Magic?

Something happened three nights ago now that still has me giggling at myself.  There are times when I feel like I take notice of things that others may not.  There are times when I feel that I am very competent and able to figure things out and put things together in an intelligent way.  Then there are those times that I feel as if I should be the one in this family going to Second grade, while my eight-year-old takes care of the house.  This is one of those times!

We have lived in this home now for 219 days.  Granted, there was a few days that I didn't live "in" this house while I was with Caden in Seattle, and of course there are those two glorious weeks where we were at Camp Side-By-Side and in Hawaii, but that would still put me in the high 100's of living in this home.  That's a lot of days!

This is a picture from our laundry/garage entry "mud room" looking at our Master Bedroom door.  I'd normally have it open (I love it when doors are open, with the handle actually touching the door stop) but Randy is on a conference call for work, so we shut him in there so we don't hear him talking.  Or, is it so he can't hear us, I can't remember?  Anyway, if you consider how many times I enter and exit through this door each day, you can imagine how many times I have passed this very spot. 

This is the view as you exit the Powder Room (Master on left, Laundry on Right).  If you consider how many times I could have exited and seen this view, you get another idea of how many times I have been in this general area, seen this very view.  Also, consider that it was I that hung that growth chart during the first two days of living here.  I have seen and passed this spot countless times.

As Randy and I were headed to bed three nights ago, he turned on the lights in this hallway by touching a switch in our TV room.  Usually, I would just turn them off as we were heading into our room by pressing the switch you see straight ahead in the picture above.  That has been our routine now for 180+ days.  But on this night, as I was milometers from touching that switch, the lights went off.  I knew Randy had entered the room ahead of me, so I couldn't understand how he could have turned them off.  In that second, it felt like magic.  I had heard the tell-tell sound of a switch being pressed, but I hadn't pressed the switch!  It was at that second that I realized something:

THERE IS A SWITCH CLOSER TO OUR BEDROOM THAT I HAD NEVER EVEN TOUCHED, NEVER REALIZED WHAT IT WAS FOR, NEVER TRULY CONSIDERED!  Of course I had seen it thousands of times!  Of course I "knew" it was there-- I measured the distance between it and the wall to hang up that growth chart!  But I have never, not once, considered that it could actually be for something! 

Look at that picture again, now that you know where and what those two switches are for-- look how close they are for the exact same purpose!  It felt so surreal that I had "seen" this so many times, yet never even wondered what it should/could be used for.  And then Randy and I laughed and laughed at my so obvious observant self.  I'm telling you, it felt for a second like Randy truly was magical.  It would have been so cool to have captured my stunned, confused face; to have seen the metaphorical light bulb turn on above my head as the hallway turned dark just nanoseconds before.  I could have lit the entire house with my realization that I am not a very bright woman.  Puns.  I love 'em.

I still have not used that switch.  I know what it's for, but my habits are set.  And, anyway, I'll probably forget next week, giving myself another magical night of rediscovery.  Peeps, Randy has magic!  One night: Lights switched off.  The next: Bathrooms are sparkling with a snap of his fingers.  It could happen-- I married Randy Dirks after all!

I better go-- I'm late for Second Grade!  Tyson, bathrooms need sanitizing!