Hello all, I am in the beginning stages of installing a new outdoor light that has never been used since I moved in. I am familiar with majority of the circuits in the house except this one. I have one wire with two power wires going to each side of my switch a white that’s hot and a black that’s hot when I test them with a pen tester. I then have one wire going to the light fixture with a black and white. I assume that the power is coming from a junction box that I haven’t found yet, but still don’t understand why both sides of the switch would be hot? I turn the switch to the on position and it kills power to the light. I turn it to the off position and it restores power to the light. My next steps are removing the wires from the switch and testing them independently to ensure they are both hot and the switch isn’t making them both hot. And also trying to find the circuit that it is fed off of. I want to install a smart switch that needs a dedicated common and not sure how I am going to do this. I am adding pics to take a look at. Thanks!

I have an ugly 4 ft shop light in my kitchen and got interested in LED bulbs to save electricity. I was hoping to replace the fixture with a similar sized light to avoid ceiling drywall repair. While struggling to pick a fixture I liked, I found out about direct replacement T8 style LED tubes and bought a couple. These are the type "A" that work with a ballast in place. If I get a new fixture without a ballast, do I need to replace these LED tubes or will they work without a ballast?