The Full and Complete History of My Quilt Rack

It is truly a simple thing. It was bought for my 25th birthday by my mother from Fred Meyer. It doesn't sound glorious. In fact, my mother was quite surprised at my strong desire for such a quilt rack. It seemed to her a strange birthday wish. We were strolling through Fred Meyer looking for last minute baby items as my swollen feet plodded through the days past my due date for my first child.

"Why do you want a quilt rack?" she asked.

"For Andrew," I replied casually (Andrew, the husband).

"For Andrew?" she questioned.

"Yes. He sleeps on the floor, you know, and so every morning I have to fold up all the blankets and put them back away. I wish we had a quilt rack to keep them all close to his floor bed," I explained.

"Aha," my mother noted this.

Then she stayed with us for the 3 weeks past my due date that marched ever so slowly onward making us question if perhaps the baby would not come. She then understood the blanket mess and joy that such a rack could produce. My birthday was seven days after my dear first born entered the world. She decided to gift me a little early, so as not to let it get lost in the wonderment of a new child. I was ecstatic, but we did not manage to assemble it until some time after the wee child arrived as we indeed were lost in the wonderment of a new child.

Eventually, we did assemble it. Lovingly popping all the little wooden nubs over the easy assembly screws holes to mask the hexagonal, Allen-wrench-asking, screw heads.

Night after night the blankets were removed for my husband's bed. Floors and couches were covered as a bed depending on the houses we lived in. Sometimes the blanket rack was in the bedroom and he slept at the foot of our (my?) bed. Sometimes the blanket rack sat at the edge of the couch and he slept guarding the front door on the couch (though, not really guarding, just sleeping, somehow more easily so long as he was not in a bed).

Morning after morning I would tidy the husband's makeshift bed, perfectly folding his grandmother's quilts (and a few from my own history), before the windows were opened and the neighbors might wonder why this man was always banished from the bed.

Sometimes, once the child had grown a bit (and acquired a brother), the blankets came off mid-day for fort making and the dear quilt rack became a ladder, or staircase, or tunnel into some mysterious cavern their mother (me!) made for two rowdy boys.

Occasionally, when the stress was quite low and the man quite tired, he would manage to stay in bed all night long. The quilt rack might miss him, but I would not miss my morning folding ritual, as there was always other laundry to tend.

The second child, crafty and stealth as he was, discovered he could remove the little wooden nubs. Some disappeared, some rolled around on the floor when I swept. I plugged them back in every night after I tucked in the little man. Then each morning, after I folded quilts and set them on the rack, he would come over and remove the nubs. Eventually I gave up. We collected the nubs and used them as miniature doll heads for little walnut ornaments. No more daily nub collecting.

Today, my lovely quilt rack has left me. It was rather unceremonious. I quickly removed the quilts and scooped it up and placed it on my front porch step on this cold, cold December afternoon. Danna was scheduled to pick it up. There had been a craigslist ad "Huge Moving Sale". Yes, we are hugely moving. Downsizing hardly captures it. However, with the purging of so many items, even ones with such long and silly histories, comes a huge sigh of relief. The relief has created a man who has slept in bed all night long for nearly two weeks and a happy, happy wife. We have no need for the couch-side quilt collection any longer, but instead just one simple blanket, to cuddle under, while the rest of the furniture disappears around us this week.

Good-bye dear quilt rack! So long! Adieu! May you display great textures and patterns for Danna's quilts. May you enjoy a quieter existence, but may you, perhaps, be used for fort-making again, just for nostalgia.

Merry Christmas!

Once again I have missed the Christmas card sending window. Once again I comfort myself with the notion of sending New Years cards instead. Once again I know that won't really happen and I think determinedly of next year. Ah, next year, what potential you hold. Can you change me into the kind of woman who sends out lovely Christmas cards to all her kith and kin?

Perhaps.

In the mean time, I did make lovely gift tags using fabric scraps (some from clothes that don't fit anymore) and left over card stock from my wedding invitations (from oh, six years ago. There are perks to ordering too many invitations, this is probably the 4th project I have tackled with the leftovers and I still have more). The inspiration came from here (p.s. I think this same idea could work for great birthday cards where the cut outs were balloons instead of ornaments).

