What happened after Florida? I went to PORTLAND!

This girl is something... something...

Since I already was in USA it only made sense to go and visit my lady in Portland (it's only a 7 hour flight from Florida).  It's really nice to hang out with someone that is so different yet like myself, she's such a genuine person and makes my heart skip a beat. Most of all I have HELLA fun with her, and she does make me push myself... freaking speedskating was EPIC! Trying to shoot with her bow during camping (sorry for destroying an arrow) and also just talking about everythign and nothing. I am for sure more obsessed about coffee...

 I was able to attend a few Rose City practices and also got to see Eagle play a bout with her home team Guns and Rollers. It's really awesome to just go to practice and not have to think much of it, on Sunday it was endurance practice, it was AMAZING, - I had a blast just skating laps and sprinting. I WANNA GO AGAIN! All I did was jus thinking "just one more lap" until my legs want to give in.
On Monday I got to attend A Guns and Rollers practice, it was great, maybe a little to slow for my Monday hyper self. 

I also got to attend two scrimmages and got to scrimmage with AoA agains WOJ, and it was SUPERFUN, you know hitting on a nice taqll jammer... gotta love it.. . I also picked up on some bad habits I've developed and I need to work on. Back to getting a lower centre of gravity in my plows when someone is pushing me from behind. "MUST GET BETTER"  it's that darn chatter that Eagle looooves to talk about... I tink it comes naturally for hockey plaers (THERE, I said it)

It was also really fun to see Sorelsen and Rivas arriving from Denver, just starting fresh meat in Rose. Rivas has always been one of my favorite skaters, she's good. I've had the pleasure to skate with her on VR before, and I've always called her quiet girl. Favorite nickname!

I also sort of feelt accomplished since I actually went for a 45 min run on the Thursday practice when Eags had WOJ practice. I know it doesn't sound like THAT great of an achievement, but when you haven't been able to run for such a long time (one year due to the hamstring rupture), that really is something I feel utterly excited about. 

We also went on a fantastic bike ride along the rive before the Sunday BEFORE the endurance skate.. .and we did go camping for a day, and that was EPIC, probably one of the best campingtrips I have ever done. 

 I guess active vacations are my style over just sitting around doing nothing, even if I can appreciate doing nothing too... well at least staying in bed... 

Valentine gift...

So I sort of don't relly endorse those holidays that are just made up for consumption reasons, I like to buy gifts at any time, just because I feel like getting the people I care about a gift. Earlier this month I ran into a shop that had a shirt with an eagle AND roses on. What could be a better present for my lady than that? (She plays for Rose City and her nickname is Eagle). I just like getting gifts for people I care about, because it makes them smile.

Today when I was home writing a paper for school a package arrived, and it was full of  heartshaped Jolly Ranger lollipops and each of them had a HANDWRITTEN supersweet message for me! WOHOOOOO... made me so EXCITED and sucking on a lollipop of course made schoolwork so much easier. 

Off-skate fighting to fit

Poor Alpha had to keep up with my terrible coordination

Like really, I totally enjoy working out, but as I've said before, I REALLY have a hard time motivating myself. So working out in a group is really what I love doing, and on Thursdays Fighting Fit is for Stockholm Rollerderby... It's about eight of us that come regularly... the first half is all about fighting and how too, I am seriously CHALLANGED in this part. Considering that I am as good in rollerderby as I am, you would like to belive that I have some sort of coordination... meh... I do have fast reactions... The second part is high intense workout crossfit stylish... Yesterday Asstroid, Kim, Thunders, Chaos, Slinky and Alpha showed up, feels like that is the usual crowd, and I like it!
Yesterday the exercise part was determined by the roll of a dice... yeah... we did roll lot's of burpees... Hella painful today, but I feel great, I'm coming back from Christmas/New Years hiatus and ready to get in better shape than ever. My hamstring IS still hurting, but I truly feel like I have the strenght back, making me feel more comfortble on the track and also while doing off-skate... I do have to remember that I need more of a warm-up than before my injury, and jamming still scares me...
I am also trying to eat better, and that really doesn't mean that I'm going to eat less, but rememebr to eat, and make good choices. Yesterday I got entrecot (it's a hunk of meat) and made a side salad of red peppers, cucumber and an avocado with soem balsamic vineger, olive oil, salt and pepper. It turned out to be yummy, but it really is so much LESS fun to cook just for yourself, sitting by the table eating alone really made me miss Eagle...
I've booked two classes at my gym this weekend, and they are classes I havn't attended yet, and I'm totally trying to coax Kim to come with me on Saturday. Me and Kim are spending Saturday making Chilli, you know one of those chilis that you cook for hours, and it becomes REAL yummy in the end!  SO looking forward too that!

