10 random things about me
Sometimes on Instagram, people do Friday Introductions posts, where they share some random things about themselves. I always love to read those and I figured, hey, why should Instagram have all the fun? So I thought I'd do one here.
It's gonna be pretty much completely off-topic, but hopefully it'll be a fun diversion.
1. I have some kind of weird inner compass.
I can almost always tell you which direction I'm going, and it's not because I deduce it logically by looking at the sun. It's just something I feel.
And it's been like this my whole life.
For example, I visited my uncle's house in Kentucky once when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, and I know that his house faced south (I confirmed it with him recently!) I've found that all of my childhood feelings about which way my relatives' houses faced are correct, in fact.
I have no idea why my brain works like this, but I don't think it's something I learned.
2. One of my pet peeves is: people who don't GO when the stoplight arrow turns green.
Turn-lane green lights are notoriously short, and I hate it when people dilly-dally their way off of the light, leaving the rest of us to sit through another light cycle.
GO!
🙂
3. I have super bad eyesight.
My nearsightedness is so bad, I can't put on eye makeup without putting my contacts in first.
I have to get SO close to the mirror to see myself, there's no room for an eyeliner pencil or eyeshadow brush!
I've had glasses or contacts since I was 7, so I have no recollection of what it's like to be able to see unassisted.
4. I rarely spent money when I was a kid.
I've been a saver for a long time!
5. During high school, I did almost all of the cooking for my family.
My sister and I kind of volunteered ourselves, although I think I must have been slightly more enthused about the idea because I did more cooking than my sister did.
My mom felt that this having-dinner-cooked-by-someone-else arrangement was just fine, so it wasn't a hard sell. 😉
6. I always wanted to have 5 kids.
But pregnancy was a lot harder for me than I anticipated.
(Hyperemesis. It is a drag.)
I got sicker and sicker with each successive pregnancy, and after a really, really tough pregnancy with Zoe, I decided I couldn't do the pregnancy thing anymore.
So. Four it is for me. And I'm good with that!
7. I will be 45 when my youngest kiddo graduates from high school.
Which means that, God willing, I'll still have lots of years ahead of me after the years of full-time mom-ing are past (though of course, one is always a mom!)
8. Once, I put a cactus in my jeans pocket.
I was on a bike ride on a camping trip (I was probably 7 at the time), and I found a cool, relatively flat cactus on the side of the road.
So, I picked it, put it in my front jeans pocket, and biked back to the campground.
Friends, tiny cactus spines go right through the material jeans pockets are made of. 😉
But they poke through jusssst gently enough for you to only realize the extent of the damage once it's too late.
9. I have always been much better with words than numbers.
On every standardized test I took from grade school through the SAT, my English scores were always significantly higher than my math scores. And in school I was usually ahead of my grade in spelling and vocabulary.
That is a thing that never happened with my math curriculum.
Thus, I am a blogger, not a mathematician.
(Though I must say, I'm getting pretty good at Algebra 2, since it's my second time through it as a homeschool mom. Imagine how good I'll be by the time Zoe goes through it. OH HEY TRINOMIALS. YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?)
10. I never understood why Laura Ingalls Wilder hated her brown eyes and brown hair.
I have nothing against blonde hair and blue eyes, mind you. One of my own kiddos has that combo!
But I don't really get why blue/blonde is so often coveted over brown eyes and brown hair. And I always thought Laura's hair was probably quite lovely.
I think brown eyes are beautiful (I love the variations in the brown of Mr. FG's eyes), and I feel the same way about brown hair too...there's often such an interesting combination of colors that make up a person's brown hair; some lighter, some darker, some redder.
Anyway.
I always liked mine, and I think there should be more societal love for brown hair/eyes. Just because something is common, it doesn't mean it's not beautiful.
Embrace your ordinary-yet-beautiful eyes and hair, people! 🙂
___________________
Well. That was fun to write. I hope it was fun to read too!
P.S. I am very curious if any of you know anything about the internal compass thing. I've googled in vain, but I'm positive I'm not the only one whose brain works like this.
Someone recently tagged me for one of those "awards" that then result in answering questions about yourself on your blog. Remember those from years ago? I did it, and it WAS surprisingly fun. But then, I do enjoy talking about myself. 🙂
Both my husband and father-in-law have unerring senses of direction. They also can "see" in their mind's eye what a place looks like in relation to the surrounding area as if they were seeing an aerial view. Thankfully, they seem to have passed this on to my middle son, who once ran off in the woods during a fishing trip when he was four, and after a really horrible half hour in which we called the sheriff and the search dog showed up (the woods here are no joke--unpopulated and go on forever), my son actually managed to find his way back to the spot he had run from. And where my husband had posted my older son to wait just in case.
A sense of direction is a wonderful thing. I wish I had one . . .
Hai! We have much in common! I have the internal compass too. God put it there. Congratulations He gave it to you too. We are lucky. You are genuine and lovely, brown- eyed girl. I appreciate all you give of yourself through blogging. Sincerely, Jen
I mean, really. What other topic in the world is as interesting as ourselves??
I do the aerial thing too!
Oh I thought you meant an spiritual internal compass. Haha, because I've heard of that before. An actual compass like feeling, hmm I haven't heard of that. I couldn't tell south until I was 16.
Your 4 children are beautiful, it must have been crazy to do it 4x and be frugal about it. I was a saver as a kid too, I've always been a saver. Internal money compass maybe?!
