We have all of us been mostly in the house for quite some time now. I don’t know about you, but I’ve started noticing things, Cliff and I both have. Some things one or the other of us have been noticing for a long time, other things I have noticed and they are just kind of strange.

One of the things we’ve been noticing for a long time, is the shower in our master bath. It was the typical glass enclosed shower with the garden tub alongside. It was a mere 21 years old when we decided it’s days were over.

The glass refused to sparkle, the tile was old and the grout was nonexistent in places. The floor, which had never had the correct type of nonslip tile, was also giving us a hard time. Cleaning the shower has always been my husband’s job, a well-played (if I do say so myself) though unintentional, move on my part. Once he was tired of trying to keep the  glass clean, he decided we needed to redo the shower.

We completely redesigned the thing and went “glassless”, using stone that we’d seen so often in hotels, a pebble floor that we both really liked, and having just a small 4′ wall built between us and the rest of the bathroom. Since we’re both pretty short, 4′ was all we needed to conceal us from the rest of the room. Being short can be very cost effective. By the way, we did not do this ourselves. We’re too smart for that.

For quite some time now, I have been aware that our almost-as-old-as-the-master-shower, downstairs floor tile has more than its fair share of cracks, chips, and dings. And since it was not my husband’s job to clean the floors, I was the only one that noticed. And so, I fairly consistently pointed out the cracks, chips, and dings that only I could see. He resisted, I persisted, but to no avail. He’s a quiet man, but a tough one and our downstairs is a large, and so, expensive space. Then, as if an answer to prayer, Costco had a sale on their vinyl flooring. Plans have been made and flooring will be laid! These are our long time noticings, but there have been other things, strange things, like spoons.

These are our spoons. There are only 12 of them, which is a fine number for 2 people, but I can’t tell you where most of them came from. The top 4 I know we purchased. The elegant looking one on the bottom might belong to my friend Barb, our youngest daughter’s mother-in-law who lives down the street. The other 7, who knows? They have seemingly reproduced themselves in the drawer. I suppose I can blame this on their lack of, that oxymoron we’ve come to know as social distancing.

But then again, how do you explain this…

These are our mugs. There are 70 of them. 70! Do you want to know how many we use consistently? Two, maybe three.

We are only 2 people and only 1 of us drinks tea or coffee. Why do we have 70 mugs you might ask? A few reasons that I can think of. First, some were purchased by our daughter when she was little and was first allowed to buy things at garage sales on our street. It was adorable to see her so proud of her purchases. Those are the sentimental mugs that I can’t bring myself to part with. Then there are teacher mug gifts given by parents who are very aware that their kid probably drove you to drink inordinate amounts of coffee. Finally, there are vacation mugs that are bought to commemorate the different places we’ve visited. All of that adds up to mugs…lots and lots of mugs. The last quarantine did nothing to make me clean out the excess, if there’s another quarantine chances are pretty good I will still resist.

Finally, there was this on my phone.

My phone tells me I took this picture yesterday.  I have no idea who these people are. Nor do I know where this picture came from or how it ended up on my phone. This happens to me, frequently, just ask my son. I’ve put together books of all the weird and random photos I’ve taken, just for his personal enjoyment.  Though not exactly a home version of things to be noticed, my phone is in my home and I have noticed it, so I thought it qualifies. If anyone recognizes these people, please let me know who they are. If not, I’ll add it to the next book I make for my son. Because it’s really not that big a deal!