A NEW YEAR PART ONE: Looking back

I feel like this year should really begin with the birth of Autumn, even though technically she was born in November of 2008.

Autumn, Minutes old

Autumn Ringia was born, November 14Th 2008 via Cesarean at about 8:00 am after 17 hours of labor. the Cesarean was necessary because she was not positioned correctly.

uncle Nick, Aunt Erica and little Autumn (about 4 weeks old)

I learned a lot this year from Autumn. Most importantly I learned that things don't turn out as planned SURPRISINGLY often, especially as a parent. Some of my plans, failed due to perseverance, and possibly exhaustion-like using cloth diapers. Others failed because not everyone can do them-like breastfeeding- which was a long, determined, exhausting experience that left me feeling heartbroken, useless and defeated. I still have never had the energy to record my thoughts and emotions regarding breastfeeding, but may soon.

Captain Furious ( Autumn 4 weeks old)

8 weeks after Autumn was born I started skating with Rose City Rollers in Portland. It was nice to get out, and get a lot of exercise.

silhouettes of roller girls

I Decided not to return to work because daycare cost almost as much as I would get paid, but It was hard on me to spend all day at home with a baby-as wonderful as she is- and skating didn't help with that. Adam was traveling a lot for that job and it was depressing.


Autumn and I at the rose garden in Portland

In February I opened our etsy store. I had no goals or expectations and found the community to be an addicting and welcomed reprieve from my life as a stay at home mother, wife and derby girl. I was also surprised that things sold without a huge amount of effort from me.

Arm warmers were out top seller in our etsy store this year

I can't remember much about March or April. I found myself too stressed out by skating with Rose City to really want to stick around, and at some point I quit because I couldn't attend many practices and I didn't want to subject myself to unnecessary stress when I felt like I was already at my wits end at home with a baby, and often left alone during the work week while Adam was doing surveys in other states.


Autumn and Daddy

In may Adam and I moved back to Albuquerque! I am so happy to be back home. I started skating with duke city derby again which makes me very happy! I also started working for my dad which really helped me break up my day and feel more productive and less trapped. I get to take Autumn to work with me so it works out very well, and the extra money is very nice. Adam did NOT have a job when we left Portland, but before we moved in to a house he had secured a position as Natural Resources Manager for the pueblo of Laguna! Everything seemed to come together so smoothly. I am sure my mother would say " it was meant to be".

Adam seems to enjoy his job, and I enjoy working part time for my dad. It is very nice that autumn gets to see my dad so often, I think it is good for both of them, and it is nice for me to get out of the house.

Autumn Thinks that dinner looks good!

At the end of last year's travel season Duke City Derby lost Kamikaze Kim, which has been very difficult for me and many other skaters. Kim moved to Seattle, and I am sure they are very happy to have her. Kim is an amazing skater and an amazing person, and I miss her very much. She had changed a little in the year that I was in Portland- but then I suppose, so had I- and some major changes had happened in her life that would surely effect anyone.

At the end of the season Killer Queen and I were elected as the new travel team captains. We have some very big (even though they were actually really small) shoes to fill as Kim's predecessors. I think that in some ways we are doing pretty well, but a lot of people are very sad that Kim is gone and seem to be taking it out on us, and the rest of the team. We may lose some very good skaters, which would be disappointing. A few other skaters have also really stepped up, and been very helpful, and I am very thankful to them.

Adam and I

Our First Christmas on etsy was very lucrative. I did not have any real sales goals when we opened our shop but I was really surprised by how many sales we did make, and how little effort it took. YES, it is a lot of work, but without doing craft shows, art shows, or promoting ourselves locally we were able to make enough sales to buy ALL of our Christmas presents with pay pal money from etsy sales.

I guess that leaves us about where we are now, Many things unresolved as is always the case in a new year, and a few things changed forever, so completely that It is hard to remember what life was like before.



Autumn at the Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor Michigan

Unpacking is hard.

We have been in our new house for a little over a month now- and there is still SO MUCH unpacking to do. All of the important things are done so it is really easy to push off what is left for another day... the problem is that the things that are not unpacked yet are all of the good things... art needs to be hung, and my sewing/art/craft room needs to be organized desperately.

This is the current state of my art room. The worst part is that since I have needed to get things from there it is an even bigger disaster!

Adam has started to make some progess in his shop though! this weekend he made and organized this work bench!



