Volleyball

We have had three matches since Christmas break.

     The first match was at Svedala on January 7^th. We were missing all three of our outsides for this match. Lisa had the flu that turned into double pneumonia that turned into a pulled rib muscle. Malin had been sick many times so she was still resting to try to get healthy. Sofi’s back was really hurting so she too was resting. Because of these injuries, we brought some new girls to the team. Anna, Daniel’s sister, played outside for us. She played the last time that the team was in the Elitserien, but has three kids now. Jessica played right side for us. She has been coming to our practices once a week. She mostly played beach volleyball, but she has great ball control. We also brought Elin onto our team. She had been playing outside for our B team. We played really well in this match winning 25-20, 25-21, 25-21. I scored 10 points with 8 kills, 1 block, and 1 ace. I got the MVP award, and as usual, my prize was quite interesting! This time I got a can of hairspray and a pen. It was like a $25 can of hairspray though! It also came in handy because I didn’t have any hairspray so I guess it was an ok prize. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_47-1112.htm.

     Our second match was at home against Gislaved. We fought hard, but unfortunately we lost in five 25-23, 19-25, 25-21, 25-27, 11-15. It was a really fun match to play! We had 498 fans at the match. Our gym was packed! The best fans were our local floorball team. There were about 10 of the boys at the match with drums. They were playing drums and cheering the entire match. We were playing great volleyball up until 24-21 in the fourth set. We did the same thing as we did against Engelholm, where we just couldn’t finish the match. We had match point 24-21, but lost the set 25-27. It was very disappointing and frustrating. We lacked the mental toughness to finish the match. We couldn’t fight back in the 5^th set, losing 11-15. We did earn one point though for taking them to five sets. There were two best players on each team for this match. One was picked by one of our sponsors; Malin got that award which was a gym bag. Our club manager picked me as the other player. Of course, I just got flowers! I gave them to my teammate, Linn, because it was her birthday and given the circumstances, I didn’t really want them! I scored 27 points with 18 kills, 3 blocks, and 6 aces. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_53-1112.htm.

     This Sunday, we had a match at Örebro. We beat them in four sets the first time we played them, but they have gotten two new professionals since then. We still won in four sets earning our team 3 points! The sets were 20-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-17. We boarded the bus at 7:30. I stayed awake for almost the entire 5-hour ride as we watched one of my favorite movies, Despicable Me. We also stopped at a mall for a little over an hour where we also ate lunch. The drive was nowhere near as bad as I had expected. We got to the gym 2 hours early so we took a nice long walk before our 16:00 match. The gym was very different than we are used to. It had very high ceilings and bright lights that made it difficult to see at times. We did not play great during the first set. We allowed Örebro to control the play during the first. After that set, we pulled together and played as a team. It wasn’t our best volleyball, but we truly played as a team and supported each other no matter what was happening. We had control for the rest of the match. I got the MVP award and definitely got the best prize that I have gotten so far (but that’s not saying too much!). It was a large pink box that said Sex In The City on it. I started freaking out a little bit because I thought it was going to be the DVDS, but it ended up being some body wash, lotion, and perfume. This is the first perfume that I have ever owned in my whole life! I scored 20 points with 15 kills, 4 blocks, and 1 ace. My favorite part of the match though was that I got to play back row! I really love playing defense. I got to play middle back the majority of the time, which also allowed me to attack from the back row. It was a lot of fun, and I hope I can continue to play some defense! Overall, it was a great team victory. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_59-1112.htm.

     Our next match is on Wednesday against Hylte/Halmstad. We lost to them in 5 at their place. We are really hoping to have great fan support again this match. It will be a really important match for us to win.

Sidenote: The rankings in our league are by points scored. If you beat a team in 3 or 4 sets, you get 3 points. If you go to 5 sets, the winning team gets 2 points and the losing team gets 1 point.

