Thanks to that mismatched pair of skills, the well-matched Homen pair may soon be packing their bags for a week's vacation on a private island off the coast of Belize. If they do end up on the beaches of Cayo Espanto, they'll have quite a tale to tell about how they got there.

The story, according to Judy, begins back on Oct. 17, 1989. When the 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake struck, the only item damaged in the Homen home was a porcelain Lladro bride-and-groom figurine that had stood atop their wedding cake. While Judy was overcome with tears at the now-headless groom, Frank calmly comforted his wife, collected the pieces, glued them together and placed the figurine back on the shelf, where it still stands to this day.

"He explained to me that this broken statue was a metaphor for life—full of heartbreaks and mishaps. No one is perfect. We all have our cracks and flaws. Things may break, but you can fix them," Judy wrote in a short essay about the incident.

That essay may be the couple's ticket to Belize, as Judy submitted it to the Coffee-Mate.com website this September for the "Escape With Your Perfect Mate" contest. Out of approximately 5,000 entries from people throughout the United States, Judy's essay about Frank and his quiet gallantry was chosen as one of five finalists. If she doesn't win the weeklong trip, she is guaranteed a local weekend getaway as a "consolation prize."

"I don't normally enter contests at all!" exclaims Judy, who says she's not sure how she ended up at the Coffee-Mate website several months ago, but when she saw the essay contest she decided to write about her husband, owner of the locally based company Sunrise Landscape Maintenance.

"I wrote it early in the morning. I rewrote it four or five times, and I sent it in. The story just flowed. I started it at 5 a.m. and had it finished at 6. From 5 to 6 a.m. is when I have time to myself," says the busy mother of four, who works as a media specialist at Saratoga's Sacred Heart School and is an aspiring author with two children's books "in the works."

"I thought, 'You never know; might as well try! You've got nothing to lose,' " Judy adds. And, she reveals with a giggle, she realized she might have something else to gain, aside from the weeklong trip or weekend getaway.

"A co-worker of mine, Stacy, always uses Coffee-Mate in her coffee. I'm always using her Coffee-Mate, so I thought I'd better try to replace it," she says, referring to the year's supply of Coffee-Mate products that each of the five finalists automatically wins.

Even if her essay doesn't win first place, Judy says, she is happy to be a finalist, and even happier to have a husband like Frank. As she concludes in her essay:

"Maybe there really is not a perfect man, a perfect marriage or a perfect family. We all have our good days and bad days. However, one thing I can say is, when the going gets tough, my husband can make my world shine a whole lot brighter—and under that sky, he is my perfect mate."

Visit www.coffee-mate.com/matesweeps/vote.asp to read Judy Homen's essay and those of the other four finalists. The voting deadline is Jan. 14.