Forced Vacation

They say that Home is where the heart is. I haven't felt like I've been at 'home' in a few years now, and I must admit that I feel more at home sleeping on a floor mat in my pseudo parents house than I do anywhere else. I say that because that's what I did for the week of Halloween. And it was awesome. :)

On the 29th of October the halloween party ensued. It was an absolute blast! My older sister happened to be in Antioch for a brief stint, so she came out and helped us setup on friday, and then she had to go(sad days). But friday afternoon I also had plans. A few friends had invited me to play Balderdash for the first time. It was actually a lot of fun!

But not as much fun as the Warrior Dash was, which actually happened before the party did.

My & my gimp tape

Laura, Me, and Ryan after the dash! (we had been hosed off)

Ryan and Laura ran in the Warrior Dash with me this year and we all had a blast! I sucked and had to walk some portions, and even bypass obstacles, which I was really bummed out about, but I didn't honestly expect to a whole lot since I didn't really train for it and had to deal with my gimp arm taped up to my body. I still had a ton of fun, though. And Ryan promised to go again next year, which is always exciting.

Laura(firefighter), Britney(fat ballerina), and I

Then we had the party, which was pretty awesome. I was a pirate again, of course, and I had a complete blast. We had set up some pretty spooky stuff, like a pair of stuffed overalls and a mask were literall hanging from a noose in one of the trees. I got to carve a total of 3 pumpkins, and it was awesome!

I kept getting yelled at to stop trying to help clean up when everything was over, even though I was using my good arm, and not my bad arm. It seemed to be a recurring theme.. Use either arm, and get yelled at to go sit down somewhere and look pretty. It frustrated me, watching everyone else work really hard, and I couldn't do anything. It was actually extremely frustrating. I hate being lazy.

Monday morning I went back to Sacralameo to wash my clothes and get ready to leave town again. Before I did, though, I got to spend some time with one of my new friends, Miri. We had a lot of fun chatting over coffee and trying on dresses for a party she was going to the following weekend.

Clark and Ben

And then one Wednesday, I got on a plane to go visit my dear old friend, Ben, and his wife, Ashley. But mostly I went because I had yet to meet their son, Clark, who was about to turn a year old. The last time I had been there was about 2 and a half years ago when Ben and Ashley had gotten married. I was overdue on a visit, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to go over there. If I didn't have a doctors appointment two days before thanksgiving, I would have stayed longer.

Ben, Ashley, and I

It was so awesome to get to see Ben's family again! The whole trip made me seriously consider, probably for the umpteenth time in my life, moving to Texas. Just so I can be near to them.

But California is where my heart is. And home is on the floor of my pseudo parents guest bedroom.

Arrrrgh!

Well, tomorrow is the last Roller Derby bout of the season for Sacred City, and I'm stoked! I'm going to be wearing my halloween costume. I'm very excited! I'm going as a pirate because it's the only thing I could think of that would incorporate a sling without it looking completely tacky.. Well, I could've gone as a mummy, but that's dumb.. I have yet to see an attractive mummy costume..
Anyway! I'm very excited about tomorrow! I will be working the doors, checking ID's and cross checking your name as you come in. I'll have a camera that my sister so nicely is lending to me, which I'm very excited about, because I don't own a real camera.. Which makes me very glum..

My costume was an attempt to outdo the Halloween City super store.. I had tried on the pirate costume fashioned after Angelica from Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and after deciding that it was very poorly made and cost way too much, I declared I could do better myself.. And then I stepped in it and actually am doing it myself..
It started out as an adventure, I was going to make a pirate hat and corset out of a pair of leather pants I got at a thrift store, and then I changed my mind about the corset and was going to make a pair of spats to cover up a pair of work boots I have. But.. I ended up measuring the hat wrong, which is was hitting myself in the head for, and ended up trashing the entire leather project. Perfectly good waste of a perfectly well fitting pair of leather pants.. Pretty sure they were mens, and they were a few sizes too big, but the fact remains.. Poor pants..
But! I did manage to get my hands on some fishnet leggings and some shorts, that were originally made for athletics, and I partially shredded up a button up shirt I got. I'm very excited about the shirt, actually.. I used some dental floss, my thread of choice for the past several years, and put in some loopholes. And then I got my sister to get me some ribbon, thank goodness for sisters, and threaded a corset in the back. It's very crafty of me, I must say. I know you probably don't care about all of this, but I feel awesome having something to do.

