Artist :  Gökşen Parlatan

Work :  Two people on a turtle

Artist’s words :  The turtle is a cosmic figure picturing a planet on my mind and there are two “planetarians” on it. It seems I imagine  a world which is on a turtle !!

Commonwealth of AUSTRALIA

stamp: 15 cents

year: 1982

reptile: turtle

Fran diz: – Mano, vou pegar o carro do papai pra gnt ir pra Las Vegas ok? ai a gnt vai.. fica rico.. volta e ele nem vai perceber!

Carro do pai da Fran apos voltar de Las Vegas... ele não vai nem notar.. huahuahauhau

essa Franciele é terrível mesmo hauhauhuahau agora vamos postar uma foto exclusiva que a mãe da Fran nos liberou hauhauhauhua Fran sempre quis ter um cachorrinho, mas a mãe dela achava que um cachorro não era uma boa ideia.. então resolveu enganar a tadica da filhinha.. um dia ela chegou em casa e disse: -Fraan, corre aqui que eu comprei um “cachorrinho” pra vc… Fran diz: Nossa mãe, que cachorro linds *-* ele vai se chamar teddy eu cuidarei dele e seremos carne e unha hauhuhauhauhau. então vai a foto pra vcs conferirem…

Fran e Teddy friend forever ahuhauhauuha

Fran realmente foi unha e carne com seu “cachorrinho”, tanto foi que ela ficou meio turtle igual a ele, hm. huahauhauhauhauhua

Esse post foi totalmente dedicado a nossa querida e amada Fran, pois ela pretende sair do colégio porque é uma traira porque o pai dela quer que ela mude pra um colegio mais perto do sertão que ela mora huahuahauhauhauah Espero que vc tenha gostado da homenagem Fraan *-* Amamos vc vio <33

# Creditos: fotos by Carol (@ca_rol_)

Bjseadoteumatartaruga :*

Republic of  SOUTH AFRICA

stamp: 10 cents

year: 1993

reptile: turtle – Psammobates geometricus

(Please for the love of all that is holy and delicious, do NOT skip the text & scroll directly to the photos.  It’s so much funnier if you understand where I’m coming from)

Y’all know I’m a good baker.  My cheesecakes never crack; my breads always have a lovely brown crust and airy, perfect center; I can bake 96 snickerdoodles in an evening without breaking a sweat.

HOWEVER (there’s always a however), nobody’s perfect.

Boy-oh-boy, am I ever imperfect.

A co-worker has a birthday is this week.  For each co-worker’s birthday, I bake him or her their favorite item – now that everyone’s gotten a pretty fair idea of my repertoire, I’m getting some special requests.  “I love your chocolate chip cookies, Kate.”  “That coffee cake you brought a few weeks ago was great!”  This guy, though, threw me a curveball:  “I want a turtle cake!”

So I thought about what that might entail, I looked around online for some ideas and inspiration, and last night I took to the kitchen to create a delicious turtle cake.

My vision:  chocolate cake (Johnson family recipe), fudgy chocolate frosting, caramel and pecans drizzled atop.  A veritable vision of gooey deliciousness.

It was doomed from the start.  My cakes didn’t come cleanly out of the pans.  The fudgy frosting (Paula Deen’s recipe) was a total bust; neither fudgy nor frosting-y.  I used the wrong plate (amateur mistake; I should know better!), one that was tapered toward the center rather than flat at the bottom.  Just about the only thing that went *right* was the caramel topping (caramels + butter + sweetened condensed milk) with a cup of finely chopped hand-picked pecans from Grandma’s property stirred in.

But still I pressed onward, to the point of full assembly.  And when it was done I stood back, took a good look at it, and bellowed…

“JEFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

He ran into the room, came to a full stop, and…laughed hysterically.  It’s just that bad.

Don’t believe me?  See for yourself (Keepin’ it real, yo.):

No, I’m not kidding.  I really wish I was.  I really, REALLY wish I could say “ah-ha! Just kidding!  Here is the real cake!” and unveil a masterpiece of epic proportions.  But I can’t.  That’s it.

Shall we have another angle?

Danger!  Mudslide ahead!  Or, if you squint, Danger! Big Mac ahead!

Despite Jeff’s insistence (though his tears of laughter) that I should take it to work anyway, I just can’t.  I CAN’T.  No one deserves this for their birthday.  Not my worst enemy, and certainly not a co-worker who I feel neutral-leaning-to-friendly towards.

My in-laws are about to be the proud recipients of the ugliest, delicious-est cake in the history of ugly delicious cakes.  Lucky them.

And me?  I’m going to try again after Thanksgiving.  Think I should tweak things a bit for next time?

I recommend bookmarking this post for the next time you need a good, deep belly laugh.  I know I’m sure going to.

PS>This morning I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip muffins with streusel topping and brought those in instead, then showed my co-workers a picture of what I almost brought them.  We all laughed heartily, and I cried a bit inside.

