Could it be?  A man wins the Find-the-Football Contest?  What's this -- has the world as we know it come to a screeching halt?  Let's take a closer look and see what's REALLY going on...

Congratulations to winning the dMarie Bowl VI Find-the-Footballs contest. First of all, is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself, Peter L. from Honolulu, Hawaii?

Peter: Yeah, that the majority of the time it wasn't really me at all on the Leader Board the ladies were after, it was my wife, Wendy. Other than that, not much to say except that I'm also the father of two young daughters, 3 months and a 2 year old. In my spare time, I also own and run www.fireflyfans.net (gratuitous plug). [Editor's note: we men are all alike.  Deal with it!]

Wendy: I've been scrapbooking since 1998 and managed to get family and friends hooked on scrapbooking too. (We have a group that meets monthly :D). I usually scrap pictures of my family and of our vacations. We have two daughters and, yes, we live in Hawaii.

Have you ever played in a dMarie Bowl before, and did you plan for this event before it started?

Wendy: This was our first dMarie Bowl. I received the newsletter and thought I'd check it out....but no I didn't plan on playing in the find the footballs contest. I logged in when the dMarie Bowl started and didn't realize that hunting for little footballs would become so addictive (and that it would take up the next 48 hours of my life!).

You scored an average of 1.33 points for every minute of the contest. That's a total of 2,880 minutes, or 48 hours!  What was your strategy?  How did you pull off such an incredible feat?  Did you get any help from friends or family?

Wendy: Strategy...hmmm....click on everything and search everywhere. I've looked at every single item for sale (more than once but I usually check what's new every day anyway), clicked on posts dating way back to the beginning of dMarie time :), looked at every entry in the Poem Place, and looked at many wonderful layouts.

I don't really know how we managed with our very active two year old and nearly four month old preemie, who needs to be fed constantly. Maybe we're used to the sleep deprivation and it ended up being an advantage? We're 2 hours behind PST so the contest started at 10:00 pm our time. I hadn't slept since Thursday night and got a total of 1.5 hours on Friday night, 30 minutes nap on Saturday, and about 3 hours total (in short naps) on Saturday night. I'm still tired :). 

I have to say that what got me through Friday night and Saturday morning was talking to my cousin on the phone while hunting for footballs. She was actually in 4th place until Saturday afternoon when she had to go out and then later work on the report cards for her class (she's a teacher). We kept each other going. Peter filled in when I had to take short naps and when I needed to take care of the baby. The girls and I even managed to attend my grandmother's birthday dinner while Peter kept going.

My 2 year old daughter, who by the way also scrapbooks if mommy lets her (she's completed some pages with duplicate pictures), loved sitting with me and would say "yay football!" and "there football Mommy" when we found one. She found lots of things she wants to buy :) (practiced her colors while looking at the papers and said that certain ones were "really cute and she wanted to get it"....she loves the SEI papers too). She enjoyed looking at everyone's layouts especially the Disney related ones.

Peter: My strategy was to make sure I had the TV turned on in another window on my desktop. That's the most TV I've watched in a long while. :) Other than that, I'm quite used to sitting in front of the computer for hours on end. And let me just add, I sure know more about dMarie now than before I started. In the past all I knew about dMarie was what I saw on the email confirmation when an order was placed, what was on my credit card statement, and the glee on Wendy's face when she finally opened the much anticipated box.

How often did you check the Leader Board, and did that have an effect on your strategy?

Wendy: I checked the board every so often after finding a football (when the window would pop up and the link was right there). I believe the only reason I kept going was because of the Leader Board. Once I noticed (early in the contest) that I was in the lead and then after spending all Friday night and then part of Saturday playing, I decided I had to keep going even if at times I think I must have fallen asleep for a minute or two and sometimes the screen seemed to get blurry.

I also had an aching back, sore arm, hand, and wrist, and a red circle on my hand that wouldn't go away where my wrist touched the mouse pad. I think I only kept going because I was trying to maintain the lead instead of trying to catch up to someone. I just couldn't make myself stop :D.

Wendy: I saw lots of things I plan on buying (way more than the $100 worth :D). I plan on buying more color blocking templates (I bought some 12x12 ones several weeks ago from dMarie). I'm going to buy some in the 8 1/2 size so I can do some pages for my grandmother and my mother-in-law. I'm also going to pick up some magic mesh and maybe some Jolee's and Paper Bliss stickers. Maybe I'll buy more of the SEI papers my daughter loves so much so she'll have some of her own to play with.

Wendy: I'll definitely check out the fun next year at the next dMarie Bowl but I don't plan on hunting for footballs. I don't think my daughters (then 3 and 1) will let me :). So no plans for the next football contest....but then again I didn't even plan to play this year. :D