Sexy Toilet Paper

Since having trashed my hat plan, I have to resort to a bandana plan, or Plan B(for bandana, aren't I clever).. If it doesn't look right, though, I'll drop by a dollar store and get a hat there. Or, I shudder to think, a Halloween City. Bleck. Mass produced felt crap for too much money, that's what that is.

Hot Couch Backdrop

And I got so excited about wearing my outfit for the bout tomorrow night that I had to try it on all together! I mean, who wouldn't get excited, right? Trying stuff on is always a blast, although I only like doing it when I'm alone, really.. That way no one can laugh at me. :D
Besides, every girl looks sexier when she's taking pictures of herself in fishnets in front of a couch or next to a toilet. Am I right, or am I right? I know that's my favorite lady picture backdrop. *shakes head* Oh, I also put makeup on my face in semi-traditional Dia De Los Muertos garb so I could see what I might do for Halloween and for the bout tomorrow night. Have I mentioned I a little excited about it? Yes. Definitely excited.

Oh, and I also officially activated my disability leave today. Got ahold of my dad last night, and am in the process of getting some plane tickets to go visit some friends in Texas. Which I'm pretty excited about, because I haven't been there in over a year, and all of my friends have been asking me to visit them pretty incessantly. And I'm pretty excited about it. I'll get to meet some babies for the first time, which I am so excited about!

Me & my "brother" Dan last year at Warrior Dash

And next week I'll be going to the Best(I mean! Bay!) Area to spend some time with my favorite humans on the planet(no offense to anyone who doesn't live there).
On Saturday I'll be running(sort of) in the Warrior Dash with my best friend and my favorite Wife-of-best-friend. I'm pretty freaking excited.
You know, for someone who loves their job and desperately tried to not go on disability, I'm doing pretty good at keeping busy these last few days, and am going to be these next few weeks. I love vacation. I hate the pay, though.. Sixty-six and two thirds percent of your average take home is not exactly my idea of fun, but.. I'm going to do what I can to survive.

I promise to post about the bout soon! And hopefully my sister will let me borrow her camera for all these miniature excursions. And hopefully she reads this and takes this as a playful nudge in the ribs to let me. :D

Super excited!
Four weeks left!

Gimp Girl!

Since having started skating with Sacred City Derby Girls, or SCDG, I have learned A LOT! I've learned proper technique and have really started to hone my skills and I think I'm getting a lot better. My balance is better, my stride, my pace.. I just suck at my falls. I can take a knee pretty well, but when it comes to the harder falls, like baseball slides and four point falls, I seem to need a little more work around the edges.. In fact, I need so much work that I'll be doing the next six weeks off skates. Yep, no skates.. Want to know why?

I partially dislocated my shoulder during practice. It really sucks, actually, but it makes for a great conversation starter with perfect strangers.
Last monday we were practicing our 4-Point falls, which is where you land on both knees with control and then land on your wrists. I was really having difficulty landing with control and instead just kept plopping on my knees which could eventually lead to some bad knee injuries. One of my coaches, Sassy Longlegs, encouraged me to try to land with better control so as to avoid injury. And then one of my teammates suggested that it's easier to fall and pop back up when you have some more speed.
Of course, I'm always game to try new things, so I tried pushing my strides through the apex of the turn a little harder to gain some more speed before I got to the miniature orange cones marking where I needed to fall. After this point, my memory is a little cloudy, so if you were there please chime in!
I plop one knee down and am about to put down my second knee when I start to lose my balance. At this point, it should have been easy to complete the fall successfully, but I somehow managed to land on my shoulder instead of my wrists, and my body was facing the wrong direction.. I fell backwards onto my shoulder instead of forward onto my wrists, my face against the sport court. I heard my coach ask if I was alright as I slowly started to realize what was happening.
"Ow! No!" I tried to push my body upright to get off the track so that the next pair of skaters could practice, but my right arm wasn't responding at all. A shooting pain coursed through my shoulder and I realized it was dislocated. "I can't move my arm!"
"Just breathe, Cheryl. Just breathe," Sassy said as she skated towards me. I heard her tell my other coach, RoseVillain, something but I didn't understand it. "Can you roll onto your back?"
I pushed my left arm under my body and grabbed my right with it. I slowly picked it up and rolled over onto my back. As my shoulder blade began to lay into the sport court, I felt my shoulder roll back into its socket. It reminded me of dipping a chicken wing into a very thick dip with a small bowl, suctioned to the dip so it lifts the bowl as you pull it out.. That's the kind of squishy suction it was. It's not an amazing metaphor, but it suits me.
Anyway, after I felt it go back in, I told my coaches it was back and I could actually move it again. I should have been glad, but my eyes watered and dripped down the sides of my face, especially when Sassy said I was done skating for the day.
She and RoseVillain took my helmet and skates off for me and they got a length of cloth to make me a sling. I was offered several car rides home but I was convinced that I could get there on my own. And I did, even though it was a little difficult.
I called in sick at work early the next morning and went to see a doctor.
The doctor put me in a sling for 6 days and gave me an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The orthopedic surgeon announced that I have no torn muscles, but, just to be safe, he wants me to wear a brace for 6 weeks and put me on light duty at work.
I tried for almost a week to convince myself and my manager that I could still work, afraid of what disability might do to me. Less pay, more laziness.. I abhor being lazy these days. Sure, relaxing once in a while is always a good idea. But I spent almost 2 years of my life being lazy, and I've kind of grown to hate that time of my life.
So I called corporate and they told me that I could work if my doctors note of ability met the minimum requirements for my job description, but that the decision ultimately lies with my manager, who doesn't want me to work. The representative promised to email me and mail me the list of job requirements that day, but she never did. Fail.

