Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Impossible.  I heard that word a lot when I was growing up and, indeed, even after I was grown.  Sometimes I think we ate Impossible for breakfast.  My family had the tendency of saying Impossible when confronted with new ideas, new situations, new anything.  Truly I don't think they meant to be negative because they'd move forward anyway and usually in ingenious and inventive ways that got results.  To this day, I say "impossible" even when I think it isn't and sometimes that keeps me from moving forward faster than I should.

This morning, the cat woke up in an incredibly foul mood and she decided to let me know exactly how she felt by biting the fire out of me to wake me up in return.  (Now I know that cats like to give love-bites but my Daisy doesn't.  Daisy in a non-cat.  She was raised by a mama-dog and she still thinks like a dog so when Daisy bites, she means business.)  And I wasn't too far behind Daisy in the bad attitude department, having been in a pout myself for the past few days for no particular reason but for several reasonable particulars.  We had Impossible for breakfast today for sure.

So after trying to help Daisy find a change of mind by giving her fur a good brushing and setting her in front of a rarely opened window so she could smell a fresh breeze, I decided to change my own mind and tackle an Impossible that I've been ignoring for about six months:  a vintage clock that I was convinced I could not set, even though I've got the directions for it.  Embarassingly, I even sell copies of those directions on eBay.....but would I try them myself?  No.  How ridiculous!




I got my trusty little tool kit and I took the clock off the wall where it has been running just fine (only not on the right time!) and I sat myself down at the dining table.  The dining table is special--it's a 150-year-old English oak octagonal table that I bought it quite unintentionally (long story) but it's one of the best things I ever did.  When I sit at that table, I somehow believe that the Impossible is absolutely Probable.  And this morning it was.  The directions were really fairly easy.

After one small detour to the computer to check the phase of the moon (33% waxing) and the first and last frost dates for my little town (March 3-November 19) and in just ten minutes, I had the clock set properly and put back up on the wall.  I'll enjoy watching the dials--one for the time, one for the moon, and one for planting suggestions each month.




Truthfully, I had wanted a planting clock for a couple of decades.  But when I found this one at a yard sale, chipped and dusty and dirty,  for a couple of bucks, I figured that I should try to sell it on eBay instead.  So I tidied it up and listed it; and it languished online for a year while other planting clocks in worse shape sold for more money.  It just would not sell.  Sometimes there's no explaining why.  Finally I decided it was meant to stay here.

Today, at long last, it became My Clock.  It really wasn't Impossible at all.  




(Looking at this picture reminds me that the dining room wants painting and changing of the wallpaper.....no, I won't say the word that immediately came to mind but I bet you can guess what it was!)

Daisy wouldn't stay on the windowsill, and she is still having Attitude but sometimes I think she enjoys being grumpy-growly.  Maybe I'll go make a pot of tea; there's ginger banana bread to go with it.  And then I'll sit at the Probable table for awhile.....never know what sort of ideas can happen there.  It's a good day.

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