Love it! I'll post a few about myself- I always liked school. I can't stand to be late and this is probably the only thing that makes me anxious. Unlike you, I never cooked until I married at age 21 and then I used a cookbook and was fine. I had my first child at age 24, second at age 27 and third at age 39- same husband; we just waited for number three. I love my job and have no plans to ever retire.
My dad had an internal compass. It was amazing to behold. I have one too, but it is not as developed. Very convenient, though. Particularly before smartphones.
As for being a saver...I am still not one of those. I do it. Quite prolifically, in fact, but it doesn't come naturally at all. Spending is always my initial preference. I just tell that inner voice to shush. Constantly.
Yes! I have the internal compass thing, too. For me, I can always tell you which way is south, even since I was a child. Then I can figure out other directions based on which way is south. I think it might be connected with synesthesia, which I have in some forms as well.
The funny thing is, I"m terrible at navigating from one place to another. I know which way is south, but I need to drive a route 4-5 times before I feel comfortable knowing what I’m doing.
My husband, I think, has the internal compass thing. He just knows where we are all the time. I love this about him, even if I'm not horrible with directions myself.
As for brown hair/eyes-- I always wanted a brown-eyed baby, but that was completely not going to happen when I married my husband since neither of us have brown eyes.
My husband and son have an internal compass, but not me. You turn me around in a hallway and I'm lost. GPS was the greatest invention ever for me. As for cooking, I cooked most of the meals when I was in high school. It was one of my chores as my mother was working a lot of hours as a nurse. I don't know, but that may be why I don't like to cook much today.
I have no sense of direction. North, South, East, West, mean nothing to me. My family knows if giving me directions, the best thing to do is to give me landmarks to go by.
Until a few years ago I had a pretty good internal compass. Then I got turned around and cannot figure out working downtown which was is north! I'm still pretty good at navigating when we go on vacation though (just not in Zanzibar where the streets are tiny alleys).
And like you I've always been frugal and rarely spent any of my babysitting money I started earning in 6th grade. I would rather save for the future than buy some candy now (okay, some candy).
Not to say I never get lost....because I do! But no matter where I am, I always automatically picture it in relation to places I know. (Now if I am in a foreign place to me, I cannot do this) So I think it's more of an internal map kinda thing with me:)
Enjoyed this post! I don't have an internal compass for directions like NSEW, but I have an "inborn" sense of direction as far as knowing where I am in relation to where I'm going. When we go places, I navigate and my husband drives. My brother in law is from Kansas, where EVERYTHING is NSEW. Give me "right" and "left" and I'm good! 🙂
Our youngest graduates from high school this year, and I just turned 50. Not quite as young as you (that's YOUNG to have four kiddos!) but I am happy to be a young mom (and grandma!) hopefully someday. I don't have the inner compass (not at all!) but I do have the thing you've mentioned before (I can't remember the term.) where I "see" things in colors. And I, too, love my dark brown hair (I have lots of red highlights.) and BLUE eyes! My dad had blue eyes and my mom had brown eyes, and me and my three siblings all have blue eyes. My husband has brown eyes (he's half Portuguese), and two of our dark-haired children have brown eyes and one has blue eyes. Then we have a blondie who has brown eyes. I find the whole genetics thing fascinating. God is amazing!
Color synesthesia!
This was such a fun post! I agree with the brown eyes note. I, myself have light hair and light eyes. But my little girl has these big, dark brown-almost black eyes that I think are stunning!
I am with you on the green light issue. Come on people, there are others behind you!
How about brown hair and gray/green/blue eyes? (I'm really not sure what color my eyes are.) And yes, blondes are over-rated. haha
My daughter has one of those eye colors that can't be described as one color. They are grogeous, of course, I am biased.
Lol, gorgeous...geez
My 8yo son’s eyes are like that, too. They used to be a crystal blue color, but are now a light green/blue/grey. He is my surprise blond, though.
Our youngest son actually has one blue eye and one brown eye !!
My Dad has one blue eye and one brown eye. Many years ago he was in the Marines and they made him pick a single eye color because there wasn't any way to pick two colors on the paperwork!
I have a friend who has brown eyes, but one "pie piece" shaped slice on one eye is blue. And... her sister (who is two years younger than she is) has the opposite - blue eyes with one brown slice. Very interesting...
Internal compass idea is fascinating as is any other innate and inexplicable sense. I marvel that we are each so unique. I do have to say that I am always a bit cautious when the first to pull away at a green light; perhaps a split second goes by. Safety is the reason. So many people run the red lights, especially around these parts. Annapolis, Baltimore, etc.
On the US East Coast, drivers tend to run yellows or reds. On the US West Coast, drivers tend to jump the green. Be careful when you move from one to the other.
Hmmm, the internal compass thing..I can't relate because I am strangely right the opposite. I learned later than normal which direction things were. For instance, I didn't really think of Florida as South of me. It's possible I was too busy talking to learn that in school. Maybe you were reincarnated from a bird that instinctively knows to fly South for the winter, lol, just kidding! I do have to say that I usually know which is the right way to go if I am lost. For example, when yardsaling, I am frequently in unfamiliar territory. I usually know which way will get me to something I can recognize. Also, if everyone had blonde hair and blue eyes what a boring world this would be. I color my hair, I even did a post about it today, but I do it because I'm not too happy with the gray that is creeping up, so it disguises that a little. I love beautiful, silvery gray. Mine doesn't look like that. There is not much prettier than healthy, shiny looking brown hair, IMO. All my kids have brown hair and I think they look great!
