ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- A lottery winner who waited a week to come forward has claimed her prize.

Bernadette M. Gietka, of Middle River, Md., (pictured, right), received a $112 million check in the Governor's Reception Room in Annapolis Wednesday. Gietka bought the ticket June 20, but didn't realize she won until days after.

Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Maryland state lottery director Buddy Roogow introduced the letter carrier of 12 years Wednesday afternoon.

Gietka said she has played the lottery frequently lately because her mother started going into the store where she bought the ticket regularly. But she said she rarely checks over 50 percent of the tickets she buys.

At odds of 135 million to one, Gietka said she felt sick and excited when she found out she had the winning ticket.

"Your stomach just turns right over, it's a very strange reaction you don't think you'd feel that," she said. "I've finished being sick ... I'm just enjoying telling the story of it and trying to figure out what to do with it."

Gietka, who waited four days before claiming her winnings and one full week passed since then, Roogow said. Gietka then called the lottery June 27, at which point officials validated the ticket.

"I was sure I wasn't going to lose it," Gietka said.

Roogow said she bought a random-drawing ticket but didn't know she had won until about four days after the drawing. He said the ticket had Gietka's blood on it, so that, despite many rumors, lottery officials could have checked DNA on the ticket for authenticity. But they didn't have to do so, Roogow said.

Rumors of other winners included a truck driver from Tennessee who said the left the winning ticket in Jessup, Md., and a woman who claimed she was in the middle of a divorce and wanted to claim the winnings before the divorce took place, Roogow said.

It all started when she bought the ticket at Geresbeck's Food Market in Essex, Md.

"My mother went into the store to buy 10 [tickets, but] changed her mind [and] bought five and I bought four. I looked at the ticket and the numbers were '1, 2, 3' and I thought to myself, 'I may as well throw this one right in that can,'" Gietka said.

"When I was at work, my niece called me [and said] that the numbers were '1, 2, 3' and was bought at that store, and I didn't know I had the ticket with me. I found out [later] that I had the ticket with me [in my purse] and it was the right store," Gietka said. "We thought maybe at that point [that I had the winning ticket] but I didn't find out because I went to the movies [with my girlfriend]. That was the most stressful time that I went through."

Gietka said the movie was "Bruce Almighty" and she "didn't get much out of it, it wasn't very good. We hardly saw the movie, we kept talking back and forth."

She hasn't figured out what she's going to do with the money yet, but there are certainly many people who would like to help her figure out what she's going to do with the money, Ehrlich said.

"I've had a lot of business meetings that I've never had before and I've never had to think about before, and I've had to learn really fast," Gietka said.

"The first thing will be to wait for Disney to co-produce my script called 'Clay's Quest,' a futuristic fantasy sequel to the 'Wizard of Oz,'" Gietka said.

Next on Gietka's beneficiary list include the Holy Rosary Church, family, her house, cars and investments.

"We've been sitting in the new Corvette Anniversary Edition, which I never thought I would want, but I did," Gietka said. Then, to the reporter who asked the question, Gietka said, "You want one, I can see it in your eyes!"

Gietka got a rise out of the governor when she mentioned a trip to Delaware and Atlantic City, N.J., to play slot machines. Ehrlich's major campaign issue was to bring slots to Maryland.

"My mother has bus trips to go play slots in Delaware," Gietka said. "We have to go all the way down there to play, so I just couldn't lose my money."

That's when the Ehrlich interrupted Gietka and asked her where she would prefer to play.

Gietka responded: "In Maryland! It would be so nice"

Roogow said Gietka (pictured, left with Ehrlich), recently closed on a $62,000 mortgage on what she called a tiny house that she wanted so badly. And in the week before she won, Gietka asked for extra hours to help colleagues who were on leave for various reasons.

But even after finding out that she had won, Gietka showed up for the extra shifts she was assigned.

"I love working. I was committed already, it would be like letting people down, which I don't do," Gietka said.

Gietka graduated from the School of Sisters of Notre Dame and went to the Peabody Institute. Among her hobbies include producing and writing scripts for movies and playing classical piano. In fact, she has five pianos in her house.

When handed the state's cut of the winnings to cover taxes, Ehrlich said: "You're a good citizen, Bernadette."

Gietka's family was with her during the announcement, taking a family picture with the winnings check.

"I am very glad that she bought the ticket because she turned out to be so much smarter than I am, I'm very proud of her," Gietka's mother said.

Gietka said she will continue playing the lottery and that "Governor Ehrlich said it's required now that I buy 25 scratch tickets for the rest of my life every day."

Gietka is the second Maryland winner in as many as three months who won the top prize in the multi-state Mega Millions game. A total of 89,643 tickets were sold in Maryland.

What can you buy with $76 million?

• The Russians will blast you to the International Space Station -- at $20 million per trip, you could afford three roundtrips visits.
• If you prefer to keep your feet on the ground, $76 million will buy you 527 BMW Alpina roadsters -- -- the most expensive BMW sold in the United States.
• If all this talk of traveling makes you hungry, you could spend your lottery winnings on 19 million Big Mac meals at McDonald's.