I love the holidays. Can you hear my faint sarcasm? I really do love Christmas, but I can't stand the (usually self-imposed) stress that accompanies the season. Whether the stress is a result of financial worries, extended family squabbles, an ill grandparent, or just busyness, it can take it's toll. Add to that not getting enough sleep and eating too many empty calories (a.k.a. peanut butter fudge and a couple boxes of Aplets and Cotlets...all by myself), and my immune system is beaten down to almost nothing.

I thought it was such a good idea...staying up until 2 every morning to do my writing. The house is quiet, the phone's not ringing, no one's on Facebook that late to distract me with silly jokes (which I love). But my stay-up-late-and-get-work-done plan backfired, and I found myself getting sick. It was a very mild virus, but ended up settling in my inner ear (doctor didn't find anything, but we know our own bodies, right?), and on December 10 I was struck by the most violent vertigo I'd ever experienced. I was sitting on my bed when the room started spinning, and it felt like the bed was rising up to tip me off of it. Talk about scary!

The vertigo waned over the next week but was overlapped -- and eventually replaced -- by dizziness. (Vertigo is when you feel like everything around you is in motion when it isn't, while dizziness is a spinning feeling inside your head.) This lasted in varying degrees until this past weekend, when it handed off the baton to a new virus better known as the common cold.

So here I sit, sniffling, complaining about my plight to friends on Facebook, and now here. My head feels like it's been stuffed with rocks, my neck hurts, and my eyes are burning. My throat hurts, too, so I'm medicating it with a cup of hot cocoa (the heat feels good, but the sugar's a no-no...oh, well).

I have learned, then, that to avoid a similar fate the next time I'm super busy, to do the following:

• Get to bed early. No late hours.
• Have scheduled times to just relax and unwind.
• Cut out the majority of sugar in my diet (I could never get rid of all of it).
• Take my Vitamin C, etc.
• Drink lots of water.
• Plan better for the big expenditures like Christmas, birthdays, etc., so it's not such a big stressor.
• Never, ever, ever skimp on using disinfectant wipes on shopping carts and shopping baskets! (Pretty sure that's how I got sick this time...the one time I didn't use one.)
• Continue to wash hands like a maniac, as always.

Hope you've all stayed well over the holidays. If you have anything to add about how you avoid getting sick, please share!