O'Cedar Grand Award Winner (Potentially)

Hi all-

I am so excited.  I got the Fed Ex yesterday that I am a potential grand award winner.  The potential is if I pass the background check.  Being the wild and crazy mid-western mom that I am, I suspect I'll skin by on that one.  So making that assumption - here goes!

YEAH, YIPPEE, Yahoo and happy dances, big hugs and high fives all around.

That piercing in your ear yesterday was me squealing.  Actually I didn't get the Fed Ex, the hubby did at home.  And then the darling man didn't even call me.  When I called him that afternoon he said

"Are your ears ringing?"

"No, were you talking about me?"

"Yep - I was just telling Boo (our son) that the Fed Ex is for you."

"I have a Fed Ex?"  And with every word I could feel my heart picking up speed.  "Who's it from?"

"I don't know."
"Well, open it."

"You can't wait?"

"NO, I CANNOT WAIT.  You're lucky I don't come home and badger you over the head with the envelope.  Open it -PRETTY PLEASE."  (We all know that pretty please was the teeth gnashing equivalent of arrgghhh.

"It's from O'Cedar... Congratulations."

By this time my voice has gotten high and excited and I'm no longer sitting and my co-worker has come into my office and is giving me the hurry up and tell me signals.

I don't think I heard much after congratulations.  My co-worker and I were too busy jumping up and down and high fiving and hugging.  My husband is on the other end of the line and I can hear him chuckling as he read the next few words.

I made him read the entire letter to me over the phone.  After telling me how very proud of me he was, I hung up and immediately called my sis (fellow survivor).  She didn't answer - some odd thing about being at work!  What kind of lame-o excuse is that when I needed to squeal?

So I called my daughter.  "That is frickin' awesome!"  was her squealed response - thank her very much.

I left work early and headed home to scrounge through the package and read every minute character of fine print.  Bottom line, I (and fourteen others) won a $1000 each to have our HOPE fulfilled.

My hope is to publish "It's the Little Gotcha's that Getcha" with breast cancer.  The scary part here is that now that I've won, I no longer have expense as an excuse to procrastinate.  I have to pull all those random journal entries into a cohesive, publishable, document.

My thanks to O'Cedar for making this happen.  I've enjoyed this entire experience from writing the essay to putting the tax forms in the mail.  I hope that publishing my perspective will help other women be better prepared to fight breast cancer.

Thanks as well to everyone who voted for me.

Oh - and when I did get ahold of my sister - I had to hold the phone out from my ear while she made all the appropriate and heart-filling noises.