Saddly, it is pretty unlikely that I will get my room more organized before the close of august. Fortunately that is because I will be doing something I love-playing roller derby!

I have already been fortunate enough to play in three bouts since I have been here. On monday I returned to Albuquerque from Tucson, where my team- The Munecas Muertas- played the Saddle Tramps. The Tucson Saddle Tramps have long been a personal favorite team, but it still nice to win a game! I felt really good about this game. It was the first time since Autumns birtrh that I have felt like I was playing effectively. It made me sad to see some dramma about strategy conflicts unfold on the bench. Also, I had to walk away from some critisism, because in the middle of a game it was not going to help.

I hope to get some pictures soon.

Next weekend I will be in Taos for a home game, and then we will be in portland to play the Wheels of Justice.

Busy Weekend

We had quite a weekend around here! My mom came in to Albuquerque last Wednesday and my brother drove up this weekend from las cruses. Duke City Derby also had an art show go up at the Blackbird Buvette -all proceeds to benefit duke city derby. Between derby and family this weekend it felt like I was going nonstop! It was so much fun to spend time with my mom and my brothers.

I also decided that I could make it to the tucson game next weekend. We would save a little money if I would make these decision sooner- but this means that the next three weekends will all be devoted to roller derby. WE have a game with the Tucson Saddle Tramps next weekend, a "home" game in Taos the following weekend, and the weekend after that we play Portlands Wheels of Justice. I would really like to beat portland, but I know no matter what happens we will play our best in portland.

I would like to post some pictures of the art I donated to the art show, but blogger isn't letting me upload any pictures right now so I will have to try again later.

Stopping to Smell the Roses

Looking in to the tree!












"Boo!"

Adam and I went to the Portland Rose Garden this weekend. It was the first time we have been there this year since the roses started blooming, and they were definitely in full bloom! It was such a beautiful place to be on a (rare) sunny Portland day, and we all had a blast!















autumn on daddy's shoulders




"the smell yummy, even up-side down!"






Autumn looking cute, as usual, and sitting in a tree.




Autumn Enjoying the roses!

A Doom by Any Other Name Would Smell as Rank

I have never liked my skate name. I liked it enough when I registered it, and I thought it was kind of cute, but I have always felt kind of silly and stupid repeating it out loud to anyone who asks what my skate name is. Since I transferred to Rose City this year after Autumn was born it seems like a good chance to reinvent my skate persona with a new name. I get to register a new name sometime this month, so I thought I would share all of my stupid names, and how I ended up with one I hate.

In October of 2005 I saw my first roller derby bout. It was Duke City’s Big House Brawlers v/s Dead Mans Curves. Never heard of them? That is because those teams only played two games. I found out about it after finding an old friend on myspace. She had a weird but hilarious name as her display name, Dahmernatrix, which I learned was a cool Roller Derby alias. I am pretty sure there are a lot of fun things I would have never known about if it weren’t for her, including roller derby. That first bout would seem very archaic by today’s standards. There were tons of egregious fouls, and I think there were three play fights. I was never an athletic person, but when I saw bad ass girls in cute outfits on skates beating each other up, I was in LOVE. It was bold and sexy, and just what I needed at that point in my life. I started the very next day.

I was ready to be drafted by the second Big House Brawlers V/S Dead Mans Curves game and had come up with a name that I really loved for the Big House Brawlers, which is still my favorite skate name and is the one I plan to try to register. I was advised not to publish the name all over the internet until I can try to register it because someone else might snatch it up. I will say that about three months before I started with RCR someone registered a name that is similar enough that I may have to ask permission to have the one that I want. I ended up being drafted to Dead Mans Curves, so I went with Whip Lass instead.

At that time it was not uncommon for people to have a different name for every team they were on. When Duke City’s Munecas Muertas played their first travel game against Sin City’s Neanderdolls I got to join them, and went with Cannon Eyes (that open and close) as my Munecas name for that first inter-league bout, and kept it through our first Dust Devil Tourny. That name was stupid. There isn’t much else to say about that name. I thought it was clever then, but I don’t know why. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If the name alone was not bad enough, I also spelled it Canon Eyes, changing the meaning entirely and making me look like a complete tard.

