Vera Blondeau from Manitoba, Canada phoned in sick to her cashier's job Tuesday so she could cash in her lottery ticket worth CA$8.4 million (US$6.6 million).

Blondeau, 62, said she hasn't been eating or sleeping very well since she checked her 6/49 numbers against the winning combination in Sunday's paper and found they all matched.

"Oh, I'm very nervous," Blondeau, 62, said as she and husband Jim, 70, faced the press for the official announcement in a downtown hotel.

"It hasn't sunk in yet."

Jim didn't believe her at first.

"She told me she'd won the Big One. I told her, 'Ahhh. You're crazy.'"

The couple said they're quitting their jobs - he's a security guard - but apart from looking after their family, they have humble plans for the windfall.

Jim said he would like to do one thing he's never done before.

"I've always wanted to sit in a barber's chair in a barbershop and get my hair cut," he said, explaining that he's cut his own hair all his life.

Blondeau, who has two grown children and three teenaged grandchildren, said she couldn't bring to mind anything special she wanted to do for herself.

For the last 25 years, they've lived in Winnipeg, and they plan to stay in the same house.

"We're going to be the same. We're not going to be snotty," Jim said.

There have been 83 millionaires made in Manitoba from lottery wins of $1 million or more since 1980.