Monday, November 2, 2009

Lost

When I was a little girl, my dad used to play a game where he'd take a turn he didn't know just to do something a little different. I'm sure he thought it would bring out the adventurous side of me, but I was always terrified that we'd get lost forever. I never really made it known to Dad so he probably never knew and therefore had no reason to stop playing this game. He knew the area I grew up in really well and he was always interested in learning more ways the roads connected. He is the best at detouring whenever we hit traffic.

When I started driving, Dad and I used to drive for hours and hours. Back when gas wasn't that expensive. We started by driving the routes I was already familiar with and slowly Dad pulled out my adventurous side by having me take turns I didn't know so I could learn how to deal with detours and getting lost. We never had a map on us, just our combined knowledge of the highways and roads in the area. It was really scary for me at first, but I started learning the roads really well. And I started memorizing roads. Eventually, I started looking at maps to enhance my local geographical knowledge. I would experiment with different routes to get to and from almost everywhere.

When I started working full-time a few years ago, I started traveling pretty often for work and I had to learn to adapt to new places because I was often alone in a new city. I had to get over any lingering fears of getting lost by glancing at a map and figuring out which major roads I would be near so that I'd eventually run into something familiar. I do drive with a map in unfamiliar areas, but I have lost all of my fears in terms of directions and getting lost. I quickly memorize routes and I could probably still drive some of the cities that I haven't visited in a long time. I've even become one of the most knowledgeable of my close friends in terms of everything that's near home.

And it all started with my dad's strange little game when I was little.

20 Questions

I found this on a few different blogs, so I copied it. I also cannot sleep tonight. :)

1. What is your favorite thing to snack on while you are blogging?
I don't have a specific blogging snack, but I do enjoy salty snacks pretty much all the time.

2. What is one thing you wouldn't want to live without?
Aside from Jesus? Probably access to a fantastic library system.

3. Beach, Mountains, or Farm? Where would you live?
Farm in the moutains. Oh, wait, that's pretty much where I'm going to settle down. :)

4. What is your least favorite household chore?
Taking out the trash.

5. Who do people say you remind them of?
The only person I can think of was the time a friend said I remind him of Felicia Day.

6. Parties and socializing or staying home with the family?
Home. But I also like to host smaller type gatherings.

7. What's your all time favorite movie?
The Rocketeer. It's been my favorite since I was about 6.

8. Do you sleep in your makeup or remove it every night?
Sometimes I sleep in makeup, but I don't wear makeup all that often. So the days I forget are pretty few and far between.

9. Do you have a hidden talent or a deep desire to learn something that you've never had a chance to learn?
I don't know that I have any hidden talents, but there are several things I'd like to learn: photography and how to read a bit faster (without losing retention), for example.

10. What's one strange thing you are really good at?
I can adapt pretty well to most situations, even though I'm really shy.

11. What first attracted you to your spouse?
He's not my spouse yet, but I'm not sure what attracted me to him first. I did notice that he was the only person in the room outgoing enough to talk to me (I'm so shy that I have a really hard time meeting new people, and most of the rest of the people in that room share that trait with me). And that his smile was incredibly genuine.

12. What is something you love to smell?
clean laundry, homemade peanut butter fudge, and gasoline (not all together, obviously)

13. Tell something about you that you know irritates people?
I tend to want to fix everything.

14. When you have extra money, what's the first thing you do with it?
Get married/build a house

15. Are you a silent laugher or loud laugher?
Both, depending on how comfortable I am. Silently when I'm nervous, loudly any other time.

16. Where is your favorite place to shop?
Ann Taylor/Ann Taylor LOFT and Barnes & Noble (although I've banned myself from shopping at both places for the time being)

17. Whats one thing you would do more often if you had more time?
Read and/or work out

18. Are you a big spender or frugal?
Naturally I'm a big spender. But I have taken certain measures to make me a lot more frugal.

19. Who is your favorite character of all time?
I have absolutely no idea.

20. Would you want to be famous?
No. Definitely not.