January 19th, 2018

HGTV Dream Home Giveaway!  Wow!  Win a house, all the furnishings and décor and a car and money! Such a deal!  Show of hands here, how many of you enter this contest every day?   I do.  I'm not sure why I do because I already know that I won't win but I dutifully send in my online entries (you can enter each day twice) when it pops up in my email every single day. That's loyalty baby.

​I am not 100% positive, but I think I've been doing this since the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway began and that has to be at least 20 years.  You'd think at some point I'd get wise to the fact that I'm just not a person who wins things.

​I will confess that I used to enter that Publishers Clearing House thing too.  Originally it was simpler.  These envelopes filled with lots of paper and complicated instructions came in the mail.  There was a lot of lick'n'stick going on, checking boxes and including this and throwing away that and then, why easy peasy, you just mail it back in.  Until the next one arrived and it all happened over again.  Really not such a big deal until it went online. Now it's endless.  Unless you have loads of free time that you want to devote to an apparently hopeless pursuit, do not begin this (if you haven't already).  I am not fully convinced that anyone ever actually wins Publishers Clearing House.  

​I didn't even win games at birthday parties as a kid.  It was a thing people did at birthday parties when I lived in California.  Back when I was a child and dinosaurs walked the earth  kids played games at which some people won a prize and others didn't.  Yes Virginia, even at birthday parties, back in the olden days, some people went home without a prize but with our self-esteem still intact.  Some kids won lots of prizes. I won none of them. AND I wasn't surprised in the slightest.  I think I've always know that I'm just not the sort of person that wins games of chance.

​And now I remember that once upon a time,  I actually did win $40 so obviously I am lying.  Well I'm sort of lying.  The first time Tim and I went to Las Vegas of course we stayed on the strip.  We had a great time doing all sorts of things, museums and tours and shows and at some point we went downstairs to the casino part of our hotel.  Tim gave me some quarters and I wandered around trying to figure it all out.  It was my first time in Las Vegas afterall.  And for me, it was kind of overwhelming.  Finally I randomly chose a quarter slot machine and gingerly planted my butt on the seat. I put the first quarter into the slot and pulled the handle.  (This was before the push a button to play days).  Lots of dingdinging went on as I watched the pictures flip around and around and then finally stop and of course no match.  Repeat as many times as I had quarters.  Sigh.  Ok I'm done. That was........interesting.  And then the man next to me got up and began to walk away.  He dropped a quarter as he stood up.  I noticed and picked it up, "Sir, sir...you dropped a quarter"  I called out to him.  He stopped and turned around and said..."You play it".  "Are you sure?" I asked.  "Yeah, knock yourself out kid" he said and left.  I moved to his seat, put the quarter in and promptly won $40 dollars.  I was stunned.  Once I got over my shock, we took the forty bucks and went out to dinner.  It was pretty good too.

​But that's it. Lifetime total winnings and it wasn't even my quarter. But I suppose it still counts.  I don't play the various lotteries at all. Mostly because I know deep down in my heart of hearts that I have zero chance of winning.  I mean zero. I know that I will not win so much as the price of the ticket back. With the same certainly that I know that fire is hot and water is wet, I also know that I will not win. I have been told that the reason I don't win is because of my negativity about it. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hmmm. I suppose that could be true. Or perhaps I just know it for true, as we used to say when we were kids.

​I read somewhere once that a person could be lucky at cards or lucky at love but not both.  For those of you who win lotteries and giveaways and contests...that's wonderful and I am genuinely happy for you!  But as for me, I know I won't be winning the HGTV Dream Home but I hit the jackpot with love and I'm good with that.