Tag stress

Sweet sleep

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s 6:25 a.m. and I just poured a mug of my favorite coffee—Archer Farms Cafe Mosaica from Target. I haven’t made any in days. As part of my quest to lower my stress, fix my blood pressure and start sleeping better.

Before recent stress and life changes, I knew the routines of my body. I need at least eight hours sleep. As I get closer to my menstrual cycle, I may need more. It is typical for me to get so tired I sleep ten hours without moving in my bed. Usually only one day a month. But that hasn’t happened in a while.

For counterpoint, I usually have three days around the middle of my cycle where I’m high energy and extraordinarily confident. That hasn’t happened for a while either.

Both can probably be attributed to stress and hormone changes now that I am in my mid-forties.

There was a period for a year or so when I had insomnia once a month.

But now most of my issue is life. I think that’s how you know you’re getting older. More things disturb your sleep,

The garbage man arrives at 5:15. The cat has a hairball. The kittens decide to ricochet off my bedroom door. My personal favorite this week— the cockatoo has nightmares and calls out gently in her sleep.

So my typical sleep pattern is to collapse in bed between 9 and 10:30 pm, sleep like the dead for about 90 minutes, take about twenty minutes to fall back to sleep, get several hours good sleep before waking up briefly in the wee hours, drifting off again, and waking up when something else happens or one minute before the alarm.

(My superpower is innate time sense so I don’t often need my alarm.)

Thanks to the cockatoo’s rough night coupled with a 5:15 am visit front the garbage man, I got about six hours interrupted sleep Wednesday night. So yesterday—a long work day on top of it—I reneged on my caffeine abstention especially when I discovered my blood pressure had jumped to 153/98.

I had two cups at the office and a diet soda with dinner (that I used to wash down half a pizza) and I slept 7.5 hours last night and, according to the scale, lost a pound.

So today I am enjoying my favorite coffee and back to aiming for moderation.

Wednesday night update

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I have a plethora of potential topics to blog about but none of them feels right for tonight. It’s Wednesday, which means quasi-deep cleans for the bird cages and garbage collection.

The top two topics on my mind are sharing my “frugal hacks”/budgeting process and my journey with my blood pressure which is also connected to my cerebral palsy.

But they are such serious topics.

The teen just suggested cats.

Oz is jealous

Both the boys—our cats who turn 9 this month—are in my room right now. I just got done with the roomba and am waiting for the “white” laundry to get done in the washing machine.

I didn’t sleep well last night but I also did not dream. My shoulders are so tense they hurt. But I had a really peaceful productive day at work.

I mixed the last of my coffee from Jamaica with some decaf and, if Dunkin made my drink correctly, my afternoon latte was a decaf. Only caffeine today came from a half cup of coffee.

Meals today… 3. Content not too bad. I totally forgot the connection between high blood pressure and sodium so I’m being more cognizant of that.

Breakfast: mostly decaf coffee with half and half, 12 ounces water, one everything bagel toasted, half with roasted red pepper hummus, half with Brie.

Approximate morning water: 50 ounces.

Late morning treat: decaf black tea with Yogi ginger tea.

Lunch: iceberg lettuce salad with purple cabbage and carrots, leftover dark meat from a rotisserie chicken, some real bacon crumbles, some imitation bacon bits, some processed chicken bites (three popcorn chicken size bites) and blue cheese dressing.

Afternoon: 20 ounces tap water

Meal break: iced coconut (unsweetened flavor) latte with skim milk, light ice and one pump caramel and about 10 gummy bears.

Supper: grilled cheese on cheap stoneground wheat bread, made with light mayonnaise instead of butter, with cheese from last night’s cheese platter and tuna. Vegetable was baked sweet potato fries. Another 12 ounces water.

Vitamins: multi, zinc, calcium/magnesium/zinc combo and B-complex.

As for other pet news, Nala is peacefully cuddly today and seems to be filling in feathers nicely.

Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo

And in exciting news, Fog, the newest member of our household almost voluntarily got into my lap. She also rolled onto her back and let me pet her belly until I got tired of it.