Here are the current rankings:

            Team                                    Pts.            Record

1.     Katrineholms                       31               10-2

2.     Engelholms                          29               10-1

3.     Lindesberg                           24               8-3

4.     Falköping                            21                7-4

5.     Gislaved                              20                7-5

6.     Hylte/Halmstad                  19                 7-5

7.     Ljungby                               15                4-8

8.     Sollentuna                             9                3-8

9.     Örebro                                  6                 2-10

10. Svedala                                 0                 0-12

Working Woman

     I have been coaching our B team since the middle of November. Most of the girls are around 16 years old, with a few younger and a few older. We run their practice twice a week on Mondays, 16:00-17:30, and Thursdays, 17:30-19:30. We have been working on a lot of ball control and free ball passing along with arm swing. One of the dads, Stefan, is also at all of the practices with us. We asked him if we could get some tennis balls. We have implemented using the tennis balls to learn the correct arm swing. The girls are all improving a lot! They can all throw the tennis balls great, but we are still working on them transferring that into actual hitting. They are still improving every practice though. It is nice that all of them speak great English that we don’t need to have someone translating to them what we want them to do. We have even taught them some American volleyball terms that do not translate, like shag! Whenever we yell out shag, the girls all know to run and pick up all the balls.

     December 15^th was the B team’s first match after Christmas. Unlike my team, they started a new league with new teams. They beat Lund in 3 sets. December 21^st was the second match. Unfortunately, they lost in 5 sets to Ystad. Ystad had two really tall good middles that we struggled to stop. We played really up and down as well. We lost the first two sets by like 10, then the third set we were winning 18-1! We won the third and fourth sets, before dropping the fifth and final set. Although we didn’t play consistently, I was still proud of how well the girls played. They were even missing one of our starting outsides and middles. I think we will be able to beat them when we play them in Ljungby.

     Meghan and I have also started working at a factory in Ljungby! It reminds me of my days working at Enduro factory in Washington, MO. We worked on Wednesday from 13-16 and Thursday & Friday from 8-12, but we aren't sure when we will be working next. It is a graphic production factory called JOMAGP, but we like to call it JoMeg. :) We worked packaging the different printouts. Meghan did a couple different jobs like laminating papers, putting postage and labels on envelopes, and the same job that I did. I was a Plastic Wrap Specialist! Here is a step-by-step picture explanation of what I did:

Pick up stack of handouts.

Slide handouts into the plastic wrap.

Align handouts on corner of machine.

Press green button for top to come down.

Peel away excess plastic wrap.

Repeat hundreds of times!

We finished the job a little early on Friday so we also got to put together some boxes!

Harry Potter Puzzle

      My friends, Jamie and Nikki Gross, sent me a Christmas present! They sent it with Mike so he gave it to me in Paris. Jamie and Nikki had told me ahead of time though that they had found me the perfect present. They were definitely right! I do love Harry Potter; although, my love comes nowhere close to their love for Harry Potter. They are kind of obsessed. ;) I really love doing puzzles though! I did a blog a while back on my progress doing a 500 piece puzzle. Well here is my progress on doing my 1000 piece Harry Potter puzzle!

After 1.5 hours of work.

After another 1.5 hours of work.

After another 4 hours of work.

 So I thought that I had taken another picture after the previous one, but I was wrong. So here comes a big leap to the finish!

After another 6.5 hours of work. Finished!

Happy 2012!

Warning: I was very lame on New Year’s Eve.

     I had just gotten back from my Christmas break trips, and I didn’t really want to spend more money. Some of the girls on the team were going to Copenhagen. Another teammate, Selma, invited me to her parents house and then to another party. I decided to turn down all of the invitations. Meghan stayed home with me also. We decided to skip Swedish NYE and wake up in time for American NYE. I was asleep before midnight Swedish time. I woke at 6:00 though. Meghan made pancakes, and we had an American midnight breakfast. After we finally reached American midnight, I went straight back to bed!

Here is what I found out the next day…

     The party that my teammate invited me to ended up having a fight start out. The cops came, and at least one person had to go to the hospital.

     My friend that plays volleyball in Denmark and I had talked about meeting up in Copenhagen. She still went, but she did not have a great NYE either. I have to start by saying she was not drunk! The wine glass in her hand was the only alcohol she had all night. In Copenhagen, you are allowed to drink alcohol while walking around the city. She had dressed up for the night and was wearing heels. Her heel got caught in the cobblestone, and she tripped and fell. As I said she had a wine glass in her hand, she tried catching herself but her hand landed on the broken glass. She cut up her hand really bad and ended up having to go to the hospital and get stitches. She is a setter so she has to sit out from volleyball for a while.

Moral of the story: I may have been very lame on NYE, but at least, I was safe and didn’t go to the hospital!