I'm buying a lottery ticket (by Kat)

I'm not one of those people who likes buying lottery tickets. My boss collects a few dollars every Friday from people in the office and buys lottery tickets. They sit up there (I'm in the basement, they're upstairs, with windows), each scratching their tickets in some sort of meaningful voo-doo-like order. They hope to recoup the money they've previously lost to the state by buying those same silly pieces of paper.

Huh.

When I was sent off to Las Vegas to make a presentation to the Western Governors' Conference a few years back, the gub'ment put me up in the Golden Nugget Hotel. I walked around the casino a little bit, decided it wasn't for me, and went back up to my room to gaze at the television. We don't have a TV at home, and I'm married. Ergo, laying in bed without fighting for blankets AND watching old I Love Lucy episodes was absolutely thrilling!

When I came back from the trip, my board of directors wanted to know how much I'd won. I told them I had a king-sized bed and a color TV. Jackpot! They were really disappointed in me.

Huh.

I'm not known for my luck at all. I did win a beautiful duck made out of cloth once as a door-prize at a 4-H event. I really wanted that duck. So many people were jammed into our high school cafeteria for the yearly awards ceremony, I knew I didn't stand a chance of getting that door prize. I really wanted it, though.

"Okay folks, the duck goes to the person holding the program with the stars printed on either side of the page number on the second page of the program. " I looked, but didn't have any stars. I only had some stupid asterisk marks.

"Okay folks, someone has the stars, come up and claim your prize." I looked over at Bet's program. She didn't have stars on hers, either.

"Folks, this is the top prize, this is beautiful, handmade, one of a kind. Everyone look again at your program. If you've got the stars, this duck is yours."

Obviously, nobody went up to claim the prize, so they gave it to someone with an extra line under the "Thanks" section, or something like that.

After the event was over, Bet looked at my program and pointed out that I had stars.

"Nuh-uh! Those are asterisks! Right? Oh geeesssh." I actually cried that night.

So, even when I win, I don't. Even though I won that duck, I didn't.

Huh.

So what the heck is happening, folks?! I've won two books in one week from two of my favorite bloggers!

Little House in the Suburbs, the second blog I ever started to read, was having a giveaway and I put my name in.

I won!

Ivory Soap (she took a vote and the name stuck) is a children's book author, and she was giving away a signed copy of her book, First Ballet.

She's inscribing it to my daughter, now twelve, who still hasn't learned the joy of dancing. My daughter has mastered the art of staring at me with a pained expression on her face whenever I dance, mind you.

Hasn't stopped me from dancing yet, and likely never will! Take that, preteen!

I am so excited about this book. I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on it. But don't worry, I'll (begrudgingly) hand it over to my girl on Christmas morning.

I *just* might make her dance for it, though!

So what do you guys think? Do you think this luck will hold, or will some giant equalizer (in my mind, it's shaped like a giant Dr Seuss white-gloved hand) come and take it's due? I'm a bit scared to leave the house...

But if I do, I might just go buy a lottery ticket!

P.S. Blogger's spellchecker insists that 'blogger' isn't a word.
P.P.S. Brunch was great, but instead of getting the pics and recipes today, you were stuck with this. Sorry. Daring Bakers Reveal is tomorrow, so brunch will be later in the week.
P.P.P.S I can't wait to show you what I learned to make this month for Daring Bakers!!!!