Six weeks ago Fog was a feral kitten who had never been indoors!

Misty (on the teen’s lap) and Fog

Do I have high blood pressure?

Angel Ackerman 3 Comments

As we age, it starts to feel like we all gain a plethora of medical conditions and for most of us they are connected.

Maybe that damage you did to your knees playing football impacts you a whole lot more than you ever imagined it would when you were 20.

Or, as my dad—now approaching 72—says,

“If I’d known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.”

(my dad)

I know I’m at a stressful point of life. Almost one year ago I left my job of almost ten years, I job where I was surrounded by dozens of other people everyday and working intimately with a close team. Some of them became good friends but there’s a phenomenon when you work retail. Those relationships fade once you’re “out.” And sure, I have friends outside of my former employer but some of these colleagues spent more time with me than my family.

Some close colleagues have gone on to better things. One I was very close to died of cancer. Another moved to Florida. Some just get harder to stay in touch with.

So that’s a change.

My husband moved out eight months ago. Eight months.

I got a promotion at my new job in late August, that’s six months ago. And I have no experience in my new job. That’s daunting.

When I went for my annual physical in late January, my physician was concerned about my blood pressure at 142/85. He told me to keep an eye on it and if it doesn’t go down to call him.

I called him. I’m working with a therapist to combat the stress. I mentioned to him that stress, to me, was different from anxiety. Anxiety comes when you are worried about the things that might happen. Stress is dealing with what is happening.

“What an interesting distinction,” he replied.

I am trying to do better about the gym, my diet, my rest and my frame of mind. I go see the nurse practitioner tomorrow.

My mother has been on 5 mg of the same blood pressure medicine for about 20 years.

And I know 142/85 is not really high, but I’ve learned from my chiropractor that high blood pressure will effect my balance issues from my cerebral palsy.

The stress dreams happen every night. The worst one— yet the one I feel has more meaning that the others—was “The Jar.”

I consider it a variation of the classic “buried alive” dream. I was sitting in a giant jar of nothing but black void. An ominous voice told me that the jar was a waiting room to house those people about to die, very temporarily as they passed on.

But I didn’t belong there as I wasn’t scheduled to die for another 40 years. But no one left the jar once you entered it. I was cursed to sit there in the empty, dark jar for 40 years.

Yes, I woke to my dark room fearful that I really was in a jar. As far as nightmares go, I’ve had much worse.

But it hangs with me. As important.

Maybe I need to embrace nothingness more.

Maybe I have a lot of life left to live and I need to be sure I live it.

Maybe I will die at 85.

We shall see.

Leap Day 2020

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Happy Leap Day!

Welcome to the extra day of the year.

Last night the teenager and I killed it at the gym. Two really good workouts at the gym this week. Go us!

At the gym

The teen packed my gym back so I was dressed in one color gray and had no socks so I had to work out in my nude knee high stockings. How old fashioned am I to wear nude knee high stockings?

I blended in with the Planet Fitness walls! I did about five minutes of physical therapy stretches in the locker room, then about 20 minutes of weight training, five minutes of sit-ups on the decline bench with a ten pound plate, and the five minutes of stair stepper which amounted to 25 flights.

And then this morning I did something funky to my neck feeding the cats.

Speaking of cats, Fog (the wildest and smartest of the feral kittens we trapped) was tricked into sitting on my lap today.

Fog

Nala is doing well. She barely plucking but been having mini temper tantrums. She’s chasing the budgies right now (good thing they can fly). I have to put her back in her cage as I have an 8 a.m. pedicure appointment and it’s 7:25 and I’m not even dressed.

Maybe today I’ll find my ATM card. Damn thing has disappeared. I don’t keep it in my wallet, it never leaves the house unless I am going to the bank. (That’s one of the ways I prevent impulse spending.)

Okay, I hope everyone has a great day. More soon! Especially since Monday I embark on a new adventure to treat my stress-induced high blood pressure.

These are a few of my favorite teas

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

(You have to ‘hear’ that as a line from The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things.)

