True Words

Today was a hard day. It was an unexpected gift when I came across this quote tonight. I'm working on dancing with the limp. “You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” ― Anne Lamott

Gingerbread House

As I drove home from book club tonight I had fun looking at all the pretty lights on the houses in the Pill Hill area. It reminded me of our house growing up. Dad would always get up on the roof and put up colored lights. We all thought our little brown house looked like a gingerbread house.

Black and Blue

Ellie had a little incident today in phy ed class and is black and blue with a large gash under her eye. She was hit with a racquet (by accident of course). She called Auntie Katy tonight to tell her about the accident and both Katy and I were reminded of another little girl who had a black eye once upon a time. When Katy was about three I was out practicing my golf swing. If you've seen me golf you know that this practice was desperately needed. Katy ran up and was going to play a trick on me and remove the golf ball. I didn't see her coming and soon there was a little girl bleeding and two parents heading to the emergency room. I remember dad being pretty calm and mom...well she was a little worked up. I ran out to the field because I felt so badly about hurting my little sister. I was very relieved when they arrived back home from the hospital and all she had was a black and blue mark. Needless to say I only practiced my golf swing when the yard was empty after this day.

Shangrila

Tonight orange chicken was on the menu at the Willman household. As I prepared the rice and the chicken I thought about how much my dad loved Chinese food. One of my most vivid memories as a child was going to Shangrila in Grand Forks. I used to beg to sit up in the balcony. My dad would always order sweet and sour pour and he'd get extra rice to put in his soup. My favorite was the chicken fried rice and to this day I can't find a place that makes it as good as Shangrila. I'm sure it was more than the food that made our trips to Shangrila special. We usually went there after a busy day of shopping so we'd all share the bargains we got. Dad would tease us about who we were going to wear our new outfits for and Myndy and I would stuff our pockets with mints on the way out. There are two additional stories about Shangrila having to do with a "fluorescent green pea" and "guy ding" but I can't print them here in the blog. You'll have to ask Myndy about these stories.

Driving a 5 speed

We took the whole family to the movie Wreck it Ralph on Friday. In one scene the hero Ralph is trying to teach Vanellope how to drive a car with a manual transmission. That reminded me of my dad's experience trying to teach me to drive a 5 speed. I was doing pretty well on the straightaways so we ventured into Thief River Falls via Highway one. When we got in past the college we ran into a train and guess who was the first one in line. I got a little nervous...panicked,in fact, and dad had to run around and take the wheel. That was the first and last time I drove a car with a manual transmission. I think dad figured we'd be lucky just to get me a driver's license.

Mylee's Baptism

We celebrated my niece Mylee's baptism today in Woodbury. As we gathered together I couldn't help but think of how much my dad would have loved to have been there. Then just as the water was poured on Mylee's head I saw a glimpse of my dad in her crooked smile. Later, we feasted and enjoyed dad's venison sticks and he was there with us again.

Trimming the Tree

We spent this evening trimming the tree. This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas because each of the ornaments brings back a flood of memories. The pipe cleaner star that Anna made at Meadow Park reminds me of her as a preschooler. The sun catcher that Ellie made brings back memories of her kindergarten year and how shy she was. Erik just plain reminds me to put everything on a high branch. Growing up trimming the tree was one of our favorite traditions. My dad would always pick out a tall, beautiful tree...and it had to be real! No artificial trees in our house. He'd put it up and then have us come in and take a look and give it our approval. Mom would cover it with our favorite bubble lights and we'd begin to decorate. No matter how ugly the ornament that we'd made mom and dad made sure to keep them. I distinctly remember one styrofoam ball with toothpicks that was kept over 20 years. I hope that my kids will have the same great memories of decorating the Christmas tree as I had from my childhood.