Just Sittin' Here Daydreaming

One of the things I love most about this mission for my Church is just being able to sit here taking calls while I blog! I'm so loving this. We all need to serve in some way and this is my small way in helping people.

Having been the highest paid woman in a very top Fortune 500 company, you would think this is beneath my capabilities. Noooo, it is not! When we serve our fellow man we are serving our God. I know it's hard to believe someone so humorous—ME—can be very religious, but I think God loves humor. After all, he gave us teenagers, didn't he? *Smirk*

Today, I give you more photos of English kitchens, which are very homey. I love the look of them and the coziness they exude. Isn't this window arrangement just lovely? I like the cheerfulness it brings.

I am a big devotee of mismatched chairs.

These next two photos are the same kitchen if you can believe it, huge by my standards, but just scrumptious.

I have a pantry but nothing near what this larder is.

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A group of us women had lunch together a couple of weeks ago and the subject of sociopaths came up. Yes, I know, it's a strange subject to come up but I had a question about something else—narcissism—and that segued right into sociopaths. One of my friends is a licensed psychologist so she was more than willing to answer a question. So I told them my first experience with a sociopath—and hopefully, my last!

Our decision to move to Idaho was a fluke caused by the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco. We arrived here and bought a small business and retained the one employee of that existing business. (This was a total lifestyle change for us, trust me.) That woman was the best salesperson I'd ever seen. If someone walked through the door, it was rare that she would not get the sale. She was that good. The problem was she was a sociopath as I found out later.

She never had access to our finances but she got around that in other ways. One was giving our product away at our cost. She apologized and we lost a great deal of money, but she was our employee so we bit the dust on that one.

Then she would lie and tell people in that small town that we were doing things we were absolutely not doing. She could look right at you and lie and you'd believe her before me. It was truly mind boggling. But she was so believable that it almost destroyed our reputation. Come to find out she had been in prison for embezzlement. Then one day the Secret Service showed up and asked us about her! She had been using a credit card belonging to a friend of hers in another state. That is a federal crime. Talk about shocked. While this woman wasn't a very attractive lady, if she had fixed herself up and dressed more stylish, she could have been a millionaire in selling.

At that time a new friend, whose husband was a psychologist, (Why have most of my friends or their husbands been in the mental health field?) and I were talking while sitting at a park one day and I told her the story. That's when I found out about sociopaths. She told me that's what sociopaths do. They have absolutely no conscience of right or wrong. It certainly enlightened me and I am much more guarded around people now. Our church excommunicated her and the leaders came to me and hubby and talked about it but we assured them she didn't have access to our finances. But it is kind of sad when someone with such a skill as selling does things like that when they could be so successful honestly.
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Just a few Random Thoughts for today:

Embarrassing moment: The other day I was on Skype with another missionary who was helping to train me doing this mission. I hadn't even combed my hair that morning as I wear a headset when sitting here taking the calls. I started picking my nose and several minutes later I realized we were on video chat! Talk about embarrassing. So be careful when you are skyping with someone. I have my preferences set so no one can video me without me clicking on Video. I screwed up that day for sure. I didn't know what to say. Deer in the headlights?! So quiet I could hear my brain cells dividing?! Yep, all of the above.
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Am I perfect because I'm a Christian? Nuuuuu, I am as imperfect as people come. I don't dance with the devil but he sure signs my dance card frequently!
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Next time I think I'll talk about padded bras.
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Pink Saturday 1/7/2012 English Country Rooms

Happy Pink Saturday once again and thanks to Beverly for hosting it. Visit all that you can or at least one new one you've never visited before. Have fun!

Click on the logo below to see what it's all about.
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Here I've shown some scenes from English country life. I love England and the British Isles, but I wouldn't want to live there. I love my country, as I'm sure the British do, but home is home. I can not even imagine living anywhere else in the world. Too much is romanticized about living abroad, but that's all it is: romanticized. Having visited other countries I do have knowledge of them, plus we have family members who came here from other countries. They risked much to get here and have become U.S. citizens. They tell me other countries, especially where they are from, would give all they could to come here. So be careful what you wish for, sweet bloggers.