I started this post at 5 p.m. as I drank a 21-ounce mug of 2-parts Simply Balanced* Unwind Tea and 1-part Traditional Medicinals Nettle tea.

It’s 8 p.m. and I’m trying again.

Some favorite teas

When I was in Djibouti the first time, I ordered a cup of tea. The waitress said, “Le Lipton?” and I thought, “Really, I’ve flown half way around the world to the Horn of Africa and the best you can do is Lipton?”

If you have no idea where Djibouti is and want to learn more about my African travels, this is a good start: Sunday in Djibouti

So I thought I might tell you about some of my favorite teas. First off, know I do not add milk, sugar or honey to my tea. Black. I don’t even enjoy sweetened iced tea.

When we were on our road trip to Georgia, we stopped at Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina where I got some first flush. So good! I make it in the French press. That has a robust kick.

Staples in my home include some form of strong black tea. Currently my favorite is Tazo vanilla macaroon. I have a box of Tazo organic earl grey in my desk at work. I keep chai on hand for my friend Nancy and the teenager. The Tazo Caramel Vanilla Chai is my favorite, but the Bigelow Vanilla Chai is almost as good but much cheaper.

I love, love, love herbal teas. But I hate chamomile. Yogi has a lavender honey stress relief tea that is a favorite. Tazo has a juniper mint honey that might be my new afternoon go to.

Simply Balanced Voice Tamer is a great one for when you want something that is fairly strong but decaffeinated. It is actually a rooibos tea, which, according to our friends at the Charleston Tea Plantation isn’t a tea at all but a random plant from South Africa.

If you want to read my post about South Carolina, check this out: Memories of South Carolina

The teenager likes orange tea, Tazo Sweet Orange. I don’t do fruity tea often, and when I do I prefer Simply Balanced Raspberry Hibiscus. Tazo’s Glazed Lemon Loaf is a delightful treat.

Nettle tea is supposed to be high in iron, but the Traditional Medicinals one does not discuss that on the box so I wonder if they process it out. Good to fight anemia.

And lastly, I want to touch on matcha. I got into matcha before it was cool. Before it hit the Starbucks menu. I love Starbucks iced matcha latte with skim milk, but I won’t pay their prices. I also discovered why theirs tastes so good. They sweeten the matcha blend.

I really like the Tazo Matcha Mate Grapefruit. It has just the right amount of puckery, clean grapefruit flavor to make it an awesome breakfast tea.

But I’m not conniving to taste Dunkin Donuts new matcha.

But for bedtime, nothing relaxes the body like a strong glass of Traditional Medicinal Nighty Night Valerian.

And to store my teas, I use pencil trays from the dollar store: one for herbal, one for caffeinated, and one for medicinal.

* Target has recently rebranded what was their Simply Balanced line as Good & Gather. Some of these teas may have been relaunched in the new line, but some may have been discontinued.

Wednesday

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Yeah, Wednesday. That’s what I got. I’m thirsty, I’m tired. I’ve written so many grants my eyeballs hurt.

But I’m surrounded by birds and kittens.

Fog

Fog was the kitten trapped last. You can’t manhandle her like a tame cat, but she’s sure starting to like cuddles.

I also just ordered a pizza.

The teenager is with her dad. I cleaned bird cages as that is a Wednesday ritual as we prep for garbage day. Nala seems to enjoy her pellets I got her— I mixed ZuPreem nut flavored pellets and Kaytee fruit flavored pellets in with her parrot mix which had a lot of nuts and seeds in it.

The dishwasher is doing its thing on all the pet dishes.

And I think I ate fairly decently today and I’m surviving my work week so I will get that pizza. Buffalo chicken pizza. And a cold beer.

For breakfast I had a bagel, half with hummus and half with butter. And half a cup of my favorite coffee with half and half. Morning snack was a protein matcha coconut milk drink. Lunch was spaghetti squash, chick peas, tomato sauce, kale and feta. And for my afternoon pick me up I had about ten really good gummy bears.

Okay so note to self: more fruits and veggies tomorrow.