So while I waited for my important documents to arrive in my email box, my sister, Tabitha, was having trailer issues in Stockton, which is only about an hour from me. So I jumped in my car early friday morning and drove out to see her, even though I only expected to see her for about 15 minutes. Since she started trucking school, I've barely gotten to see so much as a text message from her, so I was very excited to see her!
I got down there and shortly after arriving we found out she had 5 hours free, which is practically unheard of in trucker tongue. So I took her and the other trainee who's been with her this whole time out to lunch at a fantastic little hole in the wall mexican joint in Manteca called Taqueria La Costa. It was pretty much amazing, as I would expect any truly authentic looking and smelling establishment to be.

Then we went into a thrift store, then to Walmart, and eventually to a Halloween City. It wasn't the best time to be had, but any amount of time with my sister at this point is cherished, so I still enjoyed it, even though I got a little cranky..
We ended up spending nearly 10 hours together, which was pretty amazing and I was very excited! But I had to go home and get some sleep to help with my team rummage sale the next morning, so I said goodbye and tried to get home as fast as I could.. Ended up getting caught by the police and ticketed for speeding.. But I deserved, and the officer was nice enough to change the speed I admitted to going to something I could still go to Traffic School for. I just keep reminding myself that God caught me sinning, and He decided that I need to help my state get out of debt..

The next morning I got up to drive to Sacramento to help out at the rummage sale. Since I'm in a brace, I wasn't very useful feeling so I volunteered to help a few other girls wave at passing drivers on the corner of our street. I'm pretty incapable of waving a sign, so I just stood near one and pointed to it every so often. I actually had a blast standing out there waving to complete strangers with my arm strapped to my stomach for 2 hours. It was hot, and oddly exhausting, but it was awesome! I ended up sticking around a little longer than I was scheduled to, and ended up having a little bonding time with some of my 'big girl' teammates. We call them big girls because they are a part of the roster teams, which means that they're awesome enough on skates to be able to knock your socks off. I'm still a freshie, as I say, because I'm a complete noob on skates. I'm sure you didn't need to be reminded of that after taking a look at the super attractive blue strap I have on..

After the rummage sale on saturday I went to a barbecue way out in Sheridan, which is kind of a cow town and off of some county roads, but I actually enjoyed the 40 minute drive. Ate some amazing food, which turned out to be a competition amongst friends, and had a lot of fun with a bunch of my brothers random friends that I hardly know. I also got to hang out with his girlfriend, Stephanie, some so that was good, too, of course. It was awesome. Oh, and there was free beer. How could I possibly turn down a free beer? Don't worry, I only had one because I had to go home at some point.

So that's my week, pretty much. :)

Wow, I should do this more often!!

Wow, I really don't post nearly as frequently as I'd like to! I'd like to do a recap of everything, but.. I think that's a touch unnecessary, and tends to be pretty lengthy as I like typing and words seem to flow out of my fingertips.
I moved to Sacramento at the end of May. The weather has been about 10 degrees hotter than the Bay Area all summer, so when my friends complain of heat at 90, I wag my finger at them and tell them it's 100 here.