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Random Thoughts:

Over on her blog, Claudia has been blogging about the English language used today, and I'm definitely with her on this one. But I have one more thing I hear a lot in conversations and that is: there's. When speaking there's is singular; plural would be there're or there is and there are. I majored in English so trust me on this one. Example: There's the men of the organization coming towards us. Incorrect. It should be: There're the men of the organization coming towards us. Men is plural. Okay, I'm OCD about proper English, but a nation that can't speak well because they aren't taught well and aren't corrected when wrong because someone is afraid of hurting their self-esteem, shows its ignorance. And that brings up the proper use of its and it's.

It's is a contraction for it is. Its refers to possession. The bird was preening its feathers. It's the bird that is preening its feathers. Get it. You will be thought of as well-spoken if you master this one and a few other very, very common English errors. Speaking well shows knowledge and intelligence.

Oh, and anyone reading this has my permission to use this in your blogs. Please! We must be better educated with our native language. Help me to get the word out.
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Love bunny and I go to restaurants at least twice a week. (Read previous post for why.) A restaurant is a place to eat. Their goal is to make good food, have happy customers and make money. Okay, for those of you out there that have a problem with people and/or businesses making money, let me ask you: What would you have a business for? Making money, right? Yes!! Okay, with that being said, the restaurants aim would be to make you happy so you'll come back. If you don't see something on the menu that you'd like, then ask if they can fix something for you that you'd prefer. A good restaurant will try and most will be happy to please you. Trust me on this one also.

Recently at Applebee's we noticed they had taken 2 of our favorites off their menu. Mine was Asiago Peppercorn Steak. I LOVE that! Voilà, I now order it though it is not on the menu. Problem solved or I would have gone elsewhere. I'm an assertive woman who usually gets what I want, being gracious and smiling, of course. There's no reason to be rude...ever! I'll tell you about my letter to Olive Garden in a later post. ;-) Ooooh, and the apostrophe in Applebee's? It's because it's intended to show possession as in Applebee's Restaurant; we just shorten it. Besides, it's the way they spell it.
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More 24 and Jack Bauer.

It truly amazes me how many traitors get into CTU (counter terrorism unit). I hope that isn't true in our actual government; although, looking at it makes me wonder!
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I can't think of one instance where Jack Bauer has been wrong. Why don't they believe and trust him? Boggles my mind.
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Most spoken phrase: "It's imperative this stays between us." Then the man or woman turn on their heels and run to spread the news. Sheesh.
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Another popular phrase: "Everybody's losing it.
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Jack Bauer should be given a bill for everything he's destroyed. That man goes through some equipment!!
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They keep giving the traitors a gun.
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They are constantly on their cell phones, and they never go dead. I want their cell phones!!
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Tough guys don't have to act tough. Example: US Marines, my heroes!!!
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But all in all, I absolutely still love that show.
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Until next time...and there will be more. And if I've made any errors here it's because I'm too lazy to go back and read it again.
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Happy New Year 2012

This holiday season is officially over, but hubs and I both noticed that there was no big celebration on the news sites this year as in years past where they at least have the ball dropping in Times Square. I mean the internet sites since we have no television. It kind of fizzled out with a whimper. I wonder if it's the apathy or are people actually realizing the reason for this celebration or if it's just the mood of the country: tepid and/or frustrated with how things are going in general. I love this time of year but we just don't celebrate much and try to keep the spirit of the season. We don't have small kids at home though so it's very easy for us and I truly have everything I need and most of what I want. At any rate,

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE

Again, just look at the homes below without any descriptions from me. I'm too lazy to do it right now.

We went to the cinema today to see War Horse. A strange thing happened though.

We bought the tickets and actually splurged on popcorn and sodas for a total of $33.50. I thought it was outrageous but I wanted popcorn. Hubs "scrooged" a bit but he finally stopped complaining and got a soda, and I shared my popcorn with him. In 20 years we've only been to the movies about 5 times and 2 of those were free tickets from our home teachers in our ward. I'm not interested in movies much but I cannot understand how a family of 6 could even afford to go on a regular basis. With just popcorn and drinks it would easily be $100.00. Now I know why Netflix is so popular.

