The Doll House

One Lucky Duck

in a sea of 7019

When I was in high school I had one of the luckiest experiences of my life. It was a school night and a friend called me up because she wanted me to go with her to try and win tickets to a Matchbox Twenty concert. Of course, I was on board, I love contests! We drove around Memphis following clues on the radio trying to fine a DJ intern named Cosmo who was in some random place waiting to give anyone that found him free tickets. We thought we had the clues right and drove into this gigantic parking lot in scary downtown Memphis in the dark. We could have been shot driving around like we were lost! There was a guy there about 18yrs old. He was all by himself, not even a car around. We were very skeptical to drive towards him, but of course, we did. We rolled a window down to talk, he looked confused and we look confused and we told him that we were trying to win Matchbox Twenty tickets. He acted like he didn't know what we were talking about, I think he was flirting (my friend was really cute) and then finally he said, you won, here they are! We were ecstatic! He told us to come to the concert early and there would be a drawing with other radio winners to get backstage passes. When we got there the day of the concert we met at the assigned spot and were told how the winners of the backstage passes would be decided. We had to draw a paper out of a box and it would have written on it whether or not we were winners. Simple. My friend and I couldn't decide who would draw the paper, neither of us wanted to be responsible for loosing. We had an intense game of rock, paper, scissors and I lost. I walked over to choose my paper and because we had taken so long deciding, there was only one paper left. I grabbed it up, turned it over and what did it say? We won! We had an amazing time at the concert and going backstage to meet Rob Thomas and the gang. Rob autographed a photo for me in which he called me "smiley." You would have been smiling too!

Well, not since that night 10 years ago have I ever felt so lucky (wedding day and births of children not included) as I did a couple of weeks ago. Alanna and I were talking and she mentioned to me that her childhood friend was giving away a homemade quilt on her blog and that I should check it out. Of course I did because I love contests! I was about the 30th person to enter, I thought, I might have a shot at this. I didn't think about it for a while and then one Sunday night I thought about it again and went back to Elizabeth's website to check it out. I showed it to Earl and tried to explain to him how exciting it was, he just didn't get it. I saw that the contest was over and the results would be announced at 10AM the following morning and that the entries had reached well into the 2000's. I was quite discouraged once I saw this. The next morning I got on my laptop to look something up, noticed the time--10:30am--and got excited about seeing how the contest had turned out. The first thing that I saw was that she ended up with 7019 entries to sort through. Wow, that's a lot! I began reading through her post. It was titled "RESULTS" but I was getting very antsy reading through thinking, are there ever going to be any results? And then there it was--the winner is the Bennetts said...and there was my comment. I was really confused and I tried reading through it again and I was even more confused. I immediately grabbed the phone to call Alanna. I told her that she had to go to Elizabeth's website because I thought I won the quilt. She got on and agreed that I was the winner. I was truly amazed and had no idea where to go from there. Alanna told me that I was suppose to email Elizabeth to claim my prize. I started calling people right away, Earl, my sister, Jeni. And then I emailed Elizabeth. I still wasn't completely convinced. I told her so in the email and asked that she confirm that I was indeed the winner, because I still couldn't believe it. Did I mention that there were 7019 entries. You would need convincing too.

I got the quilt today in the mail and went over to Alanna's to open it. I wanted someone to experience the excitement with and it was because of her that I entered and won. It's gigantic, much bigger than I expected. We spent several minutes going over all of it's detail. I'm so grateful to be able to call it mine and I have big plans for designing a guest bedroom around it--someday. A big thanks to Alanna and to Lizzy Anne designs for making a beautiful quilt and letting it find a home with me. I really do feel like a lucky duck!