Clocks are meant to be functional but they can add an interesting look, shape, and pattern to your walls, shelves or desk. A well-placed timepiece wakes up a traditionally furnished room. It's the opposite of a wallflower: A piece of art that reflects your taste. It just happens to tell time.
I have always loved using clocks as decorator pieces. Even as a young girl, I had a Black Forest cuckoo clock hanging on the wall in my bedroom. Every day, I walked by and wound it, and loved the sound it made when it cuckoo'd. To me, clocks do more than just tell time. They are a reflection of my individual taste and of the way my mind works. Some people might complain that clocks are a metaphor for regularity and order. That too many people run their lives by the ticking of the clock. To take it to the extreme, they might even say clocks have the ability to control every aspect of our lives.
Well, for me it's just the opposite. It reminds me that time is precious and to take advantage of every moment and live life to the fullest. Do I wear a watch? No, I don't wear a watch. Somehow I was born with an internal clock that tells me what time it is within 15 minutes. I have a clock on my coffee pot and cell phone if I ever really need to know. The rest of the clocks in my house are set to different times in the world: Places I've been, or places I want to visit. I even have clocks that don't work, just because I love the clock.
Here's a little interesting fact about clocks: One of the clocks I purchased a few years ago looks like a giant, rusted antique stop watch. Up until about 6 months ago, I was so proud of that clock. Then, a family member pointed out to me that the Roman Numeral Four is WRONG and I was really ticked off! (sorry, bad pun) Instead of an "IV" it's an "IIII" ... "Well" I thought, "I did get it at a discount store." But still, every time I looked at it I was kind of disappointed. It's lost some of it's sparkle (metaphorically speaking). Until, that is I coincidentally ran across this explanation about the use of "IIII" on clocks:
"There is a story that a famous clockmaker had constructed a clock for Louis XIV, king of France. The clockmaker had naturally used IV for four. When the clock was shown to the king, he remarked that IIII should have been used instead of IV. When it was explained to him that IV was correct, he still insisted, so that there was nothing to do but change the clock dial. This introduced the custom of using IIII for four. This is probably only a story, however, as IIII occurs long before the time of Louis XIV. And this same story is also told in connection with other monarchs. There is one reason why IIII is preferable to IV, and it may have caused the change. On the other side of the clock dial the VIII is the heaviest number, consisting of four heavy strokes and one light one, as it is usually made. It would destroy the symmetry to have the IV with only two heavy strokes on the other side. Thus IIII with four heavy strokes is much to be preferred. The change may therefore have been made for reasons of symmetry."
Well I like my clock even more today than the day I bought it. And if you're looking for a huge collection of clocks,
click here to find
All the Time in The World at Odyssey Homestore®.
Here are a whole bunch of Time quotes. Feel free to tell us which one is your favorite:
Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. ~William Faulkner
Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. ~John Archibald Wheeler
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Economy," Walden, 1854
Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving. ~Martin Amis, Money
The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked. ~Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. ~Dion Boucicault
In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us. ~Osbert Sitwell
For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work. ~Doug Larson
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day. ~Benjamin Disraeli
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
~Henry Austin Dobson
Old Time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all!.... his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his hands are mutes. ~Charles Dickens
Time wastes our bodies and our wits, but we waste time, so we are quits. ~Author Unknown
Time is the fire in which we burn. ~Delmore Schwartz, "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day," 1937 (Thanks, George)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
~William Shakespeare
You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by. ~James Matthew Barrie
A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours. ~John B. Priestly
It strikes! one, two,
Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch,
Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest;
Would thou could'st make the time to do so too;
I'll wind thee up no more.
~Ben Jonson
The flower that you hold in your hands was born today and already it is as old as you are. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. ~J.K. Rowling, "The Hungarian Horntail," Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000
Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side. ~The Talmud
Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notes
Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;
He keeps all his customers still in arrears
By lending them minutes and charging them years.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Time is like the wind, it lifts the light and leaves the heavy. ~Doménico Cieri Estrada
Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling
El tiempo da buen consejo. ~Proverb
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time. ~Napoleon I, Maxims, 1815
Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. ~Faith Baldwin
When told the reason for Daylight Saving time the old Indian said, "Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket." ~Author Unknown
Why won't they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, can't they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping - rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year's and Easter and Christmas - But, goodness, why need they do it? ~John Dos Passos, 1917
How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. ~Zall's Second Law
The years like great black oxen tread the world
And God, the herdsman, goads them on behind.
~William Butler Yeats, The Countess Cathleen
Time! the corrector when our judgments err. ~Lord Byron
The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not.... ~Thomas Carlyle
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. ~Carl Sandburg
Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Deja Vu. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
I am tired of the imposed rhythms of men,
Tethered time, restrained and trained
To a monotonous beat
Digital time blinking exactness
Unliving.
~Phillip Pulfrey, "Conjecture," Beyond Me, www.originals.net
If you want work well done, select a busy man - the other kind has no time. ~Elbert Hubbard
Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear? ~Jack London
Time flies on restless pinions - constant never. ~Friedrich Schiller
The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~C.S. Lewis
Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design? ~Paracelsus
What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. ~Saint Augustine
Each moment has its sickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root.
~Edward Young
The inertia hardest to overcome is that of perfectly good seconds. ~Martin H. Fischer
Time is the wisest counsellor of all. ~Pericles
A lot like yesterday, a lot like never. ~Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
There are whole years for which I hope I'll never be cross-examined, for I could not give an alibi. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
The clocks are all turned forward from Funny Time to Right Time. I always remember, "Spring back or Fall in." ~Dave Beard (@Raqhun)
Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ~Charles Caleb Colton
Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst. ~Willaim Penn
Time is the longest distance between two places. ~Tennessee Williams
Among life's regrets is all the time wasted being early for everything. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, but spare the right - it holds my golden time! ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Man goes nowhere. Everything comes to man, like tomorrow. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.
~Edward Fitzgerald
For centuries, man believed that the sun revolves around the earth. Centuries later, he still thinks that time moves clockwise. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends. ~Charles Caleb Colton
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. ~Henry David Thoreau
The Present is a Point just passed. ~David Russell
Methinks I see the wanton hours flee,
And as they pass, turn back and laugh at me.
~George Villiers
Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ~Denis Waitely
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away. ~Charles Caleb Colton
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. ~Ambrose Bierce
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Louis Hector Berlioz
Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. ~Tony Hendra, "Deteriorata" (Thanks Tom)
In looking at the options available to purchase, I’ve never found anything that was quite right until now. I finally found the one that would work! It's adorable in all of its girly glory - just right for little Torrie Ann! From Kidkraft, the Large Pastel Kids Play Kitchen is just what I’ve been looking for!
This Deluxe Fire Rescue set arrived while I was visiting one day, and when the doorbell rang there was a huge box with a picture of the fire house on the side. Tristan started screaming the minute he saw it! We couldn’t get it in the house and put together fast enough.
Happy Labor Day from Odyssey Homestore®