About Me

Hi, my name is Angela and welcome to my blog. This is a place where I write about my life in an honest and open way.

I am 36 years old, single, and a Christian. God gave me a heart to work with children and so I spend my day teaching kindergarten. It is my fourth year teaching and although it is hard I love it. I currently go to a college for my BA in Elementary Education which keeps me busy. Between work and school there is not much time left but I enjoy serving and helping others, watching netflix, or reading a good book.


Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Shopping to Avoid the Truth

I posted five days ago with a plan. A plan to exercise and to lower my blood pressure. Guess how many times I exercised in the last 5 days? That is right, none! Well unless you count walking through stores shopping.

My tax refund came, plus stress, plus I have an issue with overspending = me spending way too much money on home goods and stuff for a classroom I do not even have yet. I have been working on making my house look more adult and put together over the last year or two. It is looking amazing but there is always a few more tweaks you can do. I really wanted a canvas of a world map over my couch (currently blank.) I went to many thrift stores, discount stores, and craft stores. I wasn't falling in love with anything. I then found one on facebook market. While I was waiting for her to get back to me I then spotted a US map canvas that I loved from Hobby Lobby on OfferUp for a great price. I ended up with both. The US is going over my couch, the colors go well with what I have in there. The World is going in my bedroom, I have been collaging pictures from some of the trips I have been taking that it will go great with.

Right now I am attending WGU to get my BA in Education so I can teach at a public school. I have a million classes to finish before December but if I manage to the student teaching would start in January! That would be so exciting! That would also mean I could potentially have my own class next Spring of 2019!! That would be amazing. I am excited can you tell. Well I have been spending a lot of hours on getting through my classes. This also means I have been thinking a lot about how I want my class to run. I already have a lot of resources from 4.5 years teaching pre-k and k. I bought a few more resources off from TPT that I am excited about. I also bought some more storage for my school supplies. Everything I have is a bit chaotic. I had it mostly organized and then I quite by Kindergarten job and had to bring home a bunch of stuff that was mine from the class. That also meant that I needed to reorganize my stuff. Everything was set up for the set curriculum I used to have. So I have started organizing and sorting to fit a more public school model. I also spend way to much time following instagram teachers so I of course want all the products they have and use. Not necessarily a bad thing but it is an expensive start up. That is also why I am trying to do it slowly to build up what I have. Anyways, I don't really regret my purchases but know that in a month I may wish I didn't spend so much money.

This brings me to another crazy in my life, I am a bit crazy. I have taken Prozac for many years. I have self subscribed it and it has worked well for me. Whenever I am off from it I feel unbalanced. I feel a bit manic with crazy mood swings. That is where I can get into trouble because my lows always went very low - hence needing anti-depressants. Due to financial issues I ran out of pills. At this point I have for 7 weeks. In the last few days I have done a lot of only reading and Prozac takes 4 weeks to be out of the body completely. This means that for the last three weeks I have been Prozac free. So clearly if I am reading and posting about it something must be wrong. I noticed a couple weeks ago that I started being super weepy, over everything. The craziest things will just set me off on and I will be in tears. A couple weeks ago their was a school shooting. Totally sad, totally deserves crying over. But even now two weeks later when I see the picture of this teacher who dead protecting his class I start to cry. I just have to see his picture! Tears stream down my face uncontrollably! It is so annoying!! If it was just the hourly emotional breakdown into tears I could deal but I am also have weird angry outbursts. I was literally livid at a call center rep over something I now realize was dumb. I could not calm myself and I totally cursed the girl out. I don't curse, ever! This is also so not like me. When I was reading online is that I have to figure out if this is withdraw side effects from the extra seretonin getting to my brain or if it really is my depression. I do not want to be on Prozac because it is so expensive without insurance. I want to try to wait it out and see if I even out but how long do I wait? Nothing online seems to tell me. I am also not sure even if I went to a dr they could tell me either. It seems to be subjective to the dr and how they feel about prescribing anti-depressants.

So shopping and avoiding school work to try and forget that I have high blood pressure I don't want to deal with and a possible mental disorder that I can't afford to fix now that I have spent money on a classroom I don't even have yet. Yes, I realize I am ridiculous. I can't seem fix it though.

Friday, February 23, 2018

High Blood Pressure Worries

I have had moderately high blood pressure for years. I try to keep it in check by including exercise in my life but sometimes that falls to the bottom of my "to do" list. A recent trip to have a TB test done for work determined that my blood pressure is now in the top of Hypertension stage 2! That day at the doctors office it registered at 181/113. I was concerned, I have never seen it that high before. In fact according to the American Heart Association that would put me in a hypertensive crisis. Adding to my concern two days prior a blood vessel broke in one of my eyes. I didn't understand why till I saw this high number.

I bought a blood pressure cuff to monitor my numbers at home. I switched to whole wheat breads and have cut out some extra salty items I love to eat. (I checked my numbers before and after eating a plate of nacho's and it jumped 10 points. Not really surprising but sad.) The real problem is I have not added in exercise yet. I know that it will make a huge difference but I have not managed to get my but in gear. I think that is why I have decided to blog about it. I want to feel accountable. To log and record what I am doing. Even if no one sees it as sometimes I am afraid of comments.

I got my blood pressure cuff on January 23rd. My numbers fluctuated for the 8 days but averaged at 167/116. I knew that I could get it down and worked on what I was eating. Between the Feb 1st and the 17th I had gotten my average down to 161/107 which I think was a great improvement. The last few days I have been eating horrible. I can list excuses but that is really what they are. I crave carbs when I am stressed and I gave in to those cravings. This made my numbers jump back up to 180/123, not good.

This leads to the fact that I really need to add in exercise. It is a stress reliever and a time filler (less time sitting in front of the tv eating.) It should help strengthen my heart dropping my numbers. Now I realize that some of you, probably most of you may be questioning why I do not go to a doctor. That would be because I have no insurance. I haven't had insurance for over a decade. The cheapest option is to go to a CVS, Walgreens, Fry's Grocery clinic to see a nurse practitioner. Out of pocket they will cost my $90 per visit. Plus whatever the cost of the meds will be. There is no way I can afford this. So I get to figure it out on my own. Not that it is really hard; live a healthy lifestyle and then your body will be healthy. Imagine that. :)

So I am challenging myself to 30 min of exercise tomorrow. The weather is amazing here in Phoenix, AZ so I really want to go for a hike. I couldn't afford the $100 for beachbody on demand subscription this year but I just got a used copy of 21 Day Fix for $15 I found on the OfferUp app. 21 Day Fix is the only one I used last year when I had the subscription so this seemed like a cost effective option for right now. So 30 minutes minimum of one of these two options. Even if I go slow or have to pause the video a few times. I need to get moving!