Mark Marking Time

New mug because

I finally did it. Dad's grandfather clock is once again ticking out time.

When mom died, my niece Amanda took several pieces from the estate. Among them was the clock.

It got shipped out to Ettrick in 2010 and sat in Pam and Steve's living room (still swathed in bubble wrap), never set up but waiting for Amanda to get a place where she could house it.

Grandfather clock working

When I bought my home in 2015, Amanda suggested I take the clock, since I had room for it and it lent itself to the house. So we moved it over to my house and it has sat in the living room, unwrapped, only semi-assembled. The winding key was missing and the weights were not installed. Still, it looked really good.

After my brother Steve retired earlier this year, he cleaned out his home office and ran across all the paperwork for the clock, including the installation instructions and, yes, the winding key. There was finally no real reason not to get the clock up and running.

Crystal under the entry light

I can't imagine that a clock not keeping time in one's home can't be good feng shui, and I've been trying to fine-tune things. Pam kind of started it all with the offer of a crystal for the entry. (The front door faces the front closet on the other side of the entryway. The crystal helps to disperse the chi to the sides, I'm told.)

The other dormant feng shui remedy in the house was the table fountain. It had been sitting to the side in the entry, unplugged, unfilled, inert. It was just a matter of sprucing it up a bit, some assembly and a little experimentation.

Wet and flowing once more

I tried it out where it was in the entry, but I found I couldn't hear the water, and I'm of the opinion that the sensory input of feng shui remedies is half their effect. So I made a little room in the corner of the living room and moved it there. It looks really nice there, and the sound of water fills the room.

The other thing I did (awhile ago) but haven't shared is the print plates from "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." My dad gave me the book for Christmas when I was in my early teens, and I loved the story and was taken by the litho art plates. I had them hanging up the stairway in Pasadena, for anyone who visited there.

But when I went to hang them in the dining room here, I discovered that the frames were too big and slightly different sizes. That just wouldn't work in the tight arrangement I wanted. I found super cheap frames online ($8 a piece) and they're anodized aluminum so they have a slick, minimal look.

Plates from The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

But back to the clock: I got out the instructions and read through them several times to make sure I knew what I was doing. Some of the clock elements are fairly fragile, so I wanted to work carefully and deliberately.

It really didn't take much at all. Getting the weight wheels onto their cables was the most difficult part. Once I got everything assembled, I started the pendulum swinging and the clock's been striking the hour and quarter hours ever since.

Right now it's on Winchester chimes, but there are other settings (including silent). The chimes are quiet enough that I don't hear them up in the bedroom, and I like hearing the clock marking time all day long when I'm downstairs.

And speaking of time, I was looking back on the blog entries and realized that I started this 10 years ago come September 11. I did not start it on that date for any meaning, it just happened to be when I sat down in front of the computer for my first entry.

So I've decided that, since only about a dozen people (if that) read these posts, I'm going to conclude this project 10 years to the day it began. Now I just have to remember to make that last post on September 11, 2017.

I guess you'll never get to hear about the trip to Paris and Le Salon du Chocolat here, as that will happen in October. Them's the breaks.