Forgive my lack of card sending. I do wish to send one to each of you. You have my thoughts and this post in lieu of feeling card stock between your fingers and saving the holiday stamp (or am I the only one saving stamps anymore?).

Merry Christmas! May you treasure the gift of a hope that will not disappoint that was given to us some 2009ish years ago.

Need your feedback!

I've been thinking about this dear old blog. I remember starting it, almost as a writing journal, with all of one person who even knew about it. Somehow that grew to a smaller handful, who are still, I think, among my faithful readers. This blog served an indispensable purpose in my life during a very depressing time when I had moved away from my church community here in Eugene. It was my connection to other people who saw the world like I did. It was church for me.

Then, just over a year ago, we moved back to Eugene. I was able to process with real people regularly and my need to pour things out into this blog diminished. However, I also found blogging to be a good way to keep family and friends updated on the little happenings in our family. I feel like I have veered far from my blog address' declaration of "attempting transparency" and instead it has become primarily a sparse mommy blog. Seeing my crafts and silly tidbits about my children is not what I originally intended the word "transparency" to denote, though it is certainly a piece of what life looks like.

However, the last year has been one of the most difficult of my entire life, and I have not necessarily wanted to proclaim our difficulties over and over. I have feared communicating about it all would be like asking for sympathy, or pity, or being transparent about my thought processes and faith in the midst of the hardships would seem trite or pithy. So I have simply remained silent (here, that is). Not that I was a prolific blogger before, by this year has seen a significant drop in postings and even more so in dialog.

Now what? I like writing. I'd like to get back to it. I like sharing ideas and truths spurred by the "mundane" details of my life (which could be called "signals of transcendence" thanks Peter Berger). However, I am also curious about what you, my reader, would like from this blog. What would you like more of? Less of? I know I have several draft posts to return to answering a question or two from you.

Here are a few of my hopes for topics in 2010:
Something about where we are now and why the last year has been the hardest, and yet best year of my life.
Something biographical about my history with food and cooking.
Something clearer about how and why I rejected the modern ministry model.
Some attempt at a highly controversial, and yet really insignificant, perspective I am developing about the early chapters of Genesis.

But here's another question for you - do I need to split into yet another blog? Is it too strange a combination to have mommy-crafts intermingled with theological musings? Or is that just me and that's okay?

If you have feedback or topic ideas/questions you don't want to share publicly, feel free to email me directly at mariannescrivner (at) gmail (dot) com

The Greatness of My Task

I read this elsewhere today and thought it was wonderful. I really need to read more Chesterton!

"[W]hen people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge [at his work]. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean…. I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
G.K. Chesterton

Uses for Walnut Shells: Summary

Søren and I made a Christmas wreath for the door. I "learned" how to make a wreath with him last year. We used the toddler method for learning, i.e. deconstruction of an existing model. We saved all the parts (except the greenery) and now we've reconstructed. Lovely!

Unfortunately, there is no part three to my walnut shell series. I was most excited about "part three," and so I had saved it for last. I found a recipe for recycling old soap bits into new soap with walnut bits for an exfoliating treat. I am now suspicious that the person who posted this recipe had never actually tried it themselves. I tried my food processor to pulverize the shell bits (as the recipe called for) and am now a little worried I damaged my blade (I tried every blade I have, all two of them). No luck. Next I tried using my ceramic mortar and pestle. No luck. I am not going to make soap with walnut hunks so large that you might injure yourself rather than exfoliate yourself after receiving it as a Christmas gift.

However, the three projects I shared in part 1 and part 2 are now all hung on our tree. Dare I say that they look cute?! I am quite pleased with their sweet, homey addition to our tree. I only wish one of my dear friends with a decent camera were here to take some pictures so that I could adequately share them with you. Instead, you will get ugly flash pictures that completely ruin the magical effect of the tree.

Here's one blurry attempt at catching the lights
(6 walnut ornaments and 1 acorn pictured, can you find them?)

Penelope's First Christmas ornament

Christmas Sailing

Three treasure walnuts

Another "nut" ornament.
I was quite fond of this one.
I think I will make LOTS more next year.

Uses for Walnut Shells: Part 2

Hidden Treasures on the tree for Christmas morning
(these are still missing their hanging thread)

Fold up a dollar and glue shut!
(could also work for earrings or some such thing)

Part three still coming (for the shells that did not remain intact)