Card 31 Wins!

Woke up this morning to many kind birthday wishes but the real question on everyone's mind, "did you win"?  Time to get scratching.

The other day, I went to see the cheesiest movie I could find for a friend date with the lovely Brenda Alvarez.  We saw Eat Pray Love.  It was actually pretty good.  Julia Roberts plays a travel writer who goes all over the world to find herself (nothing I could relate to of course:) ) but the best line in the movie?  She's in Italy and she tells the story of a guy who goes to pray to a statue every day, asking it "please let me win the lottery".  Finally one day the statue comes alive out of frustration to say "buy a ticket already!"

Well, if you plan to win the lottery, you've got to buy tickets, and I bought a bunch.

And at the very bottom of the stack we have today's card.  Number 31.  The birthday card.

Is it a winner?  YES!  Is it $20,000?  no.  only $2.  Bringing the total to $36.
I did say I was going to win the lottery for my birthday.  I didn't say how much.  I guess next time I should make my plans more specific!

Card 30 1/2 Winning in another state?

I got an awesome package in the mail today from Tracy, my travel buddy and bike and brew partner in crime.  It was for my birthday - you know, the one where I'm going to win the lottery?

What better present, than a chance to win the lottery not just in Washington, but in New York too!

It was interesting to scratch a different card, this one didn't have all the vowels in a row, no bonus word and it had a double prize letter!

 It looked pretty good half way in, I got the bonus G!

But in the end, New York was the state I was meant to win in.  Awesome present though!  Thanks Tracy!

Card 25-30 A quick recap

Tomorrow is the big day, so stayed tune to see how much I win for my birthday.  

In the meantime, winnings stand at $36.

Card 24 - how far would my winnings go in west africa?

After a bit of a rough streak, I decided to break out a real good luck charm... a Ghanaian Cedis coin.  What makes this coin special (besides that I picked it up in west africa of course) is how little its worth.  During my visit, a US dollar was worth close to 10,000 Cedis.  So this 100 Cedis coin was worth about 1 cent.    However, in 2007 the currency was revalued, they basically dropped 4 zeros and now the conversion is a little over 1 to 1 (but don't be mislead, Ghana's per capital income is about $1500/year).   This little coin?  Not worth anything, except luck.  So here we go:

(got to love a country that puts Freedom, Justice and chocolate on their coins)

And its a winner!  Four words equals two dollars.  $27 and counting!

Card 23 - Big money, big money...

OK, so that's 4 losing cards in a row.  No way this one can be too (at least not if the statistics on how many cards should be winners is correct).

And it's a winner!  Two dollars for four words! That brings the winnings to $25.  Hmmm...

Card 22 - puzzled

After the two card fiasco, I decided to go back to one at a time.

But I think I am a little distracted.

Cards 20-21

How to do two scratch tickets at once:

Clear some puzzle pieces off of the table.

Be careful to scratch the letters corresponding to the right card (oops!).

Decide to always to one at a time going forward, because these were both LOSERS!