Ready set eat... yum yum yum... 

And then I fell asleep in the compression recovery tights that I got from my mother for my Birthday... yesterday was a good day and tonight we have rollerderby practice, so it will be a good day today too!

My Birthday

So my birthday was amazing - Eags woke me up with coffee and then I went to work. I had early dinner with my mother, stepdad, brother and Eags...

And then we went to practice... It's probably the best fun to do on your birthday, to skate. And after practice Eags took me for kebab pizza, a true Swedish dish...

This is all I wanted for my birthday 

Fighting Fit

So it's time to get into shape again, I keep on saying that, I probably never be in the crazyass shape that I strive for... one day... one day... as long as my body is just fit to play derby I'm a VERY happy gal. I did realize the other day that I am in better shape now than when I moved to New York and started to play with Gotham. It has been a constant goal to strive for better fitness and better skills, sometimes it has been hard to push myself, but it has been worth it. Tearing my hamstring has been a challange to coem back from, and the constant pain, and pushing through but not too hard has been a struggle. Well, well... I was going to write about our new off-skate class.

So in a tiny basement in Stockholm, there is a small exercise room and a class called "Fighting Fitness" lead by a stout Australian woman named Jo. She's got a background in both rugby and martial arts... and the class "Fighting Fit" is half fighting techniques and half crossfit inspired during 90 amazingly fun and challanging minutes. Yesterday we wrestled, and in the future we have to bring our mouthguards... good thing we all have them. To be honest, I am not a person that goes to the gym just because I like to work out, I really am not, I go to the gym, to off-skate to become stronger and in that way become a better derbyplayer. I prefer to get in shape by doing fun things... like rollerderby OR snowboarding, I just happen to be hypercompetative, so the fun and easy fast turns into becomming better. I don't mind, thaty is where teh fun is at!

Jo just got a pup... very distracting  for all of us

Yesterday at Fighting Fit it was me, Kim, Thunders, Slinky, Chaos, Alpha and Eags who showed up. Oh, and Jo just got a puppy that also was present, chewing on everything and distracting us all from what we were supposed to do... It was superfun to do off-skate with Eags, and that girl can wrestle... but she just wait... she just wait... I am out to get her... It's fun to do this with a bunch of other competative derbygirls, we all push each other and ourselves, no slacking here, and lot's of soreness the next day!

From now and on I'm preparing myself to be in fighting fit condition for the upcomming season, and this is such a fun way to do it, together with teamates, it does such that the tiny basement can't fit more than eight of us... but eight is better than none! Watch out world... I am back! The upcoming few months I hope every week will be two days at the gym, fighting fit once and rollerderby two or three depending on the times we get from Stockholm City.

After practice I made Swedish Meatballs for Eagle, serving it with all the traditional fixings, even if I don't think she's ready for the lingonberry jam just yet.

Fighting Fit in the bathtub...

Sticking a hole in your toe

So the winter bootcamp was amazing and fun, but being on skates three days in a row after almost three weeks with new skates did not work out so well for my right toe.

On the Saturday I got kicked quite hard on my big toe, but didn't really think too much about it. I got home and it was hurting but not more than I was ok with. I did notice that I probably should trim the nails, but got distracted. When I took my skates off on Sunday it was at the point that it was painful to walk in my trainers... I noticed that the toe was swollen and the nail seemed utterly unhappy... Still on Monday I managed to get the foot into skates and skate for two hours... But afterwards it was even more painful. After some Internet research and the very eager wannabe doctor Eagles advice, I realised that there was fluids under my nail, since it looked like it was ready to spring off the nalbed. Eagle did offer to drill a tiny hole in the nail with a gigantic power tool. I politely declined the offer. After being a big scared pussy for about an hour and after been prompted to watch gigantic zits getting popped on YouTube I finally decided that it couldn't be the worst thing to stick a needle just lightly under the nail... And it wasn't..  Lots of clear and yellowish fluids rushed out from the tiny little hole I poked... I cleaned it up and went to sleep... 

