Noticing i - a photo and a new word

Yesterday I was reminiscing about the various one-a-day "365" projects I've done, whether photography on Flickr (three or four of them) or blogging here (two). When I signed off on the last one, I swore I'd never do that again. But . . . I'm thinking about it. Because I do like—perhaps even need—the discipline. One thing I know I'm going to do each day.

I did not number this one (well, okay, a tiny little "i"), so this isn't necessarily the start of such a new project. But . . . well, let's see. If I just start paying attention, maybe something will come to me. Tomorrow, say.

The imagined theme is "you learn something new every day," or a photo of something that caught my eye that day—a sort of melding of my two former projects. Not necessarily both together, but one or the other. Hence the possible title "Noticing."

So here is a photo I took yesterday—of my drawing-table desk—which I posted on Facebook with the following description: I love the low sun of this time of year—or rather the long shadows it casts. And that purple flash in the midst of all that monochrome.

And here is a new something I learned:

The other day at dinner at the Indian restaurant in New Monterey, we noticed a word written (backwards to us) on the front window near our table—LANTASNES. Clearly, a couple of letters were missing, covered up by the . . . what’s that part of the window called? Some Googling brought me the word: muntin. A new one! It's the term for the vertical and horizontal pieces of wood holding the panes of glass in an old-fashioned window (which itself is called a sash, a term I know—my childhood bedroom had double-sashed windows—but that I'd never given any thought to before). So really, two new words: sash and, especially, muntin. Here's a picture (and don't get me started on stile and rail):

I'm not yet convinced this is fascinating enough to warrant a daily blog post. And I realize that if I do undertake this project, my "learn something new" revelations may well just be new words (new to me, anyway)—and that is something I'd want to navigate around, and include new knowledge or facts or fascinations as well. So, yeah: consider this a test run. One week. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Oh, and as for LANTASNES: an I and an O were missing. The word was SENSATIONAL.