Hey all, I just wanted to say be sure to launch your games current scene (F6), and not the entire game when testing your timer.
I wrote the connection for the signal by hand, and became frustrated not realizing that I was launching the entire game when I pressed F5, and not the local scene I was editing. That being said I spent about fifteen minutes longer than I should have troubleshooting a non existent problem (other than my own user error).
Hopefully this helps someone else who was struggling with this same thing.
Tl;dr - be sure to launch the game in local scene with F6 when necessary, like say testing your timer, or a signal.