My life is to make everything around me beautiful.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

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.
~*~

6 comments:

  1. You make me laugh Connie! Padded bras!
    I think all our past lifestyles can add something to where we are now. you were obviously a highly organised lady in your previous work, and I'm sure that you are using that now in the service of god.

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  2. Connie, it seems like I have encountered some people like that in my lifetime also! Love your photos!

    -Kim :)

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  3. Sista, quit your daydreamin'!! Did you know that I was named for a padded bra? Yep, sure was. Mother had originally wanted to name me after my dad (Bobby) so if I was a girl she told everyone I was gonna be Bobbette. A friend of hers, also expecting, stole that name as she had her baby first (thank heavens for that!), so one day as Mum was walking the town square for excersise while waiting for Bobby to get off work, she spied a "Stephanie" bra in a store window ~ thus my name. Many Stephanies later, but I was one of the very first back in the mid 50's. A friend of mine that knew the story found me a Stephanie bra on eBay and I snapped it up and have it saved!! See where your daydreams are taking all of us?!?.......

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  4. How funny!!!!! You better watch out when you skype! Anyways, I am glad the sociopath did NOT have access to your finances and that she didn't ruin your reputation. A ruined reputation takes for ever to get back. the store I bought didn't have a good reputation (I didn't know) among the schools because of something 2 owners ago and we still couldn't fix that one. People have such long memories. Had I know that our rep was not so good, I would never have bought the store that is for sure.

    I am glad you are enjoying your mission work.

    Heather

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  5. I enjoyed your stories today and I also have a job where are long as I answer the phone and get people transfered I can play with my blogger friends.

    I think we have all been taken advantage of by people like your employee, it's called learning in life .

    I need a new padded bra LOL, so will waiting on your new post
    Good to see you again

    Janice

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  6. I have been following you for a few months but have never left a comment before. I do love reading your posts. Don't sweat the nose-picking! lol We all know that we all do it. I've even seen people in cars, driving down the road do it, I suppose they think that because they are moving, noone will see them. It's kind of reaffirming to see others demonstrating our own foibles. Sociopaths are indeed scary. I think it's because we can't reason with them at all. There's just something missing inside them. Kinda sad, because you know that they will never know joy and peace. I think we all have had our reputations attacked to some extent at some point in time. The truth will always out eventually, but it's not a fun thing to go thru. We have a family member who is vicious towards those she thinks have wronged her. That pretty much includes the whole family at this point. What a sad person she must be inside. On a more pleasant note, I really enjoy your posts. Thanks for letting me "share" a bit of your life.

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Comments are so nice and I thank all of you that leave one for me.