By the way, I love this post!
And I on the other hand never ever know what direction I am going in or which way to turn. When my husband and I went to Italy on our 25th wedding anniversary he told me if I should get separated from him to STAY in one spot and he would find me, otherwise I would wander off to a neighboring country and he would never find me! Lol.
Thank you for sharing, Kristen! I feel like I know you much better than before.
I didn't know you wanted to have 5 kids. Taking care of Baby FAF alone already tires me out. We're expecting our second baby soon, and my husband is already talking about wanting 3 kids. I guess we'll need to see about that when we know what it's like to take care of a toddler and an infant at the same time. 😉
I have no sense of direction -- I can get lost in Walmart. My brother is the same way, so I always say it's genetic.
Here is a very interesting article about how people who do have a good sense of direction have brains that are different from those that don't -- in essence, you really do have an internal compass: http://mentalfloss.com/article/54572/your-sense-direction-innate
I definitely don't have an internal compass, but I do have a pretty good internal sense of time. I can usually guess what time it is within about a 5 minute range even if I haven't looked at a clock for awhile; I feel super accomplished when I'm right within 1-2 minutes :).
That's pretty cool!
I have this too! My internal clock is almost always exact. This freaks people out. I stopped wearing a watch when I realised I had such a brilliant internal clock. It's quite helpful I have to say.
I have spacial sequencing synesthesia and I also have a sort of internal compass; I definitely feel like the two are related. It tends to get out of whack in big cities where I can’t see in all directions, but I can usually find a land mark and get re-calibrated.
I went to France with a group of students and two teachers when I was 11. Even though I had never been there before and the teachers had been several times, I was frequently telling them which way we needed to go when exploring places. They seemed irritated by it, but I just knew and wanted to be helpful!
I think this ability stems from always noticing where the sun rises and sets? But I also grew up in the country where all the roads form squares and if someone was giving directions it was always using north/south/east/west, so it could’ve just been something I learned at a young age.
"giving directions it was always using north/south/east/west,"
Funny you should mention that. There are 2-3 studies that show that in cultures where directions are given in N/S/E/W (ie, absolute) terms, people learn to orient themselves without thinking about it. However, in cultures where directions are given in left/right (ie, relative) terms, people don't learn this.
My internal compass is not very sensitive, but if I have spent enough time somewhere I know what direction it faces without intentionally thinking about it and often see it in my mind as if it placed on a map.
I have not yet calculated how old I will be when my kids graduate high school, but I am already 41 and my youngest is 3, so I will be way older than 45!
One thing I do love about your blog is your excellent spelling and use of vocabulary! Seriously! I follow a lot of blogs that are interesting but the spelling is atrocious. When will the internet learn the word voila? Not viola, whalla, walla...
This is also something I love about the FG blog!
Me too!
Oh man, when people use "viola" instead of "voila", it cracks me up so much! What's the other one that's funny to me...oh! When people type "defiantly" instead of "definitely". It changes the meaning of the sentence so much, and I always imagine someone rebelliously doing whatever the sentence is about.
There's a story[1] about a college student who turned in an English Lit essay in which he referenced a woman who tumbled and lay prostitute at the foot of the stairs. The prof commented in the margin that the student needed to learn the different between a fallen woman and one who merely tripped.
Hahaha! My vocabulary pet peeve is people who get weary and wary mixed up. And the thing is, they do it when they're speaking so it's not just a typo. I've been known to yell at the television on occasion when some newscaster mixes them up.
The "Walla!" thing has always secretly made me laugh. As a bit of a word nerd I notice little mistakes everywhere and it amazes me to no end. Voila doesn't even have a "w" sound!
Well, not in the first sound anyway. Haha!
I, too, really appreciate the care Kristen takes with her writing. It's a pleasure to read this blog, and not so much with some others. I think when bloggers or any writers are obviously careless with spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., it makes me doubt the information or opinions expressed. One I just read was someone saying that she was a professional woman but she misspelled or misused "there", "they're", and "their". After that I just felt like I didn't need to read anymore! Of course, we all have those days... not to mention autocorrect fails! Anyway, thanks!!!
I love this post!
When I was a kid, I always wanted brown hair and brown eyes...I was blonde with blue eyes. As an adult, my hair has darkened, and my eyes aren't exactly blue anymore but instead change colors based on what I'm wearing. You're right that the key is embracing who you are, but of course, that was hard for my kid-self to do!
I have no internal compass at all. My husband and oldest daughter do, my youngest daughter does not. None of us have synesthesia of any kind, for what that's worth :).
I wanted two kids, which is what I have.
I love dark hair and eyes. I started out a "tow-head" blonde with fairly dark brown eyes, my hair gradually darkening to brown, but it never reached what I really wanted, which was black hair like my mom's. She had green eyes; my dad was the blonde with brown eyes who passed his coloring to me. I married a man with brown eyes, olive complexion and very dark brown hair -- our kids are both blondes with light eyes. Not what we expected, but they are biologically ours, I promise.
Some things people don't always know about me:
I was born on Feb. 29th.
I scored the same on science, math, art, reading and writing when taking those typing exams. It may sound great, but it made it so hard to know which direction to take for college and career. I settled on my greatest love for college -- Lit and creative writing.
I am afraid of heights, as in phobia afraid.