Anyway, we went into the theater for War Horse according to the ticket person and the marquee inside the theater. The movie started with several coming attractions, and by-the-way, the only one I would want to see is Mirror, Mirror with Julia Roberts, a take on Snow White with humor. Absolutely my kind of flick! Then what I think was a cartoon about self-esteem. Ooooh, puhleeze! How politically correct can we get? Then a muppet cartoon also. I thought it was kind of strange to list so many credits at the beginning of the cartoon, but after about 20 minutes, hubs said, "Give me the tickets." I did; he marched out, came back and said, "We're in the wrong theater!" It was a muppet movie. But we were so clueless as to cartoons and such that we actually thought it was a cartoon.

We got up and went to the cinema manager and told him what had happened. He said the movie we wanted to see was about 20 minutes into the story and we could go in. I said, "No, I want to see it from the start, so we'll come back at a different time." (I am NOT a wimp and very assertive—VERY!) He said that was fine so we elected to see it at the 6:30 time.

Bottom line: If you haven't seen War Horse, go! It was absolutely wonderful and a true family movie. No swearing, nudity, sex or anything that you wouldn't allow your kids to see. Just a great movie.

More in a few days. I have much to say lately.
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English Country Rooms

For this Pink Saturday's participants, just click on the logo below and go to Beverly's Blog where you'll see all the participants. It's my favorite thing to do on Saturday, and Beverly is just a sweet person to know.

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For Pink Saturday I'm going to show a painting a dear sweet friend of mine painted and I bought a couple of years ago. She has gifted me with several of her beautiful roses paintings also. She does beautiful work. Her name is Lorena. I believe she incorporated pink into the Christmas stocking in a dazzling way. Just love it!

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The holiday season is almost over, and it's calmed down here quite a bit, so I'd like to try and get back on track with blogging. I spent the Friday before Christmas in bed and didn't get out until Sunday night when Love Bunny cooked the whole turkey dinner for me. We believe I got food poisoning from a bad jar of salad dressing I used on tuna salad a few days before. I'm fine now though. And his dinner was superb. I did mash the potatoes for him however.

I'm sick to death of food at the moment. I ate my way through about 2 boxes of chocolates, a pumpkin roll a friend surprised me with (DELICIOUS!), numerous Milky Way Simply Caramel bars, cinnamon rolls, a Dutch apple pie, a pumpkin pie, Coldstone Creamery LARGE (Is that one called Gotta Have It?) chocolate ice cream dish, Olive Garden Black Tie Mousse pie, Applebee's Triple Chocolate Overload cake, pumpkin cookies, a popcorn and nut mix with chocolate drizzle, a cake that sent my taste buds into survival mode with all the sugar in the frosting and a Jack in the Box Chocolate overload cake also. My sugar level is right up there with the National Debt, trust me.

So with that being said, let's view some pictures of some English homes I love. I incorporate English, a touch of French, Traditional, Romantic, Shabby, Chic and a bit of ME thrown into the mix in my decorating. I always have thrown in a bit of ME, but certainly over the years my styles have changed. Just view the rooms without me saying too much about them. Pictures speak louder than my words ever could.

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And just for your information, I'll have more pictures this week with more thoughts on 24 and Jack Bauer very soon. ;-)
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Romantic Country Rooms #4

Aren't these rooms lovely also? Girls, look at some of the ideas in these room, adapt them to your homes and run with it.

Pair a red and white check chair/sofa or cloth with a kilim rug and some old pottery found at a garage sale. Do NOT be afraid to mix several patterns in a room. I think it's dramatic when done.

Or look around your house or your mother's or grandmother's house for some old furbelows (trims) and bibelots to showcase in your homes. Showcase them magnificently!

Add drama with a bold color somewhere in a room.

Or find what you might consider an ugly oddity and showcase it. I'll bet you it will grow on you. That has truly happened to me.

While I absolutely love pink and most colors associated with reds, I'm not averse to other colors, especially yellow. Yellow is a cheery color when you have a dark house. Nuuuuu, I'm not changing my walls from pink to yellow, but I truly LOVE pink and bright yellow together. I guess the owner of this room does too because she pairs those bright yellow walls with a red/pinkish sofa on the left.

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