When our first real season started (the two BHB v/s DMC games were an exhibition season) we had more skaters and more time, so we restructured our teams. I became a DoomsDame. Not that it really needs to be said, but I fucking LOVED my team. They were amazing. My team mates were dedicated, hard working, and they totally minimized the drama. The Hobots were another team, which I think was Dahmer and R2 BeatU’s brain child. Awesome, right? Right. The third team was the Derby Intelligence Agency, who ended up with an amazingly large percentage of the prettiest girls on the league. To go with my teams post apocalyptic theme I went with Agent Orange Crush, but didn’t check the roster before trying to register it and it was rejected. I didn’t have much time to pick a new name and at the time I thought Doom Dee Doom was cute, and it was ok with my teams theme, so I went by that for my remaining time with Duke City. It never really grew on me, and I think I am one of the few roller girls who introduce myself as my regular name almost always.

Here are a few of my favorite names that skaters have already taken:

Sara Problem (Seattle)

Aja Consent (Tucson, she had another Saddle Tramps name… Hoot’n Annie?) This name actually appears to be available?

Molotov Cocktease (duke city’s founder)

Suzy Homewrecker (AZ renegades)

Sparkle Ninja (Minnesota?)

Of course those are just a few.

If I were skating for the emerging Salem, Or league, it wouldn’t be a problem. I read yesterday that they have decided to forgo the “often raunchy” roller derby handles. What a shame!

I can’t wait until I get to submit the name I should have registered in the first place, of course this time I have a list of (top secret) alternates if it is rejected. If all else fails I can always skate as Jenny Tullwarts. Changing my name won’t change much, having a baby already changed enough. It won’t change that I hit hard, or that I skate as much as I possibly can and love trying new and creative drills and techniques (bring on the vag. assists)- and it is VERY UNLIKELY that it will change that I don’t wash my pads.

Getting to Know Portland

It has been harder for me to adjust to Portland than it was for me to adjust when I moved to Los Angeles, or Savannah. I am not sure what is different about Portland, but I know Adam is having a harder time adjusting to Portland than the other places he has moved also.

I can’t say that it was especially easy to adapt to L.A. or Savannah, and I am even pretty sure the only place I have ever REALLY liked living is my home town, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I can’t help missing the wide open spaces and the clear sunny skies of the desert southwest. I love Albuquerque’s laid back attitude and cheap rent. I miss hiking in the foothills, climbing, and eating New Mexican food… which is not the same as Mexican food. I miss my old roller derby league. There are benefits to my current league, and I am adjusting, but I spent nearly 3 years playing with those Duke City girls. We were never as organized, productive, or polished as my current league… but we had a lot of fun practicing Vag. Assists, pretending to be polite ladies, and I occasionally I would come home after spending the night at my (then) boyfriends house ( now we are married) to find out that there had been a derby cuddle club meeting on my bed..!?!

There are things I DON’T LIKE about Portland. I don’t like the weather. I don’t like having other people pump my gas. I don’t like how overly regulated EVRYTHING seems to be. There have been more blatantly unpleasant people here than anywhere I have ever lived, my husband Adam agrees… and Adam has lived in New York City. We have also managed to offend a lot of people without intending to or really even understanding WHAT we did that bothered them. Of course we have met lots of awesome people too; it is just a very strange trend that we have noticed. We are also now living with our new 4 month old baby, so it may be the exhaustion and added edginess of having a new baby that has caused that strangeness. I also know that there are a ton of fun things to do here that we have not tried to do because we have a baby.

Have you ever had trouble adjusting to a new place???

First Post...

So, the first post, I suppose, is an excellent opportunity to tell you a little bit about ourselves. When Broken down to the simplest of terms "We" are a family. My husband and I make cool things, and we sell them on esty. I just had a baby girl in November. Her name is Autumn and she is growing fast! She is only 4 months old and she already weighs 18 lbs 6 oz!

My Husband Adam is a wildlife biologist. He also makes beautiful jewelry and hand forges knives. I have an AA in Fashion design from FIDM in Los Angeles, but am now an artist and stay at home mom. I paint, sew, needle felt... and lots of other miscellaneous crafts. I also play Roller Derby. I started playing in November of 2005 for Duke City Derby. I love talking derby... so I will save that for another post.

Adam and I recently moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Portland, Or- and it has been a little bit of a culture shock for both of us. I grew up in Albuquerque, and while I spent a little time in Los Angeles, Ca and in Savannah, Ga I cant help missing the wide open spaces and vivid sunsets of the desert southwest.