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

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.