What a surprise!

Tonight I went to the Strawberry Festival fund-raiser for the local elementary school (not in the big city but in the little village). They have a raffle with various prizes... dinner at a local restaurant, picture frame, coffee basket...and the grand prize was a pair of hand-made chairs. So for $5.00, I got six tickets.

Then it was $5.00 for a hamburger and salad and $4.00 for strawberry, shortbread and ice cream.

I wasn't really paying attention to the drawing other than I won a little hand-made quilt for a doll's house, not really something I can use but I will find a good home for it. So then there was all manner of whooping and hollering and those of us at the picnic table figured someone had won the grand prize. Indeed, someone had.

But then I heard my name called (really weird hearing it in that context) so I yelled, 'Coming!' When I got to the place where they were announcing the winners, they said, 'You won the grand prize!!!' What happened is that the chair maker's wife had drawn her own name. The family went nuts but they had agreed ahead of time if one of them won the chairs, they would donate them back. As the wife, Lisa, said, They just wouldn't fit into my life right now: I've got three kids (15-5), three dogs and two cats. What if the five year-old decides to have ice cream with chocolate sauce sitting on one of them? So lo and behold, my name was drawn next. I was dumbfounded.


This is the most expensive prize I have ever won and definitely up there in the furniture department.

Here are the specs.

They are so beautiful that they will go to the church office and improve the scenery there. No way they can stay here because the cats will destroy them.


So, here is the prize winner on one of her chairs.