What's wrong with me?

I know that life has its up and downs and all arounds...but sometimes I just can't help myself. This week is fair week. Gosh I love fair week. I have great teenage memories with fair week - mostly my girlfriends and I flirting with roadies. Now I look back and go ACK, what was wrong with me...what was I thinking. Toothless, grimy, lack of character excuses for men. Of course, on the other hand, I'm terribly grateful for roadies because without them, there would be no fair rides to enjoy. That just proves that God has a plan for everyone. But there is another element of the fair that I love...barn exhibits. I love to see the artwork, veggies, and sewing projects that people enter for those ribbons. I was never the one to enter anything as a kid. But now that I have children of my own, the second they turned 5, we were standing in line, filling out forms and all those little tags. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you don't, then you have been spared. Then on Mondays when the barns are opened, all us "stage moms" are rushing to see if our darlings have won any ribbons. Then it happens and again I say, what's wrong with me? I get horribly competitve with myself! How crazy can I make myself collecting artwork from the kids, framing it, tagging it, searching through the fair catalog to see what else I can enter. It's crazy. But this year, I snapped. It's terrible. Now along with art exhibits, we are also decorating toilets. You should have seen my living room - imagine 3 toilets lined up, hot glue gun going, craft crap all over the floor! Why the toilet contest - because my husband, who is a plumber, sponsors the contest. Its quite popular and lots of fun. But it becomes an obsession for me, putting in too much time and thought on the winning entry. The boys are great at coming up with titles and picking out items needed to make their creation. Its wonderful to see their creativity bloom and stretching their minds to think beyond the usual. So what's the problem? It's when the judges pick toilets as the winners that ARE NOT nearly as creative or they just don't "get" the idea behind it. This year, the winning toilet truely deserved first place, Wizard of Oz theme "I'm flushing, flushing.." get it? But I'm sorry - the 3rd place toilet had a recycle theme, covered in newspapers and aluminum cans in the toilet. Now HOW does that compare to my son's "Pottyry" toilet? A toilet covered with broken pottery, potters wheel and clay? Son #1 came up with it all on his own....and he places 12th?? I lost it. I did not totally trash part of my house to come in 12th place. I know, you say, well you are bias because it's your son. That's true. But I looked at all the entries, lots of great and creative entries. But come on....12th? I swear I won't enter again next year....but then again, there is always next year! http://www.besthillservicestoiletcontest.blogspot.com