[BIRTHDAY] Contest Results!

I want to thank each and every one of you for your fabulous, wonderful, generous wishes for my birthday. It was absolutely spectacular, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I woke up to find a Storm Raven with my name on it, and it just got better from there. (How that's possible, I'm not really sure- but it did!)

Friends and family helped me celebrate in style and I have to say- I really, truly, honestly NEEDED a day of just ridiculous, over-the-top spoiling like I got. I've been burning the candle at both ends (and in the middle too) for a while. Having a day where I got and did what I wanted was .... well.... really nice.

Now, to the meat of the matter- the contest!

Each of your entries was interesting and fun in some way. Each of you took time out of your busy, crazy lives to share something with me- an aspect of me they saw, an idea they wanted to pass on, some token or treasure they had in their head. That alone was a pretty darn good present, and on top of it, the entries were great!

Contest #1- Most of you understood how much I love words, and played with them to encapsulate my personality and blog into a short snippet. Before I announce the winner, I'll share the entries:


1) This in iteslf is wonder...

2) Inspire yourself to wonder...

3) World of Wonder: Proving unicorns exist since (insert year you started gaming/year you were born/random year/random 4 numbers here)

4) Wench waxes whimsical; war, wifecraft, witch with words; wonders woven weekly.

5) Wondrous and Loquacious Ramblings and Reflections on a Wide Variety of Words

6) Wherin you can find the thoughts and reflections of a wife, mother, and gamer

7) Boardgames and Roleplaying-games: Musings and Reflections of a Wife, Mother, and Gamer

8) Gregarious Girl’s Guide to Good Gaming and Gushing Graciousness & Making Modern Motherhood Mostly Manageable.

9) Genuine Gopher Gaming Girl Gets it done with Weird Wacky Wild Wonderful Words

10) Audacious, bodacious, tenacious, veracious, Loquacious.

11) What has two thumbs and is awesome? THIS BLOG!!

12) Global domination is not just a game for men.

13) Where wizards, warriors, werewolves, witches and wyverns are warmly welcomed with words of whimsy.

14) Whimsical wanderings with wizards, warriors, werewolves, witch hunters, wyverns and words.

Some of these made me laugh- HARD. A couple were favorites right away. I decided to enlist the help of TheGirl (remember, she's distracted by shiny things) and TheDude. Both of them voted on the same entry, which was one of my favorites. Clearly, we had a winner!

Who is it?

Chris D with his entry of: World of Wonder: Proving unicorns exist since (insert year you started gaming/year you were born/random year/random 4 numbers here)

I'm sticking in 1985, the year I started gaming. I love the nod to the absurd here, as well as the acceptance of the strange complexity of the female gamer. Plus, it's FUN!

This winner had a close competitor with Porky's entry -


Audacious, bodacious, tenacious, veracious, Loquacious.

I love the rhyme, the playfulness, the intent, and most of all the accuracy of all the words used here to describe me. I'm keeping it to use in another place in my blog, many thanks to Porky.

Onto the banner contest:

 

I have to say that this was truly difficult for me- I love two of them very, very much. Both of the designers in question are thoughtful and considered me and my blog very seriously. Both of them captured an element of “me” that I found more than a little surprising.

Here's the “runner up”- What I liked most was that the designer was more than willing to change the eye from blue to brown at my request. My eyes are brown, and if I'm sharing my perspective, my viewpoint, if you will – with you, I'd like the eye to be brown.

Thor over at Creative Twilight did an amazing job, and with his permission, I'm using the banner for my Weekly Whimsy posts on Sunday. I like this so much, I can't help but smile when I see it- and I would love to share that simple joy and wondrous perspective with you on a regular basis.

I think in the end, what helped the winner come out on top was that he emailed me privately. He asked permission to use something he saw on the blog as an element of his banner- and without knowing it, he touched on something truly special to me.


Here's the winner (without the new motto):

DaMastaCheef over at DLWDG designed this for me. What sold me on it was the use of the lily.

He had no idea, but that lily is beyond special. It's my daily reminder of who I am, my place in this world, and why I'm “H” and not someone else. The lily is one of a bouquet sent to me several years ago. The Dude didn't have a reason- he just wanted to say he loves me. He knew I'm allergic to nearly every kind of flower under the sun, but not lilies- and that I love them. He had them delivered to me at work, at a time when I was the receptionist and everyone in the building would see them.

The Dude's not a terribly romantic type, so flowers are a BIG, BIG, BIG deal. The amount of thought and consideration he put into those flowers is a treasure to me. The knowledge that I mattered that much to TheDude was something I couldn't forget. I've mentioned before that I scrapbook (or used to) and I made a beautiful little book with pictures of those lilies.

Using a picture of the lily as my avatar was my own way of keeping the scrapbook with me, even on the 'net. It's my way of showing The Dude that I remember and understand “us”.

The use of the lily in the banner was an extravagant way for me to show my Dude that he's part of everything I do- even the stuff I do on my own. Thanks, DaMastaCheef!

I'll have the new banner with the new slogan on the site soon (tomorrow, I hope!). Until then, send a big congrats out to the two winners and know that I had a blast sharing my birthday with you.