Kingdom of MALAYSIA

stamp; 1 $

year: 1979

reptile: turtle – Dermochelys coriacae

So, I am basically starting this blog to help me wind down from my insomnia, something I’ve battled with since I lost my Job in February. Basically for the last 8 months I have been sleeping for no more than 4 hours a night… or at least until recently… I feel now it’s wearing off, but in thr wrong direction, rather than falling asleep at 6am and sleeping through til 9-10am I am now sleeping through to midday. This is not fun, but there’s not much that can be done with that until I find a new job and force my back into proper diurnal* hours.

I have left my girlfriend (herein known as Bunny, which happens to be my pet name for her) sleeping in her single bed, the one we have both been sharing for the last 2 weeks. I don’t want to complain, as it’s much more comfortable than the one I left in England, seeing as hers is missing the massive craters and the stray spring, that had worked it’s way free of the mattress itself, that constantly poked and stabbed me whenever I moved. However, it is a single bed, in that it is made for one person, and we don’t quite fit without either touching the actually quite cold wall, or hanging over the edge.

But we hope to rectify that tomorrow (or at least go some distance in rectifying it) with our flat/househunting.

So I am currently staring at the screen, as she occasionally wakes and asks me what I’m doing, drinking a can of lager that my Father-In-Law-To-Be-If-Things-Go-Right has been trying to get me to drink since I got here two weeks ago (I normally cannot drink lager, but I thought it best to both remind myself why I don’t like it and have a drink that is cold). Bunny’s parents are cool, and I really like them, however, I am aware that I have been here in their house for 2 weeks with my only contribution being a Roast Dinner I cooked on sunday, and even then I had three people helping me cook a dinner for four people, whereas at home I would be left to cook one for ten people. (I am aware of my mixing my number types, but… MEH!)

My list of things to do still;-

Find work

Find a place to live

Buy a car

(re)Take my driving test and apply for an Irish License

Collect the rest of my stuff from England

Once these have been done I can concentrate on the next stage of things. I am really hoping to get all of these done by Christmas, but seeing as November is VERY rapidly running out, my birthday in February might be more realistic.

Anyway, Bunny is glaring at me through very heavy half-closed eyes, so I must depart.

*Diurnal: Awake during daylight hours and sleeping at night, in essence the opposite of nocturnal, which is my current sleep situation.

A TURTLE’S DAY

It was a very pleasant weekend for this turtle.

This past weekend was a “Circus Weekend” meaning that Paul & Gretchen were with us.  Gretchen, however, was only here for half the weekend as she had a dance show in the St. Cloud area on Saturday.

On Friday night we all watched the movie, “Up.”  Great and funny movie!  I enjoyed the story, the animation, the musical score, and the humor.  Nothing beats the talking dogs!

Saturday morning was somewhat humiliating.  Somehow I made a promise to the Chatty Chatty Princess that she could paint my toe-nails.  My feet now feature ten toes painted ten different colors with lots of glitter!

I drove Gretchen to Sartell for the dance sho Saturday afternoon.  She had to be there two hours before the show started, so I broguht the dogs with me and we spent some time walking.  It was a tremendously beautiful day — 56 degrees and sunny!  Unheard of warmth for November in Minnesota.

Gretchen’s show was a lot of fun, and then I drove home.  Saturday evening I took Braxton, Zoe, and Paul to the Metrodome to watch our local high school in the State Football Tournament.  The game was supposed to start at 8:15, but when we got there, the game ahead of ours was just starting the third quarter.  And then there was overtime.  Our game didn’t start until 9:30pm.  And then our team got behind by 14 points in the first five minutes of the game.  Things never got better and we left at half-time.

Sunday was fix-it day.  I made an attempt to hook up the plumbing for our new kitchen sink.  I got half of the sink hooked up, but it has a slow leak.  Turns out I needed to use a “paper washer” when screwing in the drain basket.  Now I can’t seem to get the drain loosened back up so I can put the washer in.  I’ll probably need to go to the store and buy a new tool.  But at least I din’t have to pay for a plumber!

Emma was exercising her creativity and built a robot out of things she found in our recycling.  She was very professional about it — first she drew a proto-type!  She’s six years old and already using the word proto-type!

+++

United Republic of TANZANIA

stamp: 1 shilling

year: 1984

reptile: turtle

This past week I’ve been playing in a Maple Perver. I just want to show off my character before the server shuts down!  I named my character  Alouette. Because I like that name. It sounds holeh and sexeh.  Even though it means “lark” in French.  A lark is some kind of bird.  Some kind of sexy bird. Sexy divine bird.

I wrote lots of captions on top of the pictures because I wanted some words to go with the pictures.

This is how Alouette looked.

Alouette guarding the fort.

And she grew up.

Losing the cute look.

