So Sick and Tired!

I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired! All the time! It's ridiculous! No matter what I do, no matter how much sleep I get, nothing changes! This is the third weekend in a row that I have been feeling sick and I'm royally sick of it! I haven't been able to collect a full two week's paycheque since my second week on the new job, and I know that this can't continue to be overlooked at work. With over 125 people terminated in the past month, it's only a matter of time that my less than perfect attendance record will come under scrutiny. I know I have the doctor's note on file for the first illness, but I refuse to pay $20 every time I have an upset stomach! Our provincial medical insurance plan is already under enough strain as it is because too many people are going to the doctor for silly reasons without me going every time my stomach feels queasy!

Both my oldest daughter, J, and I have been sick for the past few weeks. I got it first a couple of weeks ago, but at the time I thought it was a mild case of food poisoning. Then, about 6 days later (last Sunday evening), J starts complaining of severe cramps in the lower abdomen. My wife thought they were menstrual cramps at first, but soon J started running to the bathroom. She ended up spending Sunday night and Monday morning sleeping on the bathroom floor, the runs were so frequent, so we kept her home on Monday. Tuesday, she is still having to run to the bathroom every couple of hours, and T, my youngest started complaining about headaches and stomach aches. So, we kept them both home on Tuesday, and I stayed home too, just in case they needed extra help. By Tuesday afternoon, when I was hoping I might be able to go to work since my wife was home from her shift, I began feeling less than completely "with it". I stayed home and rested for the rest of the day, hoping I didn't have what J had. Both J and T went to school on Wednesday, and I went to work, felling less than 100% but still able to work. By Friday, I was feeling very run down, and had my first forklift accident that morning, due to the fact I was just not "all there". I was very lucky in that no one was hurt (except my pride, of course) and no product was damaged, but I very quickly learned that forklifts can get away from you if you aren't paying complete attention!

In my particular incident, I was travelling down an aisle unloaded and in reverse when I just "zoned out" for a split second. I shook my head and realized I was moving way too fast and was about to miss the intersection I needed to take. I "plugged" the truck into forward, which is supposed to slow me down quickly and began turning the steering handle to make the right turn. Because I was in reverse, I turned the handle the wrong way and began quickly moving to the left. I also noticed I wasn't slowing down at all! I spun the handle the other way, but by that time had already plowed into a double stack of computer monitors! Fortunately, I had turned the handle enough that I side-swiped the stack, rather than drove right into them. Had I driven in to them, they probably would have fallen over and ruined about 70 or so monitors. Instead, the stacks just shifted and I was able to use the parking brake to get the truck stopped. I'm not sure exactly why the truck didn't slow down when I reversed the directional joystick, but it sure woke me up in a hurry! I'm wondering if in my haste to "plug" the truck, I actually pushed DOWN on the joystick rather than FORWARD which would have translated into the truck lowering the forks (which it couldn't do because they were already fully lowered) instead of reversing current to the motor. Anyway, I was a very cautious driver for the rest of the day as you can well imagine!

Yesterday I felt tired, but then, my job is a very physically demanding one, and I am not in the best physical shape! So, I guess it would be natural to feel tired after several days of intense physical activity. So I rested for the day. I had planned to go out and get some yard work done in preparation for winter, but instead I watched J play "The Legend of Dragoon" on the PS2.

Today, I woke up to J vomiting again, and then around 9:00 am, I got the runs... AGAIN! J has been running an intermittent fever and I've been feeling like someone punched me in the gut several times during the night! And to make matters worse, now I'm getting one of my famous headaches! ARRRRGH! My wife is getting frustrated with me, and I'M getting frustrated with me! I'm taking my vitamins and eating more healthy meals. I'm trying to go to bed earlier, and last night, took full advantage of the end of Daylight Saving Time by going to bed at my regular time and setting the clock back just before bed. So I did get that extra hour's sleep! Usually I end up staying up an hour later then setting the clock back to my regular time!

What more do I need to do? I can't afford some of the supplements my mom and grandma claim will "cure all that ails you" right now. My mom claims she hasn't been sick with a cold or the flu in two years since she started taking this stuff. My Grandma has been taking it for 3 years, and says she has never had a virus take her down since. My aunt even goes so far as to claim it partially reversed her diabetes, so the stuff obviously has some healing properties, but I can't afford the $95 a month wholesale price yet! I have too many bills still piled up from my year of unemployment!

Hmmm... sorry to just explode like that! I guess my frustration is deeper and stronger than I thought! If you've made it this far, I thank you. It's therapeutic to know that people out there in blogland care!

Oh, I can't believe I forgot to post about this back in September when it happened! In fact, I just went through my posts for the summer, and realized I didn't even mention it at all! Wow!

Anyway, during the summer, the online writer's group I belong to decided to hold a short story contest to try to rekindle "the spark" in the group as we were all kind of deflated and all in nasty writing slumps. Back when I began this blog I mentioned I was trying my hand at writing a fantasy novel and after an initial surge, have been completely stumped with it. In the group I belong to, most of us were suffering the same fate, to differing degrees. So, the administrators thought that a short story contest, with the winners getting bragging rights, might snap us out of our collective doldrums. The contest was set to open the beginning of August and we had a month to write a minimum 2,000 word story based on the contest theme. The theme for this contest was "They really should put labels on all of the jars!" I was totally stumped for ideas when the contest was first announced, and even the day it opened, I had no idea what to write about. Then... it happened.

The second day of the contest, I woke up around 5:00 am from a very vivid dream, which I cannot remember. What I do remember is, I lay there for about a half hour, remembering an event from my early childhood. I realized, that with a little embellishment, I could turn this into a short story for the contest. I got so excited, I immediately got up, and by 7:00 am, had finished off the first draft and posted it on the group's forum site. One thing I forgot to mention about this group. It is a very supportive group, and even in a contest, our work was to be posted on a secure site which other members could read and critique, helping each other do the best we could. Not too many contests allow that, now, do they? Anyway, after a month of agonizing over edits, reading and re-reading critiques, I finally polished up the story and posted it to the "Final Submission" thread in the forum. Once all the entries were posted, we all voted on them anonymously and then the votes were tallied. Once all the votes were counted, I ended up in a very close third place! The winner had 101 points, 2nd place had 99 and I had 98 points! Not bad for an idea "dreamt" up at 5:00 am, don't you think? What makes this all the more exciting is, one of our members is forming her own business as a press/publishing company. She has volunteered to publish a small book of the contest entries as her first "edition" which means, that once she is done, I can call myself a "PUBLISHED WRITER"!!!! WHOO HOOOOOO!

Why I forgot to post about this is just beyond me, as this, to me, is even more exciting than getting that new job! Soon I'll be able to hold an actual book in my hand and see my work in print! Now I just need to unjam that logjam in my head and get back to work on my novel.

Wish me luck! (Or whatever it is writers say to each other in place of luck! LOL!)