Footprints on the Moon

Every conversation I have with my mom these days tends to include something about roller derby. It’s a huge part of my life right now, so naturally I talk about it a LOT. Every one of these conversations includes some variation of “the Speech.” What is the speech? Well, it includes some variation of the following: “Be careful.” “You could get hurt.” “You’re my daughter, I’m always going to worry about you.” “I’m glad you’re enjoying it, but….” “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to watch you and Amber.”

Okay, that last one is a new addition after last Saturday. See, on Saturday, I took my mom up to Kalamazoo to watch the Killamazoo Derby Darlins take on the Rubber City Rollergirls and the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls. My plan was two-fold.

First, I wanted her to see an actual roller derby bout. Derby has changed from what she remembers growing up, and I wanted her to see exactly what I’m working towards. Second, I was hoping to show her that yes, it is a high speed contact sport, but look! Those girls get knocked down and get right back up!

All was going well… I was explaining the rules, explaining ref calls, pointing out things as they happened. At one point, a member of the KillaCrew served a pretty hard block on one of her opponents that sent her flying out of bounds and Mom cheered. YES, I had a convert!

But. (And I’m sure you knew this but was coming.)

But… then this happened:

I know it’s hard to see in this picture, but that is a skater, one Mouthy Mayhem, laying on the track with a broken ankle. If you look closely, you can see the black cap of her knee pad… and then follow it down to her pink skate… that is pointing about 90 degrees in the wrong direction.

The whistles blew and everyone took a knee… I glanced over and said, “That’s a broken ankle.” And promptly felt a little nauseous. But not as nauseous as I felt when I found out later that she originally tried to stand up on it before she realized what happened. That’s what I was told anyway, I couldn’t see what happened from where I was sitting.

One person from our league that was sitting closer said that she was crossing over, and stepped on her own foot. Another skater that went told me last night that she was crossing over, and another skater locked wheels with her and tripped over her foot. (She’s also the one who told me that Mouthy tried to get up. Barf.) Whatever happened, it didn’t end well!

And for some reason I can’t figure out, this sight did not make my mom feel better about me skating:

I already have to purchase USARS supplemental insurance to skate with the league. Do you suppose additional life insurance would make her feel any better? No, probably not, huh?

Even though things didn’t go exactly according to plan, I think Mom still had a good time. Even if she will watch me skating through her fingers in the future.

I knew I was sorely neglecting my blog, but I didn’t realize quite how much until I got an email from a company I used to work with. The email said that they had removed my blog from their system because I do not have 20 blog posts within the last 90 days. What? Seriously?

I suppose I could have stopped by just to post something about business credit reports or something, and then gone on my way, but that just doesn’t seem genuine. It seems like every time I feel “ready” to start blogging regularly again, something comes up that I either cannot or do not want to post publicly.

I could post more about derby, but I feel like I’m constantly talking about the same things (I can’t turn around and skate backwards or jump! Grr!) or I don’t know that you guys are even interested anyways! I should post more, in any case, but no promises

I took this picture yesterday, actually, when I spent the whole day on the couch nursing a headache and a bad attitude. Lucy spent a good amount of time being a growth on my ribs Laying on me in any way is very unusual for both of my cats, so I just had to use my phone to snap a quick picture.

For now, it’s time to think about getting ready for bed and preparing for another work week. I hope it is a good one for all of you, my lovelies.

I posted this picture to Facebook a few weeks ago, and that was one of my friends comments… “Haunted Party Lite.”

See… I’m pretty convinced that I don’t live alone in my apartment (and I’m not just talking about my cats). I’ve had a lot of things in my apartment disappear, never to be seen again. Example: the remote to my old TV. I walked two feet from my computer desk to the window to look outside. Turned around and walked back. No remote. I’ve torn the apartment apart, overturned/moved furniture… never found it. Still hasn’t turned up 3 years later.

Lucy ‘talks’ to the ceiling above the microwave, in the hallway and the bookcase.

I swear I turned off the air conditioner when I got up for work the last two days (trying to save money on the energy bill), yet it was running when I got home.

And getting back to the picture up top… I was sitting in the living room, watching a movie and probably reading a home improvement blog. I kept hearing this noise that I thought was on the movie at first. After a couple minutes though, I realized the sound didn’t make sense with what was on the TV. So I started looking around. That’s when I noticed those 3 candle holders on top of the bookshelf near me. The one in the middle was visibly shaking, hard enough that the votive inside was rattling against the glass. Not even a wiggle from the other candles or anything else on the bookshelf, for that matter. It was rather unsettling!

Do you have any extra company in your house?

My name’s in print, that makes it even more official. Love being a roller girl!

<3,

Jennuine Pain

Okay, so I know today is not Sunday but the picture WAS taken on Sunday, and I would have posted it if I hadn’t been too tired/busy to get around to downloading the memory card from my camera!