For a more mature and sophisticated look…

Evolution happens.

Climbing the rope to her goal…

She can touch the sky.

Training. Practice. For the medal.

Enhancing skills as life goes on.

Though it’s okay to be alone…

Friends are an enhancement. Any type will help.

Up high in the sky.  Or deep down in the sea.

Reach for the castle! It ain’t no hastle!

Chill…

‘Coz you gotta make dat moneh.

I’ll add more later.  My screenshot button for Maple doesn’t work so I have to Print Screen and copy it to paint to save my shots. It might not sound like it takes long, but it does for my computer.

I honestly think I did good with my CS clothes and hair.  My hair is different, underrated, while I had subtle hints of various colors, notably the shirt.  The black makes the blue from the crystal earrings and the scarf looking thing shine. Made the dark sexy with the shorts and the dark mysterious with the cape and hat.  Hair is yellow to show more of a feminine side, and I notice yellow isn’t used much in Maple.  With violet eyes illuminating a sparkle foreshadowing the colors by complementing the dark hat…  Although I saw three people with the same hat as me, sigh.  Anyways, the black and blue can represent for a winter wear, as the yellow and the shorts symbolize for summer.  Perfect for a permanent wear.

ps- All this Cash Shop dressing makes me want to redo my IRL closet.

]]> http://animalonstamps.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/217-canada-3-reptile/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:36:02 +0000 fiume051 http://animalonstamps.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/217-canada-3-reptile/

Domenion of CANADA

stamp: 17 cents

year: 1979

reptile: turtle – Trionyx spinifera

Deep Blue Sea Turtle Earrings

Sapphire blue swarovski bicones gently swing from iridescent blue-iris czech glass turtles. Suspended from sterling silver kidney earwires, these earrings measure approximately 1.75″ (5 cm) long.

100% of the sale proceeds will be donated to Etsy for Charity (EFC) Charity of the Month.

Home, home on the rage
Where the turtles gallop and graze
Where seldom is heard an un-turtle-y word
And shellers are non-physical all day!

That’s right, our latest trader item is over 50% complete, but instead of the normal clue, Grim and I decided to just flat-out tell you what the item is, and we’re extremely excited about it.  This item will be something that allows all of your turtles to become non-physical and stay within a certain radius.  This will make it so that they will not create ANY collisions, and will also make it extremely easy to have “free-range” turtles.  This also means that they won’t stay within enclosure walls unless their range stays within the enclosure, which is why this is something that will be completely optional.

This is such an important thing, though, that Grim and I have decided that this should be free for everyone and not cost any points.  What will the lottery winners get this time then, you may ask?  Each of our five lottery winners will get TWO boxes of hatchless food, valued at L$2900.

While the home item will be distributed as an item, Grim and I definitely hope that people take the script and make turtle habitats with the script in it that are pre-made non-physical enclosures for peoples’ turtles.  There will be more details about the actual usage of the item coming soon.

Paige stood in the crow’s nest, looking around in enthrallment. Suddenly she stopped her fascinated survey and her eyes grew wide as saucers. “Um, Mara?” she called down from her perch. “A small green island is following us,” she said, her tone bordering on disbelief.

Mara ran to the rigging and climbed up as fast as she could. “Where is it?” she asked, slightly winded from her climb in her (rather poofy) dress.

Paige pointed to a submerging green blob.

“Oooh. That’s Irtle,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Who’s Irtle?” asked Tal. She had just climbed up, and was peeking over the edge of the crow’s nest.

“Irtle is our guide to the edge of the earth,” Mara replied.

“Our guide to where?” shrieked Eric, who had caught the last part of the conversation from his place on the deck.

“To- oh never mind. Let’s get down from here and I’ll explain it to everyone.”

Done.

Wrapping things up feels so good. I feel so accomplished. I should be received a Gold Medal any day now.

I’ve made some adjustments in my life.

• Spend less time on the computer. Check.
• Watch less television. Check.
• Spend more time reading the books in my library queue. Check.
• Stick to my Slim Fast diet. Check.
• Go outside more often. Check.
• Write in my journal more often. Check.
• Finish up all those WIP’s. Almost check.

Yes. Almost.

Project #1: Slow going. (No pun intended.)

Sheldon the Turtle

Yarn: KnitPicks Green Apple and Grass

Needles: US 3’s and 4’s, Crochet Hook US C

Notions: 8mm black safety eyes

Project #2: The stashbuster.

Feather Cable Cowl

Yarn: Karabella Margrite, I only had one skein of this but wanted to use it for something. I ended up doing 6 repeats of the pattern instead of 8 repeats.

Project #3: A gift.

Pattern: Baby Chalice Blanket

Yarn: Red Heart Eco Ways in Aquarium, took about three skeins to get a blanket that measures approximately 34 x 38.

Now I can get back to my regularly sheduled program. Cause I am done.