I had an allergic reaction to something unknown, as a pre-schooler -- I swelled so badly outside and in, I was given medication that was still in drug trials, to save me. So I was a human guinea pig for a now common drug. I never reacted that badly to anything else, before or after.
I played with a little green snake at church camp when the boys dared us girls to touch it. I wasn't about to let those boys make fun of us girls. I was surprised to find it didn't bother me to touch it.
I was raised around and on farms. I helped wrangle pigs weighing six times or more my weight, and bottle fed two baby pigs.
Everyone has a story!
I never expected to have two blue-eyed kids when I, a brown-eyed person, married a brown-eyed man. But Sonia and Zoe are both blue-eyed.
You guys must be carrying recessive blue eyed genes! https://www.babymed.com/tools/baby-eye-color-calculator-predictor
I love science <3
Yep! My mom has blue eyes and so does someone on Mr. FG's side. It just surprises me that that combo happened 2/4 times for our kids...it seems like the odds should be against that.
Yes the official genetics prediction would say that it would happenn 1/4 times, but they are just odds!
I had one green eyed parent and one brown eyed. My husband had one gray eyed parent and one brown eyed. One of our kids has yellow/green/gray eyes and one has gray eyes. I really enjoyed studying eye color genetics in biology, so I was surprised, but not shocked to have both kids come with light eyes.
My mom totally expected me to have brown-eyed kids --all of her kids (me and my siblings) have brown eyes.
My eyes are just as bad as yours. I rarely believe it when people tell me they have bad vision (but can somehow manage to walk around without their glasses). I almost never meet anyone with vision as bad as mine. It's terrifying when I'm on the freeway and a contact lens decides to pop out.
And I wish I was a young mother. I'm going to be 40 this year (gulp!). My husband and I have been trying to start a family for years, and we finally decided to adopt, but by the time it happens (IF it happens) I'll be soooooo old.
I hope you are able to adopt! I had my kids at 38 and 40 and while I would say a downside of raising a family at an older age is that it's harder to work through the fatigue that inevitably comes, there are many benefits of being an older mom--your kid(s) will be blessed by your parenting and the wisdom you have gained through the years!
Lasik is money well-spent, even though in your 40s you will end up needing reading glasses. Just sayin'. 🙂
My kids are both blue-eyed blonds, like my husband--I have to say, I was a little disappointed not to get a brunette with hazel eyes; however, I think all colors of hair/eyes/skin are beautiful in their own way. Makes me crazy that there are arbitrary standards of beauty.
But being an older mom isn't necessarily bad, you know? There are easy and hard things about being a young mom, and easy and hard things about being an older mom. It probably all balances out.
I'm sorry your path to motherhood has been tough, and I pray you and your husband are blessed with a little one soon!
Friends of ours wanted to adopt & were asked if they would be willing to take twins & they said yes, they try to keep twins together so when twin girls came up for adoption they went way down the waiting list to them; I pray too you will have a little one too.
My eyes were really bad before I had Lasik surgery in 2006. One morning, I woke up to find that I had knocked my glasses off the nightstand. I couldn't see well enough to find them.. or get dressed, or find a phone to call someone.. or probably even get out of the house if it caught on fire. I decided to go ahead and have the surgery. I do understand your fear. 40 is a great time to adopt and is not too old because you know more about yourself. You are going to be the best mommy!
I had a contact issue and had to drive home without them once. I agree: terrifying. I'm glad I only lived 5 minutes away.
Now I always try to keep a pair of glasses in the car.
And 40 is definitely not too old to have kids! My dad was 46 when I was born and he was a wonderful father. (My mom was 36)
There was a couple I knew that adopted three sisters in their sixties and those girls thrived!
Adoption is such a beautiful gift. I pray that You will have children to call your own sooner than later.
We struggled with infertility for 4 years before finally falling pregnant with twins from our second IVF.
My kids were born when i was nearly 35 so we are "old" parents but on the bright side, I have great perspective and not much phases me 🙂
There are definitely benefits to being an older parent.
I'm praying for you, Candace - you're going to be am amazing mom!
My husband is like that with the internal compass. I tease him about it, but it's handy. He thinks he is taking subtle light/environmental cues into account without realizing it, but I don't know how it works.
One time when we moved, we ended up switching sides of the bed in our new house. I said, "Isn't this weird?" and he responded, "It really is. We used to face East, and now we're facing North. This will take some getting used to." Which is....definitely not what I meant 🙂
I'm not bad with cardinal directions, but it's definitely a consciously learned thing about the town I live in - not innate like you and he have.
Haha! When I think of all the different places our bed has been in the last 20 years, I think of it directionally too. We've never switched sides of the bed, though. I don't think I could sleep on the other side at this point!
I only sleep on the left side of the bed!
My SIL has the BEST brown hair-brown eyes combo. I'm almost sad that cute little nephew has the blonde hair-blue eyes combo! (But not really. He's adorable. Yes, I'm biased.)
I'm absolutely stunned when I hear of people who love to cook. I have always regarded that white square box in the kitchen (the stove) as an instrument of oppression. Just kidding....sort of. But I did raise the kids and feed the husband for years. Now, in retirement, it rarely gets turned on.
I always wanted at least four children. Only had two.
About the internal compass, that is my husband. He never gets lost and can always find his way even after only going somewhere once. As for me I have literally gotten lost driving around the corner and just kept circling the block until someone walked out into the street to stop me!