Toe is feeling much better today! Yay!

Yeah, I know... it is not a sexy picture...

My Birthday is a BIG deal

Ok, I admitt it, I love my birthday, probably too much for a person that doesn't like to talk about her age.  Either way, I just like having this one day when it's all about me, so very NON Swedish... On my birthday I want presents, presents and more presents, I don't care much for Christmas gifts, but I do VERY MUCH care for birthday gifts.It's a littel over the top maybe, and I am probably totally overdoing it!

I guess I already got a really great and fantastic Birthday gift, Eagle is staying for for my birthday, it wasn't really the plan, but due to the extreme weather in USA at the moment, she got stranded in Stockhoml until this weekend. So I sort of can say I got an exotic and amazing bird for my birthday!

So, FRIDAY it is, it's my birthday! On my birthday I will go to rollerderbypractice, and after practice I will go for a few beers with friends that I can coax into late beers and then I will fall into soft and comforting wings. And along the day I am hoping for lots of small and big presents and many congratulations on the impressive task of accomplishing another year of living!

 I am excited about 2014... Ah! 

Stockholm Winterbootcamp

Stockholm held a two day bootcamp this past weekend, and it was fab, Scald Eagle from Rose City Rollers was here and coached two sessions each day and myself coached one session each day. This year felt really awesome and less stress than the last time I did it. I had a really good time coaching, first class was on briding and offence, while the second one was on reaction, communication and ass towards the jammer. And Eagel had some really fancy footwark classes, jamming and all that stuff she's good at, she has for sure a fiiiine step, and on Sunday I was lucky enough to be able to step in on her morning class, she is a really great coach. Bootcamp was fun, everyone in the leauge worked really hard to make this happen, and hopefully we will be doing the same thing next year. It felt like we all got something out of it!

Eagle jamming 

We also had a referee camp that was lead by Cherry Fury, so we decided on having as much of scrimmage as possible, because it's fun to scrimmage with people you don't know, and referees need as much practice as possible. It was also a way of making it able for all of our Stockholm Rollerderby members to get to skate. The bootcamp was more advanced and participants had to been bouting for at least a season, which made the scrimmage  more challanging and it was great to see that both some of Swedens finest and Finlands finest where there. On the Sunday we did let our rookies in on the scrimmage, they got their own rookieline and got to play against each other, and they did soooo good, our rookies are going places! Europe look out!  I had SUCH a blast. A SUPERHUGE plus was of course that I got to skate with Eagle, and since we both are such derbynerds, it's about the best date ever. (like really)

The bootcamp was also real fun because of the simple reason that lots of fun people were participating, my very missed friend Only from Kallio was there, and her gf Pygmi, so I got to practice my Finnish that still is not very good, I guess I really need to go to Helsinki more, or even better have them move here. Sigh... I wish... 

Eags, me and Becky at Wintergames

We also had Eagle coach two Stockholm Rollerderby practices, and that was awesome, and it was so much fun to have an external coach come in with new drills and ways of thinking. I learned a few new things and got a few new things to work on, it is so awesome to get pushed and the feeling of getting better. Todays session was superfun, and we did some one on one that I forgot how much I like it. Reminded me that it is something we need to practice more often, just a few min every practice can take you a LOOONG way!

So tomorrow will be a very sad day since I have to drive Eagle to the airport and then go to work. The past three weeks been truly amazing, and I don't even know how to put words to how much I have learned about myself, how great my friends are and also that regular iceskating is hellafun!

HAPPY NEW 2014

Last practice of 2013

Amazones and an anklebiter....

Last practice of 2013 was awesome and so much fun! We had Scald Eagle guestcoaching us, and it was all back to basics, and as we all know, basics is what gives us things to build on. Eagle did an mazing job, and I think each and every person felt like they got somethign new to work on for 2014. I think we are trying to bring in some more guest coaches during 2014, it is truly inspiering and there are always little bits and pieces to build on to become a better skater, team and leauge. Building together... and forward...

After practice most of us wen to the local pizza place for some Secret Santa and (suprisingly) PIZZA. It was soo much fun. Our sweet BSTRDs had gotten Allstars a YOODDELING Flamingo for us to bring as a mascot to Florida. Like SERIOUSLY! It made me laught SO hard for the longest time. I left the dinner holding hands with my lady feeling like rollerderby is truly amazing and soem of the most amazing people I know are friends that I've made through rollerderby.