I've been making friends, very very slowly, but it's coming along..



I got frustrated with being home alone all the time, so I started a garden just to get my mind focusing on something else for once.

*\ ~~~~~~^~~~~~~ /*\ ~~~~~~~^~~~~~~ /*

Tabitha finally followed her dreams. The only thing I've ever known her to ever really want, and she's finally going for it and succeeding. My sister is a trucker! She left for training in the beginning of August, and she's got her permit and everything! It's really exciting! Even though I know I'll miss her.. I'm secretly a little bit jealous because her job lets her travel and she'll get to meet some very interesting people along the way.

QASA stands for Quality Assurance Self Assessment 

Work has been a bit of a struggle for me. I've worked really hard to be a better employee and a better coworker, and it just feels like I'm chasing my tail all the time. I love my team, but sometimes it feels like I'm talking to a wall when I try to calmly explain things to some of them. Which can be frustrating.. I know I'm not perfect and I really need to work on my approach, but.. It's really getting me down. There was a brief period of hope for me when my district manager and manager had asked me to go to a managers only meeting for health and cleanliness. I wrote as many notes as I could so that the whole team could be knowledgeable and could see how we could make the whole store a cleaner, better place to work. It ended up being 8 printed pages of notes!
And then the manager declared that I was in charge of communications for the whole store since I kept asking about the weekly memos we're supposed to have posted to read every monday that weren't getting posted.
But it's frustrating being responsible for communicating cleanliness guidelines to people who either don't realize I have that responsibility, or just don't care either way. Sometimes it feels like I'm under appreciated there, and it really sucks..

Sacred's practice space during tryouts in August

OH! And I finally joined a roller derby team!! I don't have a whole lot of pictures because it's a little hard to take pictures of yourself skating when you're in the middle of practice. But it's been pretty awesome so far. I missed practice last night, I was afraid of being too late to practice, so I just turned around and went home.. It was awful not being there.. But I didn't want to get yelled at for being late..
Anyway!! Roller Derby teams consist of a lot of girls with various skating ability. Because of that, they typically have beginner, intermediate, and advanced level practices. I am in the 'beginners' part of the team, which I'm actually glad for. It will help me become a stronger skater, and I'll be totally prepared for the intermediate coursework.
The team is WFTDA(Women's Flat Track Derby Association) certified, which means that we can be(and ARE) nationally ranked and play be a standardized set of rules that are recognized worldwide. My team is called the Sacred City Derby Girls, or SCRG. We are currently ranked number 7 in the nation. Which is kind of a big deal. No one in roller derby gets paid to play, and I think that makes it so much more exciting. It's something that I am totally capable of doing myself, and I no one is 'better' than anyone else because they get paid more. It's all for one, and one for all. It's the first time I've EVER been a part of a team sport, and I can't wait to get better at it and compete on a higher level.

Anyway.. It's quickly becoming Wednesday, and I need to get some sleep in! I promise to update more frequently with what's going on in my life!

Don't Go Changin'

Well.. It's been a while again. I tend to forget that I have a blogspot at all, and I don't post. It's a sad thing.

What's been going on lately is kind of a lot for me to handle. After leaving Kyle, I began to realize there were a lot of deepset issues that I hadn't quite confronted in my life. Issues that I pushed to the back of my mind and tried to ignore. The biggest issue was my mom's death. I swallowed up the pain and covered it up with a 'too serious too fast' relationship. I got gobbled up in a pit of depression, and am still trying to ward it off.

I will be moving to Citrus Heights in June to live with my brother, Carl, and twin sister, Dana. Hopefully I can transfer to a Starbucks near there. Then maybe I could ride my bike to work instead of driving. Save a little gas. I'm moving so that I can be near my family again. Maybe it'll help my sanity. It's not going to be permanent, as I love the bay. But hopefully it'll help.

There's really not a whole lot else to report on.. School started, so that's good.. Went to my first crab feed ever and had a blast with my pseudo mom and brother. They are awesome. And after the crab feed, Mom and I stayed up until 1 am talking. Just talking about life. It was kind of awesome, because I needed it, and it was refreshing to hear her thoughts on stuff.

I still cook, but I'm kind of going broke, so I don't cook as much as I want to. I LOVE to cook, though, so I try to spice it up whenever I do. Made a pot pie for the first time, that was exciting. But other than that, I've been keeping it pretty low key and simple.

Keep it real!
-Cheryl