Did You See That?

Here I am again trying another Five Minute Friday. This is where I link up at this site with other bloggers and we all write about the same topic for 5 minutes (or so…this one was closer to 10 minutes for me) and then we link up with each other for fun. We are all given the same one-word prompt and it’s interesting to see what direction we each take it as we write. I’ve enjoyed giving this a try for several Fridays. It’s a fun challenge! Anyway, here’s my latest FMF post. 

This week’s word: NOTICE 

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Did You See That? 

There are those who see the world through rose-colored glasses, and those who have to squint a little to see much of anything at all.

There are some who astutely observe the smallest of details in the colorful and bustling world around them.

And then there’s my husband.

Don’t get me wrong. I adore the man. He’s wise, handsome, kind, witty… but one thing he ain’t is observant.

When we were dating, Kraig couldn’t believe how observant my mom is. She has a keen eye for decorating, and ascetics in general, and Kraig was intrigued. He couldn’t quite understand how she decorated her home with such precision and he wanted to test her once and for all to see if she was truly as observant as he thought she was.

So one evening, Kraig placed a plastic travel coffee mug amongst all of the beautiful paraphernalia that was covering my mom’s decorated mantel. The mug was nicely hidden amongst the pretty decor with only a small part of it being visible. Kraig smiled smugly at me and said, “Let’s see how long it takes her to notice that!”

A few minutes later, Kraig and I watched from our seats on the couch as mom walked into the room, stopped suddenly in her tracks, and stared at the mantel. “What’s that doing there?” she said puzzled as she walked over and removed the plastic coffee mug.

Suspicion confirmed. She’s pretty darn observant.

Kraig, on the other hand, doesn’t notice things. We’ve been married for about 12 years and I still find myself in a state of shock when I make a major change in our home and he’s none the wiser. There are the small things, like changing some wall decor, that I don’t really expect him to see. But there are some other times when I’ll move furniture or change something rather drastically and he will just not see it. Well, he sees it, he just doesn’t SEE it.

I wonder if I painted the kitchen hot pink with zebra stripes if he’d sense a change?

Sometimes Kraig’s lack of observational skills bugs me. I mean, I do ALL this work to clean up our storage room or sort and organize three billion plastic toys into various containers and he barely remembers what it looked like before I started.

Come on, man. I want you to notice all I’ve done so you’ll appreciate me.

But, just this week I was encouraged that maybe he’s noticing things after all. I overheard Kraig telling one of our children how much he loves being home because our house is such a peaceful place to be.

So maybe he doesn’t notice all of the pieces, parts, elbow grease and art that go into making our house a home, but apparently the sum of all of those parts equals peace.

And I’ll raise my empty plastic travel mug to that!