Another grand prize win and this one tops my 5-thousand-dollar Caribbean cruise! This one’s an 8-day trip for two to Italy, valued at 7 grand!!! This time around, and quite unlike with the cruise, they’re going to pay for the airfare, hotel accommodations and rail passes. I just don’t know if we can make it for a few reasons. For one, we have to pay taxes next year on the cruise as it is, and to have to pay taxes on this too, may kill us. I also don’t know if he could get the time off, seeing that he’ll be at a brand new job, and assuming that I’ll have a year to take the trip like most trips give you. We already have passports, and there wouldn’t be any need for paying port taxes, since it’s not a cruise, but I don’t know if we’d have extra money for food and souvenirs. I wonder if we’d fly 1st class or regular coach and if the hotel would be really fancy or just your basic hotel?

I don’t know what’s got me laughing harder, the fact that this is an accidental win, or the postcard I’d send the good old folks in Florida. I was just telling Tom how funny it would be to send them a card each time I win a trip.” Well, the thought of sending them a card from Italy in the same year is rather hilarious! Then when they ask each other later on if anyone’s heard from me they can say, “No, but I’m sure we will the next time she wins a trip.” I’m hoping that’ll be a walk-on role in Hawaii or some exotic place like that. Then I can send a card saying, “Sorry I’ve been too busy to catch you by phone, but you can catch me on whatever TV channel and time.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!

Here’s the funny part. I not only swore I’d never travel again because of how rough the cruise was, even though it did have its fun moments, but when Tom brought in the mail today I made a comment about it being all junk and not getting any win-notices or surprise wins. Tom then said, “Guess this means you’re in for another big one.”

My reply to that was, “God, I hope not! I just want to get moved. I don’t want to deal with the hassles of affidavits and stuff like that, and I’ve set things up to try to ensure that this doesn’t happen, as long as it’s not for a million bucks.”

Then Jewelry Television, which often has sweeps, ran a 10-day, daily-entry sweep. A 3-star premium Escape to Italy sweep. The grand prize was the trip, but I was actually aiming for the 2nd or 3rd prizes, which were very expensive pieces of jewelry I would’ve sold on eBay (we listed the diamond for 7 days as of yesterday and set a reserve of $300. It has 28 views so far and one bid, but they haven’t hit the reserve). But as a psychic, especially an influencer, I win too damn much and hit the grand prize by accident! It was a random drawing. So in just 10 clicks, I may’ve sent us off to Italy since it’s non-transferable and not redeemable for cash.

It was time to make my fellow sweepers jealous yet again by changing what my biggest prize won so far is on my OLS profile! Most people haven’t won bigger than a couple of hundred bucks worth or even less. Ah, and I might get a brand new money spell-casting kit too, for just $20 when we get a new horseshoe to keep the freeloaders away! Trips and other objects are nice, but cold hard cash is better. I’m going to perform a ritual that looks promising. I can get it with the $25 I just won from an eBay sweep that’s to be deposited in our PayPal account soon.

So anyway, Tom had just gone into bed and I was still finishing up with the day’s newbie sweeps when he came walking back into the room, cell in one hand, smile on his face, telling me I won a trip to Italy.

At first I was shaking my head and muttering, “Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I didn’t mean to get the trip, I meant to get the jewelry. I didn’t want the damn trip. You know I hate traveling!” And to think of how many people would kill to win this! Me, I try not to win and I win. I enter for zillions of trips to places like Mexico and Hawaii, which would be more worth the hassle to me, yet I never win those. Meanwhile, they have many fewer trips to Italy, but hey, no problem!

Tom and I were cracking up over the thought of making them jealous at work when he tells them of this latest win. If they get all jealous over guitars and Visa cards as they do, a trip like this will surely kill them! And then they can get pissed as well as jealous when he tells them it was just an accident! Hee, hee!

Too bad I couldn’t give it to Jessie if we can’t make it, but I don’t know how she’d feel about taking a trip like this. She seems like the type that likes to stay put, but see what I mean about not being able to settle down? It just ain’t in our cards! Guess it just goes with our liberal personalities. I read a report saying that one’s personality often reflects their political views. Those who like order and structure and who are religious tend to be more conservative, whereas those who are creative and like to take chances tend to be liberal. Well, I’ll never be conservative or religious, but yes, Tom and I are both daredevils who would quickly grow restless with the same old, same old going on in our lives. I’d still gladly take the modest, peaceful house to stay in for at least a decade or so while we were running around to different countries, and at least a little extra money to go with it too, if we can never strike it rich.

I asked Tom if he’d want to go to Italy, and he said that if it was free, why not? But we can’t automatically assume we can make it till we find out more details. The lady who called also sent an email that I missed by mistake since that box gets hundreds of messages a day. But big wins will make attempts to contact you in more than just one way and won’t give up anytime too soon either. When I found the email, I asked for more information, so we’ll see what they say.