Yeah… remember that roller derby cookout I mentioned yesterday? Well this is what I looked like at 9:45 the next morning, getting ready to head out for our very first Sunday morning practice. Don’t I just look so excited about life? lol

Don’t worry, I survived what was probably my smallest practice to date, but almost one of the most fun! I had every intention of coming home, pulling down the roller blinds and spending the rest of the day doing nothing. However, the state of my apartment really got to me, so I spent the afternoon cleaning up the kitchen and the bathroom, carrying out trash and getting started on the tornado that hit the living room. Then, of course, I remembered I had to be at work at 3am the next morning and I might want to grab a shower and hit the sack. I was in bed before I even remembered I hadn’t done anything about this picture. Isn’t that a lovely story? haha

Over the weekend, we had our very first annual roller derby cookout! A great time was had by all! Want to know how I know? (And I don’t mean from all the posts on Facebook saying so…) It’s because while one of my contributions was these, my OTHER contribution was THIS:

Oh, yeah! 11 different flavors, 226 jello shots in total. And, as you may be able to tell, I was a little neurotic about labeling all of them. Not pictured: the sheet taped to the cooler lid with the codes:flavors:ingredients.

They were definitely a big hit! And may or may not have been the source of some pretty spectacular technicolor vomit before I crawled in bed for the night. Maybe. Maybe not.

At least one of our ladies brought a tent with her (although, no blankets or outdoor pillows), that’s how good of a time we were planning on having.

We even had a sign that we all signed with our derby names to prove we were there.

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Roller girls know how to throw one heck of a party! I left around 11:15 or so, and the party was still going strong.

Did I mention we had our very first Sunday practice at 10am the next morning? Haha, fun times!

Just a quick post this evening. I have a ton of stuff I want to tell you about, but I have to go to work 4 hours early tomorrow, which means I need to get myself in bed, well, NOW.

I didn’t want to miss another SPS though! And I wanted to update you on my Weight Watchers progress. As of this morning, I hit my 10% goal! I have lost 25.2 lbs in 14 weeks. Awesome

I have a gton

No picture of me today… I worked 3rd shift last night and am currently running on just a two hour nap. You could pack some school furniture into the bags under my eyes right now. Trust me, it’s not pretty.

So instead, you get a picture of my Lucy! She climbed into this box, and then dug all of that brown paper out of it so that she could fit. She was burrowed underneath half of the paper just before this, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera. Rotten little girl. It’s lucky she’s so darn cute, I let her live after she goes potty on the bathroom floor.

Well, it’s off to bed to me (yes, at 6:15 pm) as I’m just plain tired, and I have to be up and at work by 3am tomorrow. The overtime will look nice on my check come payday… remind me of that in a few hours, okay?

As usually, I am woefully behind on blogging. I was just having way too much fun this weekend (or resting up from having fun) to bother with writing. Or taking an SPS picture. Or posting it. But since I know you’d feel lost without a picture of me…

… Me and Amber from the 4th of July cookout on Sunday! Amber is my cousin, fellow derby girl, and an all-around kick ass person!

Like I already mentioned, I had a wonderful weekend. I got off work on Friday and in trying to decide what to do with myself, I decided to go to a movie! So I checked the listings, got changed and off I went to see Eclipse! The only bad thing about seeing a movie by yourself is that if you have to pee, you have to pack up all your stuff and take it with you, and there is noone to tell you what you missed when you get back.

Saturday started out as a lazy day. I did a little bit of cleaning, I picked up movies from the Redbox and was just generally relaxing when I got a phone call. Mom had picked up Killian and one of the first things he asked was “Where’s Aunt Jenn-i-per?” She told him, she’s at her house and his response was “I want to see her!” Since I don’t say no to this face:

I got myself cleaned up and headed over there to hang out for awhile. Had dinner, watched him play/played in his kiddie pool, and then went off to watch the fireworks at the baseball field when it got dark.

Sunday was the big family cookout… always one of my favorite days of the year! We start in the afternoon with enough food to feed an army, and eat and talk and swim and play all day long, ending in the boys of the family attempting not to set themselves on fire giving us a good fireworks show.

Monday was recovery! I slept until 9am, which is entirely unheard of since I got used to the first shift 5am days a couple years ago. (Of course, being up until well after midnight waiting for the booms to end helps that cause.) We took Killian to see Toy Story 3, which was cute, and may or may not have made me tear up towards the end. Then I grabbed some Chipotle for lunch and went home to do a load of laundry, some general picking up, and then laying on the couch watching movies.

Like I said, wonderful weekend. The only thing that could have made it better would have been some time on the massage tables lol But as a general rule, I found myself happier and more content than I have been in a long time. And that is a good thing.