I have the internal compass. I have always just felt like I knew which way was North South East West for some reason. It doesn't mean I never get lost just which way I'm heading which doesn't really help if I'm looking for Elm Street.
I have the internal compass too. I always know what way is North. Drop me in the jungle and I can find my way out. I can picture where I need to go even if I never been there. 3 out of 5 kids inherited this. My husband can get lost in a town we lived in for 20 years.
I have a great sense of direction, but not an internal compass. I do visualize aerially, so it is helpful for me to see an actual map once if I'm in a new place. Then I've got it down. I live in the Chicago area, so I do generally know compass direction here and anywhere where the big body of water is to the east. I went to California recently though and that screwed me up since the ocean was to the west!
I'm a green-eyed brunette with 3 brown-eyed/brunette children + 1 husband. I agree they are an equally beautiful combination and subject to many variations as well. It would have been nice to pass my green eyes to 1 off spring though! Maybe a grandbaby will have my eyes. 🙂
Chicago makes it so easy! Great city, too.
Yes, we always know where east is! I suppose in some other types of places there are features like mountains to use as reference. Iowa is kind of challenging for me...
I also have a good sense of direction and am often perplexed when people don't know how to get back the way they came & things like that. It helps that my husband is obsessed with maps and we spend a lot of time analyzing what is where.
Additionally, I heard a Hidden Brain podcast recently (titled "Lost in Translation" from Jan 29, 2018) that was more about learning languages, but there is an interesting section about tribes (for lack of a better word) in Australia that don't have words for "right" and "left", but always use cardinal directions to indicate which hand, foot, etc. So not "it's on your right", but "it's on your northwest side".
So you actually know where to go when you see one of those "In case of tornadoes or heavy winds, go to the west hallway in the southwest lower level corridor of the east wing of the north tower of the building" signs? Wow! If the disasters had struck, I would have died many times over in college dorms, hotels, and offices, because I could not understand the notices.
P.S. My related pet peeve is drivers who don't use turn lanes at all.
Haha! They should just have signs with arrows pointing the way to go. 😉
My dad used to love the lift (elevator) signs in Australia that said 'Do not use lift in case of fire'. He always enjoyed bad grammar. Incidentally in recent years they changed them to 'Do not use lift in the case of a fire'
I always wanted 6 children like my Mom. Until #1 was born. Then 2 sounded just fine. God surprised us as we were exiting the military with #3 on the way, and no insurance. God provided in a mighty way. So thankful to have had the bonus baby, now 32. I, too, am a brown eye/brown hair. Loved my long hair until mid-20's, then too much work. Short since, but also turned gray. Too cheap/too lazy to start dyeing it, so gray it will remain. I do hear from people, though, that it's the "good" gray, shiny and white. I'd still take the brown. We had one with brown/brown, and 2 are blue eyes/blond. My random is I like to spell and type and am fairly good at both. Loved that in school. And all the home economics classes. Took every single one. I still love to cook, it's the mess and dishes that aren't so fun.
I love spelling too! And vocabulary. Always my favorite subjects in school.
In no particular order:
1) My husband has an innate sense of direction. He can comfortably navigate in an unfamiliar city particularly if he knows something about the terrain/landmarks to begin with.
2) My three children have varying shades of brown hair but their eye colors differ a bit. The middle one is my only blue eyed child.
3) SLOW turners are my biggest pet peeve when driving. Oh my goodness, that drives me batty!
4) I didn't really cook before marrying. We ate our fair share of beige food as honeymooners in the form of pizza rolls and the like. I really enjoy cooking now, and my children always say that I should open up a restaurant so I've learned since those early days.
5) My name is Molly, and being on time is a continuing struggle. Ahem...See #3 above...:/
My Dad and I both have an internal compass. I've just always had it so it never made sense to me why people didn't know the direction they were going or how to get somewhere. It came in handy with my Dad since he was a truck driver. As far as the lights go, I always wait a second to make sure no one is running the red light before I go. Now I don't sit forever....just a pause and look kind of thing, because on several occasions I could have been t-boned if I had immediately pulled out when the arrow turned green. And we have something common with the kiddos...I ended up with five kids, but fortunately I didn't have much sickness with my first which is how I wound up with five and not four. After my first, I progressively got sicker and sicker with each pregnancy. Just like you by my last baby, I really should have been hospitalized. Thank goodness we made it through...but that was it. No more babies for me! And I'll be 54 before my last one graduates. I have a big span between mine....10, 14, 17, 19, & 23. Have a great day! 🙂
As a dark brown-haired, hazel- (green/brown combo) eyed little girl, I also felt that way about Laura Ingalls Wilder's unhappiness with herself. I love my hair color and only colored it once in my 51 years---it took so long for the color to process, and it was so expensive, I realized it was stupid and never did it again. I started getting gray hairs when I was 19 and now it's maybe 1/4 gray. I like the contrast of gray hair with dark brown, and just in the last year I've developed a stripe on one side in the front, it's dramatic and I think it's cool. I prefer to think of gray hair like Jamie said in the "Outlander" TV show: it's like moonlight. 😉 I love brown eyes too, I think they are so warm and lovely. My husband has blue eyes, brown hair and our son got that combo too.
Mine is starting to go gray a little bit too...mostly up by my temples. But it's blending in pretty well thus far, so I've left it alone. I'll see how I feel as time goes by.
So fun!!
I’m with you on the eyesight... I got glasses in second grade and can remember being amazed by being able to see things so clearly. Lol!