It’d be quite a flight if we did make it. It’s practically halfway around the world! The last time we just flew across the US. This time we’d have to fly across the US, across the Atlantic, across Spain, across France, then the Mediterranean. Italy is a peninsula that protrudes into the Mediterranean. Damn, I wish parents would discipline their kids like they used to before the 80s and teach them some basic manners! Flying’s now nothing but non-stop screaming kids all the way. I could hear it over the headphones. At least they fly at 650 MPH, almost supersonic, as opposed to the old speed of 450 MPH. Although, when we’re flying over the Mediterranean they may speed up. If I’m going to win us a couple of trips a year, we may as well invest in some decent noise-canceling headphones to drown out all the screaming, and definitely get new luggage. The luggage we’ve got is almost as old as I am! At least we wouldn’t have to worry about coming home to frozen, busted pipes next time around! We may not even have to hop on a train for half a day just to get to a real airport. Whether or not we go is basically going to come down to time and money. If we do I’m sure I’d have many a moment where I’ll wish I could say my life was as dull as Jessie says hers is. The cruise, like with many things in life, was rough while it was going on, but afterward, it was cool to be able to say I did it.

Due to knowing Spanish as well as I do, I can understand some Italian, being as closely related to Spanish as it is. They tend to have English speakers in touristy areas, though. It’ll be weird knowing 3 languages and a bit of French and going to a place where none of the languages I know are used. But it’s true that if you know Spanish, you should understand a lot of Italian and Portuguese since so many of the words are either the same or very similar. Either way, I do intend to learn Italian, Japanese and Hawaiian someday! When you have no concept of money, and numbers make absolutely no sense at all to you, you can do that! I should’ve gotten this Italian-learning software I wanted a while back. I couldn’t carry on a conversation in just a few months, but that’s all it should take to master the basics for reading menus and things like that. I’ve seen Italian web pages before and could understand every 1 in 5 words or so.

As sad as it is, this would be a good time to be preparing for a trip if we could afford the time and costs since my Tinkerbell won’t last much longer. My baby’s already losing her energy. Those damn tumors grow so fast! I hated to leave her those 10 days we were cruising last January, and I promised never to leave her again and I won’t!

Anyway, if we go I guess we’d transfer to an Italian plane somewhere in the east since each country has its own airlines. I know you can’t fly straight through to Jamaica, for example. You have to switch to Air Jamaica. You should see Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines. Their planes are gorgeous.

I’d faint if I won the trip to Israel I stupidly entered! Hey, sweeping gets addictive. I can’t help myself most of the time. I may be from a Jewish family, but I only know a few Hebrew words, and Israel wouldn’t exactly be a very safe place to be with all the fighting going on there. Those damn Arabs just can’t leave anyone alone, can they?

I’d literally scream if I won a trip to Alaska or some other cold place while trying to hit a runner-up prize. That’s the very shit I’ve been trying to escape for 3 years now. I’m sure Tom would find it hilarious as hell.

I never would’ve believed it had someone told me back when I was all alone and lonely in the projects with no life that I’d one day live in and visit all these different states/countries! If I can get to the Caribbean and Italy in just two years of sweeping, who knows what states and countries I could be off and running to in the upcoming years?!

I hope they won’t pester me with radio and magazine interviews, but they probably will. I’m going to keep secret the fact that I’m a “professional contest enterer,” as some folks put it since a lot of people aren’t too thrilled with the idea of some of us spending a few hours each day making hundreds of entries each day, not paying much attention to what we’re entering. They would prefer a winner who sought to win this specific contest, not someone who sits down at their computer each day and says, “What can I win today?” On the other hand, they know there are registered sweepers out there and guess what? We’re not going away!

It’s funny cuz just this morning I told Tom I was concentrating on Netwinner more and more and less on OLS, knowing that I’d get something for sure for doing the work of racking up points by playing their game (it’s the best site ever!) and jokingly added, “Well, in light of my schedule problem and the fact that I’ll probably never get my disability checks back, at least your wife’s 99% worthless instead of 100% worthless! But hey, if he can supply the money for the rent and bills while I supply the vacations on top of my other wins, why not?! In a sense, he’s been more right about the sweeps than I’ve been. True, I placed an overall win spell that I wouldn’t know how to call off if I had to, but he said I would one day win bigger than the cruise and I wasn’t so sure. But I did! I hope he’s right when he says I’ll win a vehicle someday, but I hope most of all that he’s right about the handicapping program eventually generating a few hundred bucks a day once he works on it some more. But as of yet, I can’t see that happening any more than I can see Publisher’s Clearing House showing up this Sunday to tell me I’ve won 10 million dollars.

Still no date set yet for moving to California. We still don’t even know exactly where in California we’re going, let alone if we’ll make it to Italy! Right now we’ll just concentrate on getting to California before we worry about Italy, as funny as that sounds. Mr. Acre’s going to call his bank to see if I need to do anything special. That and the truck will determine when we’re getting out of here.

The warm weather turned cool and wet.

I dyed my hair a deep dark black. Leaving the dye on for 45 minutes instead of 20 made a huge difference in locking in the color. It sure would fit in in Italy!