Vagine Regime Nordic in Helsinki

I had such a great weekend playing with friends against Kallio Rolling Rainbow this weekend. Pick-up teams are fun when everyone are great skaters and you just all of a sudden start to play so well with each other.
I really had a SUPERFUN weekend, and I was excited to see Only and get to hang out with her and catch up...

This bout was a charity promoting Equal Marrige Rights in Fnalnd, and it was announced by Miss Gay Finland, two things that are really cool! This really turned out to be one of hte best weekend in a long time, of course I love playing with Stockholm, it's my home leauge and we have longterm goals and strive to climb into Division two and up... With Vagine Regime Nordic it was about gettign to skate with other fellow amazing skating queers and just have fun! It was of course extra fun to win, but it was not the main point.

Bout really was fun and superphysical and we ended up only being 10 ppl on the roster, due to some injuries and last minute cancellations. Everyone seemed to ahve sooo much fun, and everyone just played so well! We sold all the merch we had printed and enjoyed an afterparty with Samiakki, longdrinks, lipsyncing trannies and great company!

Oh, I was awarded Best Blocker, Loony got best Jammer and Chaos got MVP - so I guess the Stockholm Queers really represented... but everyone did amazing, Sabo did some amazing offence while Martattack probably are one of the best positional blockers in Europe, her footwork is sooo amazing, I want it! It was also superfun to get to share some tracktime with Becky, since we usually never play in the same line. Oh and I had ONE penalty the entire game, not as good as when I played Paris last weekend when I only NO penaltys... but one is good and MUCH better than lots of bouts I have played. Penatlys are BAD, and I wanna be a good girrrrl...


We totally will get the Queers together again if anyone wanna play us again! Thank you so much Kallio for inviting us, it was a freaking BLAST!

AND it's just two more days until my girlfriend will be in Stockholm... I am sooo excited and a tiny bit nervous! Like damn, meeting my family and celebrating Christmas together!

Portland, Portland

So I went to Portland to hang out with someone special, and it surpassed my expectations. I gotta hang out with someone that makes me giggle, that makes me blush and that holds my hand, someone that I can be just me with. She gives me compliments and hugs me tightly and yeah, makes me really happy. Yupp, that just happened!

I had a great trip, with some derby, got to see some old friends and make some new. I gotta see the last day of the playoffs in Salem - none of the games were particularly exciting, since Rat had a firm grip on Detroit from the get go and Bay Are we're not about to give Atlanta any spare points... The most exciting was probably the first half of the bout for the fifth place between Victoria and Toronto - until Victoria got a good grip and kept on plowing away. It's exciting to see that international derby is digging its way into the WFTDA ranks! Even if the only international team at Championship will be London Rollergirls... And that is EXCITING!!! And I am gonna go to Champs and I'm super excited about that!!

Afterparty dressed up in gold by some Demanda and Blue pressure, gotta see Eagle in a dress... (Why did I not take photos of this)

I got to join a Portland hometeam practice - it was fun to practice in the hangar and Guns N Rollers were superfun and nice to skate with. And on Wednesday I got to scrimmage with them - and that was also super duper fun, and I gotta skate with twin tower Eagle, tall awesomeness on the track. I really had a great time skating with Rose City!

Rainbow in Portland

Now I'm on my way to Helsinki to play Kallio on Saturday and Helsinki on Sunday, gonna be awesome to play with my team. 

Watching rollerderby

I spent the past two days/nights watching WFTDA playoffs - it's awesome. The hard work that's behind every stride, every hit and every single person inspires me! Oh, and Scald scored a 45 point jam - that happened. And London almost beat Denver... Crossing my fingers for tomorrow - for them to go to the Championships be the coolest thing ever!

Taking notes, thinking about what Stockholm can improve, what can we do better? I know we can always be better, but a little more specific.

I enjoy watching rollerderby - but I enjoy playing it even more! I want us all to work hard, to sweat, to know that every exhausting practice will earn us five more points at the next bout. I want to that feeling that my body is almost at the limit, but I can still push it one more centimetre... And then doing it... Just one more push, and one more... GO!

So tonight have not been so much about pushing ourselves, more about overloading on candy, caffeine and playing dress-up between bouts and in halftimes. Good friends and team-mates makes me way to creative... Whoops, the silliness!