We found it!

The remote thermostat for the atomic clock, that is!

It was...drum roll, please...in one of the bags for the fold-up portable canvas chairs. We have 8 of them (we do camping and bbq'ing and love to have friends over, and we prefer to sit in comfort, can you tell...), and, despite how the chairs were checked for the missing thermostat, it somehow eluded us! Back in Virginia, we had 3 of the chairs on the front porch, where the neighbor boys would come and take breaks or play video games with Christopher. That's why we checked the chair bags when we got to NJ, and also why we checked the prickly and thorny shrubbery near where the kids were playing, but it never showed itself in all our searches.

While the thermostat was missing, we'd occasionally ponder what thermostat the clock could be reading, since the outside temp seemed to be right on target. Then, one day last week, the oddest thing happened...it read 98 degrees, when the outside temp was closer to 73 or 75-ish. Turns out, it was reading the heat from the lawn mower, where it was sitting in the chair next to the mower when it was returned to the garage.

Well, one more mystery solved in the Richardson household!
and yes...it's the little things that keep us going HA HA!