Ok fren, I've got to comment on the green light thing 🙂 I used to feel like you. However, I have been in 3 car accidents in the last 5 years that were NOT my fault! The last one in August was a teenager who thought she was at a 4 way stop and was not, totaled my car. Had I not hesitated at my stop sign, the accident for sure would have involved personal injury. Basically I don't count on people to NOT run red lights and I don't want to pull out in front of them. Be safe everyone!
I don't mind people checking in order to be careful. But when people don't go because they're just distracted or sitting on their cell phones...that drives me nuts! If you're the 5th car in a green turn lane with a green arrow, you're probably not sitting there to be safe...you're just distracted.
Agreed on the cell phone checking at green lights!
I am impressed by your superpower - the internal compass thing! I do not have that power and I am continually frustrated by people who give directions laced with such coordinates....get on the interstate and get off, heading south... um....how will I know I am heading south???
But I do have the ability to usually accurately tell you what time it is without looking at the clock...not that it helps me much...as a person with a bit of the old ADD - I may know I only have a half hour til I need to leave for church, but I mistakenly believe I can scramble a few eggs, put dinner in the crockpot, take a shower, dry my hair and drive 10 minutes to church...ahem... My husband is always telling me I just need to be aware of the time..
Love this post, Kristen, and appreciate how much thought you put into it. Sharing an intimate fact or a personal opinion with others means taking a risk and can put us in a vulnerable position, yet it often leads to closer relationships. Thanks for putting yourself out there and trusting the members of your community to support you - which they obviously have!
My sis has an incredible internal compass, mine is horrific! She always knows they way we should go -- I don't even bother thinking about what my gut says, I just got with hers bc it is always right and mine never is!
There was a cool RadioLab podcast about this awhile back...http://www.radiolab.org/story/110193-birds-eye-view/
My husband definitely has the compass thing - no matter where we are and even in a place he's never been before.
I love brown eyes and brown hair - all 4 of my kids have those characteristics. I have a grandson with brown hair and unusual eyes. Mostly they are grey, sometimes blue, sometimes green. When they're grey, they are stunning to look at!
No internal compass for me, but I usually know what time it is without checking. And I'm also very good with knowing how much things weigh---I figured this talent out in culinary school, where we were always making precise baking ingredient measurements in grams. I usually hit it right on the nose! I impressed my young students in a baking class yesterday, they were in awe of my measuring skills! 🙂 My dad was always very good with measurements (length of things, etc.), so maybe it's inherited!
That's funny. I am terrible with the actual number of inches or feet or pounds but I can instantly tell you if such and such thing will fit in such and such spot. Very handy for buying furniture at thrift stores. I've never brought something home and had it not fit in just so.
Zero time awareness, though. My phone alerts me all day for everything!
Ginny, regarding the always knowing the time without having to look at a clock, me too! It would be my superpower if we lived in a graphic novel world. Makes my struggle of being on time more lamentable. My husband says that I think time is magic. I just always think that I can just get one more thing done...
I have an internal compas too! I ahve always said that you could put me in a dark closet and spin me around and I would still know which way North is! Along with this I always have an internal view of my world as a map (birds eye view). As I sit here and type I can see, in my head, my surroundings as a map and this is how I think whenever I am going somewhere.( for instance if I am going to Trader Joes, which is only a mile from my house, I picture the map in my head and I see how I will get there sort of involuntarily!) I have talked to others and realize dthat this is not typical. I neve get lost and alwasy knwo the shortes rout anywhere!
I've known my husband for 53 years. In all that time I've only seen him disoriented once--inside the Mall of America. He is so well oriented that we once drove through a city we'd never been to before and he correctly predicted that our freeway exit would be a left exit.
Hello all...just have to chime in here...
Husband is a dark auburn/going silver haired, copper- eyed (very dramatic color) super navigator who actually uses his body to measure space also...I can usually figure out where im going but I don't have your guy's super power..
Im a silver blond with violet blue eyes...proud of it to...hate the stupid blonde / gentelmen prefer blondes stereo - type...talk about a pet peeve...that and rude people...why is it so difficult for people to just be kind I'll never know...
We wound up with a dark blonde haired daughter with what im going to call hazel eyes though they have a strong dark green going on..finish that off with thick black eyelashes and light olive complexion, from her dad....well...she's gorgeous in our opinion
Everyone is beautiful in their own ways!
i have no sense of direction. im 45 right now, not great at math.
Sorry, not enough time to read all the comments yet, but I will, 'cause you're right, Kristen, they're fun.
I'm a West Coast girl. I have a fairly reliable internal compass. That is, until I took my first trip to Florida. The ocean on the "wrong" side confused me to no end. I think in my head, I just know where the water and the mountains are, which forms the basis of my directional ability. I know where they are internally, so they serve as my invisible guide. I try to pay attention to this when I'm traveling, which helps, but that first trip to the Sunshine State really messed with my internal gyroscope. Australia and New Zealand were a little tricky, because everything was upside down, lol.
I also have terrible vision (nearsighted, farsighted, major astigmatism, corneas too thin for corrective surgery, glaucoma, eyes too dry to wear contacts any longer, blah x 3). I am grateful that my vision can mostly be corrected with glasses. I can't imagine what would become of me if I lived in the olden days or in a poor country. However, these eyes are a lovely shade of blue and look just like my beloved father's. I'm the only blue-eyed, dark-haired one of our bunch, which made me feel special as a kid among a gaggle of green-eyed, blonde siblings. I often think that I would instantly trade mine for brown eyes that could see clearly. Not just brown, any color. Clarity trumps color.
