Rhonda Bracey: At Random

A couple of years back I found this strange looking cockroach-type thing on the outside wall of our house. I took a photo, much to my husband’s chagrin and head shaking wondering why.

I also tried to find out what it was and had a little success, but not a lot. And I posted the photo to Webshots where I store all my digital photo albums, then promptly forgot about it.

Last night I got a comment on my photo — someone from the Australian Museum wants to get in touch with me and for me to hang on to any more that I find! I don’t know why yet — maybe I found a rare species? But how cool is that!

I’ll let you know more after the person responds to my email and I find out why he wants me to hang on to any more that I find.

See also: https://sandgroper14.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/heres-the-deal-with-the-cockroach/

Why would Google.com.au have two different images for Mothers Day? Classic Google has this one:

But if you have a personalised home page (iGoogle), you get this fuzzy one:

Just wondering…

Great quote from Cara BL!

Ironing is utterly at odds with my religious principles. Wrinkles in clothing were put there by the Almighty. Far be it from me to interfere with his plan.

Two friends of mine in the US are very involved in animal rescue — one rescues guinea pigs; the other, greyhounds. Animal rescue organisations rely on volunteers such as my friends to take in and hopefully place animals that have been abandoned by their owners. Perhaps the owners can no longer care for them financially or physically, maybe they no longer want them, or maybe they just want to get rid of them because the novelty wore off for precious little Dakota or Heathcliff.

In the US, May 6 through 12 is National Pet Week and also Be Kind to Animals Week.But even if you’re not in the US, you can still participate.

You can help by spreading the message of kindness, compassion, responsibility, and stewardship. Or perhaps you can drop off some supplies at a rescue or shelter, donate money to an animal organisation, or talk on your own blog, MySpace page, or FaceBook profile about the animal causes closest to your heart.

As my friend Whitney says: “Maybe…just maybe…we can start making some changes on this planet we call home.”

(If you’re a quilter reading at this blog, consider using some of your stash, scrap fabrics, spare batting etc. to make small quilts for your local animal shelter, as I did earlier this year. It’s a great way to use up leftover fabric, to practice free motion quilting, and your gift will be appreciated by the humans who care for the animals and the animals themselves.)

Some long weekends are just about relaxation; others are more productive. My Anzac Day long weekend was a bit of both — and the relaxation and productivity actually went hand in hand… it’s not hard to do something if you’re enjoying it! The weather was fantastic, so that helped.

Some of the things I accomplished this weekend, very few of which were on my ‘to do’ list:

• Updated personal and business accounts (not so pleasurable, but it has to be done).
• Did some gardening — mostly clearing out the leaf litter near the now-exposed fence.
• Installed Atlassian’s Confluence wiki on my PC — this was a pretty painless process (yes!), and I’m very impressed so far with the capabilities of Confluence and how it overcomes a lot of the issues associated with previous wikis I’ve worked on or with. I was also impressed with the deal — $5 for a 5-user system!! (Sorry, the deal’s finished now, in case you wanted your own.)
• Made a luggage tag from an image in my mind of one I saw my friend Sue had at the conference. Documented and photographed the process, then wrote up the full instructions in a pattern, tested the pattern by making another luggage tag based purely on the instructions. I’ve now added this pattern to my Etsy store.
• Packaged an Etsy order for a friend in Connecticut.
• Watched a thriller of a football game on Anzac Day between Collingwood and Essendon — Essendon won at the death knock (sad).
• Did some cooking, and visited a friend.

All in all, a relaxed stress-free weekend… There should be more of them!

I’m the only one in our household to receive the $900 “Stimulus package” cheque from the Australian government, and it was all spent on Friday before I even received it!

We had to get 4 new tyres for my husband’s car and 2 for mine (there went $750+), and my husband has to have new prescription reading glasses (another $400+). We got home from getting the tyres fitted and there was my $900 cheque in the day’s mail. I had hoped to buy a new stove with it as the oven on the old one doesn’t work properly and can’t be repaired. But the tyre fitting people and the optician ended up being the recipients of Kevin’s largesse.

BTW, you don’t find out until later that there are a LOT of people who are NOT eligible for this $900 “Stimulus Package” payment. For example:

• Self-funded retirees living solely off their retirement funds — even if those retirement funds are small — who don’t have a taxable income and therefore don’t pay tax (i.e. those over 60, and some under 60 whose Superannuation fund is tax free)
• Pensioners and other welfare recipients (they don’t have a taxable income either)
• Anyone under 18, even if they have a taxable income
• Anyone with a taxable income over a certain amount ($100,000??) for the past tax assessment year
• Anyone who didn’t submit a tax return last financial year

That eliminates a lot of people!

And I wonder if the $900 Stimulus Package was really just a con to get a helluva lot more people filing overdue tax returns. The media reports indicate that accountants and tax agents have been inundated with people trying to file before the deadline — in some cases, they haven’t filed a tax return for 10 years or more. No doubt many of these people have now filed so they can get their ‘free’ $900, but they haven’t received their tax bill or overdue penalty from the Tax Office yet. There could be a few nasty surprises in store — surprises that cost far more than the $900 they might or might not get.

The cynic in me says this was a very handy way for the Tax Office to ferret out all those people who have been lax in submitting a return, and all those younger people who just haven’t been bothered submitting a return since they started work. I suspect the Tax Office’s database (and therefore net) just got a little bigger…