Public Service Announcement--Get Your Flu Shot

It is official, my family has been designated the 2009 Why You Should Get Your Flu Shot When You are Supposed to Family of the Year.

We have always made a point of getting our shots each year. This year, however, we decided that due to a mild winter, and everyone being pretty healthy, that we would postpone (forgo) shots. That proved to be a pretty bad idea. With the exception of perhaps five or six days, at least one person in our family has been sick enough to stay home from school or work every single day for the past, almost six weeks.

My wife became so ill that she developed a spot of pneumonia. If that were not bad enough, one of the medications prescribed to her by our physician contained steroids. Subsequently, the children and I had to ban her from playing Wii baseball with the rest of the family. It seemed the only fair thing to do.

This run of illness, combined with the constant drum of bad news about the economy--plus the weather--has really had our house in the doldrums of late.

Regretfully, too, there was no time to take advantage of all the literary events taking place in Georgia in January and February. Or even blog about them, for that matter. My wife did read Atlanta author Susan Rebecca White's new book, Bound South. My wife was so taken with the book she stated that she could sit up all night reading it. Even the flu didn't keep her from it (must have been the steroids).

But everyone seems to be on the mend, now. The weather seems to be turning warmer. And there are so many terrific literary events coming up in Georgia during the next few months (many, if not most, being free). In fact, a number of author acquaintances have been in touch recently about their upcoming projects. Fishing season is just around the corner, and a recent and much unexpected romance is all the news at our house.

Good news. Good health. Good people (like understanding employers). Good books. The rest will fall into place.

Strongly recommended:

Bound South by Susan Rebecca White

The American Academy of Pediatrics Complete and Authoritative Guide to Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, edited by Dr. Steven Shelov. I don't know if Dr. Shelov is from Georgia, but this book is a tremendous and handy guide to the more that 4,000 different reasons that children get nauseous, and to the more than one million and seven reasons that they might run a fever.

RMR (and get their flu shots)