My plan now is to get the birds their water bowls, wait for my pizza, and hopefully work out a new budget. My tax refund came, but I owe more than that on my medical bills so it didn’t offer me as much breathing room as I hoped. I’m still in the hole, as they say.

But that’s where clever budgeting comes in. And I hope to share with you some of my budgeting tricks. Stay tuned!

The Art of Self-Soothing

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

I haven’t made it a secret that I’ve been struggling. Fitness, stress and work have been heavy on my mind.

And I don’t know about you—but when I’m stressed the habits I need most seem to be the ones that fall first.

First to go is cooking. I love to cook. I love to enjoy a meal. But as soon as I am stressed, I start eating processed foods and pizza, because I like those foods and they are easy. But they take a toll. Even though my weight is healthy, I can still feel the impact of those foods on my body, my stamina, my energy, and my moods.

I’ve worked really hard lately to balance stress eating with healthy eating. I actually brought a frozen dinner to work to eat for lunch earlier this week. I actually crept into my office to eat it in secret because I was embarrassed. I didn’t even enjoy it. I was just lazy.

So I went home and made this casserole:

Now this was a delight: spaghetti squash roasted by the teenager, then I mixed it with tomato sauce, kale, chick peas, feta and Italian cheese blend. I sprinkled in some nutritional yeast for extra vitamins.

Speaking of vitamins, when I’m stressed I stop taking mine. I don’t eat as much at meals when stressed so I don’t have a full enough stomach to take my vitamins. On top of that, then I end up snacking and binge eating chips or Doritos.

Another bad habit when I’m stressed is over-cleaning. In a desperate attempt to control something in my environment, I clean until I exhaust and/or hurt myself.

And if you see me skip a blog entry, that could also signify I’m tapped out.

So how can I self-soothe?

  • Text friends and make arrangements to go out. Today I texted my husband and asked if he could visit me at lunch time. I cried and told him my fears and my struggles. Despite the fact that I asked him to move out in June, and we’ve lived apart with minimal contact for eight months, he hugged me and held me and that made my cry more. I think that was the best hug he ever gave me. He made me feel protected. So I thank him for that.
  • Play with the kittens, cuddle with Nala (my Goffins cockatoo), manhandle one of my older cats or listen to the budgies sing.
  • Watch stand-up comedy. I love stand-up.
  • Shave and moisturize. Something about soft, smooth skin is reassuring.
  • If I’m not going to the gym, I at least need to do physical therapy exercises for my S1 joint in my back and my balance.
  • Write more.
  • Does budgeting count? I hope to do a blog entry on budgeting. I don’t mean paying bills, I mean planning the future use of anticipated income. It also makes me feel in control.
  • Occasionally splurge on a fancy coffee or a treat. But not often enough to qualify as stress eating.

Okay, I’ve shared what I had to share. I’m going to watch some Gordon Ramsay now. Another relaxation technique. Eventually I want to blog about his different shows. He is very prolific.

An average day

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

This will be a walk through my day today, a tad random, a tad sporadic.

This will include lots of silly animal posts.

But let’s start with my alarm at 6 a.m. I let myself sleep in because my rest has been irregular. I’ve had mild bouts of insomnia brought on by stress and hormones so it was hard to get out of bed.

A French Dream

I woke from a dream I don’t quite fully remember but I remember when the alarm sounded, I was dreaming that I had reached the end of some sort of tour, while on a trip, and was ordering alcoholic beverages for everyone in my party in French. I think I was the only person who spoke French. And I really was speaking French. I don’t usually speak French in dreams.

Perhaps this stems from my executive director eating a vegetable sandwich on a croissant at the networking event we attended last night.

Speaking of work, today started better and I feel a little less discombobulated about my job. I have an important report due Friday and three grants I need to have ready by Valentine’s Day.

Then the high school called.

An automated message informed me that my child was not in school. Text to teenager, who left at 7:15 with a heavy backpack. “You in school?”

No response.

(A sign that she is in school and not on her phone.)

“The school just called. They don’t think you’re there.”

