Ore-some

I like to keep apprised of the happenings in good ol' NZ. Here is a little gem of a tale from stuff.co.nz. I like the way the author is loose with his quotations and oh so subtly captures the humor of the situation. I tried to colorize the funny bits but I really find amusement at the whole thing-too many candy corns I guess.

Water rat attacks woman in bed

By BLAIR ENSOR - The Marlborough Express

A vicious rodent attack at a Marlborough holiday park yesterday morning forced a woman to seek hospital treatment.

Despite the presence of her dog and three-legged cat, Lynne Henderson was attacked by a large water rat while lying in bed in her motor home at Spring Creek Holiday Park.

"I'm going to starve them now," she said of her animals' inability to catch the rodent.

Mrs Henderson, who lives permanently at the park in a motor home about 10 metres from the river, remembers feeling an animal, which she assumed was her cat, jump onto her bed.

When it was near her neck, she extended a hand to give it a pat. The startled rodent then latched onto her upper lip.

After hearing his wife screaming, Neil Henderson turned on the light to see a rat, which relinquished its grip and took off into the couple's bathroom.

"It was about nine inches long, very round and cuddly ... well, violent, actually," said Mr Henderson.

A large piece of plywood was used to board up the bathroom while he went to retrieve an air rifle from a friend at the park.

He could not get close to it because it was "bouncing off the walls and ripped the toilet holder clean off".

Too terrified to approach the rat on his return, he prodded it to move it from behind a toilet to get a clear shot.

He fired one shot into the "tummy" of the rat, which "made a hell of a squeal" and ran out the door and up a nearby tree. It has not been seen since.

Mrs Henderson said the rat bite had pierced her upper lip, which bled quite badly at the time.

Because rats are "infectious rodents", she made a trip to the hospital, where bemused hospital staff gave her a tetanus injection and a course of antibiotics.

The couple suspected the rat had found its way inside through a cat door.

"It's funny now, but wasn't at the time," she said.

"It scared the living s..t out of me."

I don't know if I would EVER find it "funny" when I looked back on a 9-inch long viscious water rat clamped down on my mouth. Never ever ever! Must not have been a "top ten" holiday park. Oh me oh my!

The Answer

I heard a few of you were a bit squeamish about naming a price online because you couldn't tell if I was joking about the value or not. What if I were to tell you that it went for 1250.00 USD? It is true-a lady in Germany purchased it. Someone did offer me early on 500 but LUCKILY I had nothing to lose and curiousity got the best of me and I left it up for auction. I am left pondering whether or not I could have gotten more-but is there a point where it would just be greedy? Nah.

Thank Stein

Don't you just LOVE it?

Ah look at those adorable little toothums. :)

Shortly after Mark and I moved in we found a few treasures in the attic. I meant to post them awhile ago but... well I didn't. Today I would like to cover the treasure that we found known as a beer stein. Mark and I decided it seemed valuable and we would keep it to sell when the economy picked up so as to insure we would get the most out of it. One of the first things we liked to show people when they came over was our treasured stein. "Check this out" we would say "we are going to sell this one day!" they would nod their heads and not really say much. It was almost as if a small part of them thought it was a crazy thing for us to think we would get anything out of it. About a week ago I decided that it was time for the stein to find a home going back to school supply needs were mounting and with Oktoberfest approaching I thought the timing would be great. Plus, if you are the sort to collect steins of this caliber don't you have more money than Cameron Diaz? Just for kicks, would anyone like to take a stab at how much it would sell for? Comments from those who KNOW the answer may not participate-you now who you are.

Recipe for the Best B-Day Party Ever

I am not one for birthday parties. They make me nervous-even when I was a kid they made me nervous. I am too worried about whether people are going to have a good time or not. Will the activities planned be deemed "lame" and if no activities are planned will boredom prevail? Aida on the other hand does not shy from a party. So, I put aside my own insecurities and planned away. She wanted quite a big group of girls and I didn't want to deal with a sleepover so we did a movie night from 5-10 and watched the premiere of Wizards of Waverly Place the movie. The night went absolutely perfect! I am actually going to go as far as saying that I had fun as well. It was the perfect balance of the 10-year olds having some space but me still being present. Here is a breakdown of the party-you know in case any of you would like to throw the most talked about party of the year.

I printed out these faux movie tickets on business cards I had lying around and we mailed them out.

From 5-6:15pm Guests arrived and we made personal sized homemade pizzas. The kids loved 'em. I made and prebaked the crusts the night before as well as the sauce so it was easy.
From 6:15-7pm We had set up the front room to be a disco with a mini laser and lights. I cleaned up the pizza mess-which wasn't too bad since the messy stuff was done before.
7-7:15pm Aida opened her presents.
7:15-7:30 Ahhh THE cake. Also had the kids decorate their own goody bags for their sushi and any snacks they buy during the movie. EASY!
7:30-7:50 I set up our kitchen island with Sushi ingredients. Kids made sushi while i cleaned up the cake mess from the table.
7:50-8:00pm Kids bought concessions and entered the cinema for the movie at 8pm.

I know you are all speechless. "But Sara" you say- "Where is the pastel?" Thank goodness for the good folks at wilton that sell decorator icing that fits your metal cake tips! The "popcorn" is actually formed from marshmallows. After YEARS of making cakes that only left a creepy mark in peoples minds, I finally made one that impressed albeit 10-year old girls. They were all AMAZED. That's me amazing.

Proof that the above cake was mine and not pulled off the internet. Oh and Aida is cute too.

Candy sushi-kids loved doing this. The ones with the "groovy" fruit roll-ups were really cute.

The snack station. When the kids handed their tickets over to Lucy to enter the cinema she handed them each 10 "puppy bucks" to spend on snacks. We had popcorn, a huge bag of those mini candybars, and sodas. They decided how to spend their money and yet were still limited to how much candy they could have-genious right?
We hung up a sheet to make a "big screen" for our cinema. Also we closed the curtains when I wasn't taking pictures. :)


Lucy got to be in charge of selling the goods. She LOVED doing it and it kept her involved with the party but gave Aida some space with her friends. They bought stuff on commercials.

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