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.

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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

I hope you're sitting down..

Well, A LOT has happened to me since the last time I posted in June.. Where do I even start??

In june nothing really happened.. Honestly! It's July that was exciting! My best friend got married to a wonderful young woman, who is dangerously close to becoming another best friend. (I'm a girl. We have to have 18 best friends at a time, otherwise we don't know how to classify our relationships!) They wed on the 11th of July. It was awesome!

I got engaged on the 17th of July while camping in Tahoe with Kyle. I was very happy, and very excited. Immediately after, we called our family and our friends, and we tried to tell as many people as we possibly could. And then when we got home, I was very overwhelmed by how many questions proceeded to come at me. The usual suspects, I'm sure, but none that I was prepared to answer. Questions from customers at work were- Where is it? Whats the date? What are your colors? How many in your party? Et cetera.. It was very overwhelming for a girl who never thought twice about her wedding before all of this.
Questions from my family were pretty formal. Does his family like you? What did your dad say? Who's going to be your maid of honor?
And from the few friends that realized that I WAS engaged(because apparently my text didn't reach everyone, and I guess they didn't notice the 50 comments on my relationship status change on facebook), wondering who was going to be in the bridal party seemed of utmost importance. In several cases, where they stood was extremely important, even though I hadn't really thought about many of them even being in the party at all... It was all quite an ordeal..
Especially since I wasn't feeling so good about the whole scenario. I suddenly had too many people trying to help me with my wedding, and not enough people trying to help me with my messed up relationship. Neighbors were suddenly my 'best friends', friends came out of the woodwork, and people that I never thought would ever have approved of Kyle and I were ready to donate to the cause.
All through August I swirled around the idea of marrying Kyle, and was constantly asked questions. I felt pressured, and applied pressure to Kyle to get answers to the questions. But pushing him made everything harder. We both decided, with a little help from our friends, to not talk about the wedding until Kyle had bought his house and moved in. And I started to tell my customers that we were waiting to talk about it until we could afford it.

But by September, I started to realize that there were a lot of issues that Kyle and I just couldn't agree on. And no matter how much I wanted to make it work between us, I just couldn't compromise the way I would have needed to for the rest of my life.
So, on September 11th, I had to make an extremely difficult decision. But I know that God has a plan for both of our lives. Whether or not we're in each others plans is another question.. But it's all in His hands, and I have to trust in Him with everything, my relationships included.

So I've made another oath to myself.. I am planning to stay single for a while. I have a lot of stuff going on in my head, and I have to straighten out my own life before I can even THINK about sharing it with someone else right now. I am working on spending more time with Jesus, too. Because, if there's one thing that I've realized through all of this, it's that I can't do anything on my own. I have absolutely no control over my life. And if I want to feel even a tiny morsel of control, I need to get with God more. Because He's the one holding the remote control. And no matter how much I turn off the TV, He still know's what on. And He knows how it's going to end.

So, that's what's been going on in the last couple of months.

You do WHAT??

So I was at work this morning, and a regular customer that I see a few times a week came in between one of our typical morning rushes. I was goofing around and asked him rhetorically if he wanted his 'usual' latte with one of every artificial sugar packets. I rattled them off, raw sugar, cane sugar, equal, sweet and low, splenda, and honey. He nodded, not really paying too much attention and then he stopped and looked at me.
Wait, that actually sounds pretty good, he says, with his almost serious face on the verge of cracking into a smile.
Especially the honey part, I responded, as I put only one splenda into his skinny caramel latte, the way he actually did take it.
He didn't seem to agree with me that honey was a very good idea, and I told him how much I love honey and how I like to use to substitute for sugar when I make bread.
At this he was surprised that I made bread.
Of course, I ended up promising to bring in a loaf for him to try.. Shame shame, Cheryl, now you actually have to make bread again.

Which actually makes me think..

Why is everyone so shocked when others, or myself, make their own bread? It's truly very easy to do. It's just time consuming. I've only messed up bread once by leaving it to rise too long(it got a yeasty flavor and reminded me of beer).
The only thing I can think of that turns people off from bread is the fact that it's time consuming. I don't think people give it enough credit. Making my own bread has always been exciting, no matter how long it took me to do. I mean, really, all you do is mix milk, water, and flour together with a bit of sugar and yeast. If you left it to rise and went to the grocery store, and when you came back you punched it down, it wouldn't really be a problem, would it?

I guess I'm just crazy.
But then again, I had to be taught how to activate yeast and what-not. I guess a lot of people, particularly in my own generation, don't really know how to use yeast, or even what it likes.

For future reference, yeast likes luke warm water and a touch of sugar. If you put it in too hot of water, the yeast dies, and if it's too cold, the yeast takes forever to grow. Quick test of whether or not it's too hot- if you can put your finger in the liquid for 3 seconds without burning yourself, it's perfect! Let it sit in there until the yeast gets foam on the top of the milk/water. If it's taking longer than you would like, add a pinch or two of sugar to the water/milk/fluid. If the recipe calls for sugar, put some of that measurement toward the yeast. EG- a teaspoon or so.
If it never foams, your yeast is either killed or dead already. If it's too old, it probably died long before you opened the packet.
Patience is key.

So, anyway... I challenge you to make some bread. Cuz, seriously, it's not that hard. I pinky promise!

-Cheryl