She responds. “Sh*t. I must have forgotten to sign in.”

I tell her to fix that and to text me a photo from the school office holding today’s newspaper. She didn’t respond to my comment, though she did tell me she talked to the attendance office.

I had lunch with a friend who always lightens my spirit and has intelligent conversation. I’ve worked so many hours this week, I need to remember to make these connections.

And you always need those friends who give good hugs. A friend who bakes brownies is also good.

The afternoon went quickly and I decided my teenager and I would have a picnic. I took the leftover pizza from last night and a big old salad and we ate it on my bed with all the animals out, normally (to my chagrin) the kittens are locked in my teenager’s room.

Menagerie tales

So the kittens ran through the whole house, up and down the stairs, up and down the hall.

And, of course, Nala, the cockatoo, refused to eat salad in favor of pizza. Video of Nala eating pizza

Then I hung laundry and watched Opie, our 3-legged cat, play with the kittens.

Videos:

Misty attacks Opie

Opie and the kittens

My sore arm and the gym

I opted not to go to the gym as I’m still not sure I’ve recovered my strength. That fall scared me. A lot.

(See Grit and getting published on The Mighty.)

I have noticed my right arm has that vaguely sore feeling like after you get an inoculation. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I remembered, I fell on that arm. And I also noticed a bruise on my elbow. And a new bruise and scratch on my leg.

Finally

After teenager and I gathered the trash, I hopped in the shower. I found the teen “trapped” on my bed with an Oz on her back.

And now I’m drinking a double stiff mug of Traditional Medicinals Nighty Nite Valerian tea.

The Pizza Weight Loss Plan

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

If you’re reading this after seeing the title and thinking I am proposing pizza as a fad diet, step away. I am joking. This is a light hearted, humorous piece about how Dominoes and Little Caesars have become my stress foods.

I can cook. I can cook well. But stress eating is a hobby of mine.

My daughter introduced me to Little Caesars as they have one pretty much across the street from her high school (and a block away from the other high school).

The pizza there is mediocre, the deep dish is pretty darn good, Crazy Bread is delicious and Im addicted to their cheesy jalapeño dip.

Now I can blame my current job for Dominoes. If our CEO orders pizza, it’s Dominoes because it’s close to the office and cheap.

When my teenager had ear tubes installed in November, she wanted pizza and I thought of Dominoes. She’d never had it before. And she found the pizza tracker extremely entertaining.

But now between the Parmesan bread bites and the seasoned crust, I’m a junky. I’ve been ordering Dominoes about once a week and Little Caesar’s about once a month.

Irony is, I’ve lost almost 3 pounds. But that’s stress. Not pizza.

Stress

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I’m exhausted.

Obviously stress is in the air today. Nala ate through her perch in her cage. She has two, but only one runs the whole length of the cage and she ate the end off it.

She played with a bunch of her toys, so I don’t know whether to chalk it up to boredom, anxiety or rambunctiousness. But she’s been here about 16 days and she ate her perch.

I guess I need to find her some more toys. Although she does have a bunch.

She seems to be talking more and dancing more. Her favorite song is Angelina by Harry Belafonte.

Today I went through some medical bills, tax paperwork, a school fundraiser and some band trip stuff with my soon-to-be ex-husband. We all had dinner together. He brought a pizza.

Then I finished my chores. Laundry. Bird cages. Some vacuuming. The roomba would not go to home base. After an hour and with the battery almost dead I discovered why… the roomba had unplugged its own base while vacuuming.

And to make my day a little more demoralizing, I tripped over my own two feet walking between buildings at work. The administration offices and the literacy center are a block apart. And I just fell. I was hungry, probably worn thin from too much stress.

Someone across the street saw me, and yelled to see if I was alright. She was walking a very large dog. I got up and said I was fine. Barely even scraped my hands.

“Darn ice,” she said.

There was no ice. Just me and my faulty legs.

Sometimes I feel so healthy and strong.

Some days I feel so broken.

That is what it feels like to have cerebral palsy. Sometimes your body works, sometimes it doesn’t.