For me, it's super weird to be on the gulf side of Florida. I'm so used to the ocean being to the east!
All very interesting.
I wanted zero kids, got five by choice — still a little bumfuzzled how that all transpired (not the mechanics, although it's surprising how many people ask if I'm clear about toothbrush sharing, etc.).
I'm all about east and west, but left and right are purely interchangeable. My 4yo knows left and right. I do not. It's OK. Just don't believe me if I offer left and right unless you watched me think about it.
Older parenting is fine except for the part where a lot of my "peers" are actually 10 years younger than me and their life experience is totally different. I didn't have email until college or a cell phone until grad school, for instance, and they cannot feature life without iPads.
If you like Laura Ingalls Wilder, I recommend "Caroline" by Sarah Miller. Absolutely exquisite.
Ooh, thanks! I just put it on hold after reading your comment.
1. I have no sense of direction. I was bad when I was a kid and at 40+ it is still bad. My husband is a walking compass. He always knows where he is going and 6 different ways to get there.
2. I completely agree. It drives me crazy when you can make a right at a red light and there is NO ONE going the other way and the person in front of you is just sitting there.
3. Sorry. My vision is 20/20 still
4. I've had a job since I was 10(delivering Pennysavers) so I've always spent but I always saved some too.
5. I've always loved to cook. Took cooking classes all thru HS
6. I wanted 4 but have 3 beautiful kids and a puppy. Works for me.
7. Me too!
8. Ouch!
9. I am much better with numbers. Same goes for my husband and kids.
10. I am blonde/blue. I married brown/brown. My kids are all brown/brown but it is so much more. They have light streaks and dark streaks. My son's beard and mustache have red like my husband's used too. Depending on the season it gets lighter. However my daughter is dating a blond/blue and it is serious. I would love a blond/blue grandbaby. But I would love a brown/brown grandbaby too.
I'm with you on the nearsighted and directions. I once got my father in law around Gettysburg on 4th of July weekend, without a map. I hadn't been there in almost 15 years.
As for the inner compass, I remember a neuro lecture in OT school when the professor asked the class to point to North out of the blue. I had barely learned that North wasn't "forward" by that point in my life (thanks to an elementary school classroom that had walls labeled such that North was forward)! Anyway, looks like you have a well developed hippocampus! Here are two articles that might help (albeit from 2010 and 2015):
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sense-of-direction-innate/
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/how-the-brains-sense-of-direction-was-found-9957565.html
Cheers!
I cannot tell what direction something is for the life of me. If people use random words like, "turn north" I have no idea what they even mean. 😉 I am just glad that I have a GPS to navigate me! Before that, I printed up directions from MapQuest!
I think that Laura Ingalls didn't like her hair and eyes because people made a fuss out of her sister.
1. I strongly dislike using GPS and cell phone directions. They're all about your immediate surroundings and nothing about the big picture and context. I want the big picture and context, so it's paper maps (or the zoomed out view) for me.
2. I have a poor sense of direction. Which is why I want to know the bigger picture.
3. I taught myself to cook, mostly from cookbooks.
4. Because of #3, it took going to a cooking school to realize how much I'd taught myself. Dunning-Kruger be vanquished, I ~know~ I know what I'm doing.
5. I'm a spice wimp.
6. I'm an inverate international traveler.
7. There's always a bit of time in the day to read.
8. In 7th grade, my friend yelled at me for using a big word. The big word in question was ... "apt".
9. I make great compost but have trouble growing even the easiest of plants.
10. I can count to (at least) 99 in five languages ... usually.
I cannot stand driving somewhere not knowing where I am going, I love to drive but I want a paper map even if it's a brief sketch I've done after trip planning on google maps.
I agree. In my car seat pocket, I keep a plastic file of self-printed maps of places I have been and am likely to return to. I also remember the directions better by the little clues I write on them. It is rather nostalgic to look through my past travels.
#5- invertebrate? inveterate? Lol- no offense intended!
Oops- that should have said #6. See how easy it is to make a mistake??
I have exactly the opposite of the internal compass thing - so your best bet MAY always be to ask me where to go and do the opposite.
You just had me do a quick calculation and I'll be in my 50s when my kiddo is out of high school. That feels really old ... and even worse if we decide to give it one more whirl.
I get annoyed about people dilly dallying at lights too, but have changed my tune some after having a husband who trains UPS drivers. They teach the drivers to "clear the intersection" (with your eyes) before proceeding. Too many people these days run red lights even way after the fact and double checking your surroundings keeps you from getting t-boned. Also, I love brown eyes and was sad to realize none of my kids would have them due to my and my spouse's blue eyes. When I was little I always wanted black hair but now I love the uniqueness of my red hair. Thanks for sharing about yourself, I like to hear about it.
Hahaha! As a fellow red head, I too had a childhood fantasy about having black hair... and eyebrows and eyelashes that were actually dark enough to be visible. I did try dying it black once for Halloween and um.... well let's just say it was appropriately scary!
I totally have the inner compass thing! I went to visit my BFF in South Carolina (Im in California) and I hit tell which way we were going! Same thing when I went to up state New York for my brother in laws wedding. I drove and always knew what direction I was going! Such a weird talent. Lol
Not only do I not have a sense of direction, I seem to have an inability to memorize my surroundings. The year after we married, we lived in the country. We were driving and I said, "Wow, this is lovely. I'd love to live here." My husband thought I was kidding but realized I was serious. "This is our driveway, honey" he said.
