At least, that's how I felt after I arrived home from work yesterday to discover that I had won a free month of rent!!!
I suppose in order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the situation, you must first understand that I never win anything. Like ever. Until last year, the only thing I had ever won was a moldy fruit basket. And believe you me, I was thrilled silly about that moldy fruit basket! The basket itself (minus the moldy fruit) has been proudly displayed on top of my kitchen cabinets for the past seven years.
I think my luck started to change last year. I won a prize or two playing games at baby showers and home sales shows. Then the Christmas party at my foster care agency came around, and they started announcing the winners of the door prizes. I was totally not paying attention. "Why should I," I thought. "I never win anything anyway." So imagine my surprise when I looked up to see what felt like 1,000 pairs of eyes staring at me and the Director of the agency saying, "Tammy? That's your name, Tammy." :-)
"What on earth did you win that had you so excited," you might ask? A $20 gift card to Walmart... I can only imagine what my reaction would have been had I won a high-dollar prize! As it is, I have a feeling no one at that party is going to forget me anytime soon. =)
Fast forward to yesterday afternoon... I'd had a long day at work, and I was soooo looking forward to kicking off my shoes, stripping off my bra, throwing on some pj's, and lounging around the house for a few hours. I got out of the car and rounded the corner of my building only to be greeted with a bright red, folded piece of paper with my apartment number on it on the little memo clip by the front door. "Oh, crap. What did I do now?" I mentally played back the past few weeks in my head... Had I paid the water bill? Did I short pay rent? Was the cat being too loud when he tears around the house after going to the bathroom? All I could think was that red was not a good color when it comes to announcements.
I pulled the paper off of the door and stepped inside. I braved up and went to read it, only to discover that it was STAPLED too! "Oh, sweet crap!!! Am I being evicted or something?!?" I, ever so slowly, unfolded the note and was greeted with...
Congratulations, Tamara S...!
You are the WINNER
of one FREE MONTH OF RENT!!!
I squealed and jumped around like a little girl, which in turn terrified the cat, whose hair stood up on his back as he jumped about five feet straight up from the floor. I half expected to see him clinging from the ceiling in a desperate attempt to escape me in all of my hyperventilating glory. Instead, he just ran and hid under the computer desk and eyed me warily until I calmed down and composed myself.
You have no idea how excited I am. This ends up being about $900 going straight into my "Buying a Baby Fund" (as my newphew calls it)! With this and what I already have in there from the past few weeks, I should have enough for my homestudy after my next paycheck! I'm going to wait a little while before I do the homestudy though because it's only good for 6 months, and I'd just have to come up with another $500 to update it. I am so happy that things are starting to pick up in the adoption fundraising area though. This was a great little boost! I'm still doing a mental happy dance! =)
So go ahead and feel free to bask in the warmth of my radiant glow! Maybe my newfound good fortune will rub off and everyone will be blessed with the "lucky bug." We can dream anyway... :-)
that is awesome! congrats!
ReplyDelete