It's back!

I am assigning myself a new chore that only I get to do. Winding the clock. Our clock now works after six months. Last week the clock repairman finally came back. His first visit was in July after an enthusiastic clock-winding by Sarah. She broke a spring in the mechanism, and the clock quit working. The clock man (who makes housecalls) came and picked up our clock innards. They were beyond repair, since they were 36 years old, but he told us he could rebuild it. The parts would need to be ordered from Germany, and they were almost always on back order. He let us know it would probably be "a while" before he could get the parts to rebuild it. He called last week and came with our new/old clock. It's just like before. We had gotten a lot of questions from visitors wondering why we had an empty grandfather clock case sitting in our living room. But we were just waiting for it to come home. The repairman used the original face and chime pieces, so it sounds the same, but it chimes a little faster.

It was not cheap to fix this thing. In fact, Ryan and I were both glad that it wasn't ready right around Christmastime. But we really had no choice in the matter. The clock body was built by my Grandpa Mortimer. It even has a plaque inside the door with his name on in and the year 1972. This clock was in my parents home throughout my childhood and I always loved to hear it chime. My parents have 4 large pieces that my grandfather built, and having 4 children they had let us know which piece we all could expect to inherit. When we moved into our current home, I very tackily asked my parents if I could put the clock into my house now, or did I need to wait? They graciously agreed to let me have it now. I don't think they were too offended. This isn't the kind of item that you can get rid of when it breaks. We had to get it back into working order. It's like part of the family.

I don't think there's any more comforting sound than the chiming of our clock. I missed that sound so much while it was away at the shop. It embodies my word for the year, invite. It tells me to sit down and get comfortable, get out a good book, and vaguely listen to the passing of time while I read. I thought it might take me a little while to get used to it again, not to notice it every fifteen minutes. But the noise was right at home with the rest of the chaos in our house.

I'm glad we fixed it, and now we can go on to the next expensive problem. Ryan called me today and said the window in our car broke while he was rolling it down. Luckily he had gloves and a nice warm coat on for the rest of his chilly drive into work. Anyone know of a good auto shop?