I was almost legally blind. Then I got early onset cataracts (due to a medication) in my early 30s and had cataract surgery. I now have 20/20 vision with no corrective lenses needed. Farewell Coke bottle glasses. The unfortunate side effect, though, was that I realized my house was not nearly as clean as I thought it was! I also found out I had a lot of purple, not grey, clothes. But the worst was as my husband leaned in to kiss me when the bandages came off (my eyes were so bad that the brain would have had difficulty adjusting if they had fixed one at a time), I blurted out, "You have so many wrinkles!!" (He is older than I am)
Such a fun post!
I too got glasses when I was seven. (And rejoiced because I wanted them SO badly)
I also hope my daughters will volunteer to make dinner indefinitely once they learn to use the stove!
Thanks for sharing!
I love all the wonderful comments from your readers. Your blog is the only one I read and totally enjoy. I have no sense of direction so I require landmarks to navigate anywhere. It makes it hard sometimes to drive and I get a lot of anxiety driving anywhere new. I am blessed to have 4 sisters and each one will drive me (using my car or theirs) whenever one is visiting. I like being “Miss Daisy” and the added bonus is they offer to drop me at the door and park the car. Smile!
I wanted 4 kids, but had three wonderfully easy pregnancies resulting in 2 boys and a girl. My kids are grown now and have blessed me with twin grandsons and a new granddaughter.
In high school I would wear my girlfriends glasses for fun, ha, now I have to wear my own glasses for real or I cannot see. What was I thinking back then, clearly suffered from teenager on the brain syndrome. I used to have beautiful long brown hair and brown eyes. Now my hair is gray, but it is thick and I keep it short.
Lastly, my mom was an excellent cook and baker. I knew nothing about cooking and called home as a newlywed to ask how to cook an egg. The best gift I received at my shower was a cookbook that showed each step of the recipes along with a photo of the step. I love that you take the time to do this when you post a recipe. My friends and family rave about your Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat bars!!
Thanks very much Kristen
The only thing I know about internal compasses is that I DON"T have one. I am seriously directionally challenged. I am frequently lost, make wrong turns, etc, even in my hometown. I am embarrased to admit that I have been known not to follow freeway signs because it "feels" like the way I want to go is the other way. Um. Yeah. I have finally accepted that they won't build a big green sign unless they are quite sure of the direction that will take me home. I live just 15 minutes west of part of the Sierra mountain range so at least I can count on the mountains to always be there so I can at least pick out compass points. But if I am out of town, and the sun is directly overhead, forget it.
I have the internal compass thing to a degree. Almost all of my memories have a direction to them. I might not remember the year, the people or the exact circumstances but I remember which direction I was facing when whatever it was occurred.
I'm the complete opposite with the internal compass thing. And I live in Denver, so it should be pretty easy for me to tell which way is which, because the mountains are always to the west. But I'm just hopeless. Seriously, I once got myself so turned around that I drove 15 miles south when I thought I was going north. And I've lived here pretty much my entire life so I have no excuse! OY!
Anyhow, CatMan has the internal compass thing and it just boggles my mind. He says that he has the equivalent of an atlas in his head, and can pretty much see himself moving through the world on his internal map. He credits the many, many hours he spent hiking and mountaineering from a very young age, but I'm inclined to agree with you that it's some sort of genetic thing. I wonder if perhaps some people can feel the magnetic pull of the north pole on some sort of subconscious level? Either that, or maybe it's the direction of the sun. So does your sense of direction become at all diminished when it's dark outside?
I don't have an internal compass but I am a very visual person & remember what places look like. I once took a drive in the country to a mountain place we went as children without a map but with each turn I remembered 'that way looks right' and I got where I was going.
However if I am going somewhere I have never been without a map I will get lost.
When I have the energy I love to cook - and eat! Our family has favourite films we have watched so many times we quote many as part of our regular conversations. eg someone at work asked 'what's that smell' and another said 'I can't smell anything' and I instantly replied 'Iocane! I'd bet my life on it!'
There's a lot of comments, so I didn't read them, but I'd think the compass thing would be under the umbrella of the (fairly) newly discovered "naturalistic intelligence". Look it up. It's a thing!
Wow! I see so much of Sonia in young you!
I have no sense of direction and as I age it gets worse. It might also be that I have lived all around the US, lived in Germany, traveled all over Europe, and now live in Hawaii. I think I have just given up trying to figure where I am, especially since I know we move again next summer.
I took a class in picture framing two years ago; I tried to use those skills today. It was a complete disaster. I know I could learn again but I'm now 43 and I won't bother. I'd rather pay someone else to do it.
I always thought that age made one less likely to get upset at things like the above, and I guess it does, just not in the way I expected. I allow myself to let things go undone so much more than I used to.
I'm sure the inner compass is possible, because I have the exact opposite skill, having absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever. We had been living in our home for MONTHS when I got lost going to the Target...that was 3 miles away... ended up another town over. If it's possible to lack one "sense" then it's totally possible for there to be an elevated sense of it as well!
Do you love looking at maps? I have a strong internal compass but don’t associate my memories with direction. I always felt safer thinking about the direction of the house I was sleeping in. But I have always loved looking at maps and knowing what is where. Google maps is my bff. And once I know the map, it stays in my head and I reference it from memory.