Hay Fever :(

That’s right, I’ve been afflicted with hay fever for the past few days. It started when I was down in Beaumont with my sister. We were shopping and eating and playing with my nephew and all I really wanted was to take a nap. Then I had to drive 2 and a half hours toward Dallas until my Mom took pity on me and took over. Thank goodness because I was feeling a bit woozy at the time and it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to drive.

So I stayed home from work yesterday to pamper my hay fever. The sleep felt great. It seems all I want to do right now is sleep. This really is the pits even beside the sniffling, sneezing, post nasal drip inspiring coughing and wooly head. I tried Dayquil but it did no good. I’m not sure that the anti-histamines work either, but I’ve heard they can take a few days to get started in your system. I usually only get hay fever when the weather changes in the Spring and Fall. I got hit pretty hard last February and it lasted for a very miserable 2 weeks in which I used up just about all my sick leave. I hope this time isn’t as bad. I’ve got what’s left from the prescriptions in the Spring and I’ll try Claritin again. It usually work on me, but didn’t last Spring for some reason.

What really bites is that I just bought a bike and was really looking forward to riding it this week. But with my muscles feeling like jelly and slow reflexes both from the hay fever and the medication, I don’t think a bike ride would be particularly enjoyable for me or random people I would run over or be run over by.

My sister drove part of the way down 45. She got an hour of freeway driving in the relatively un-trafficky freeway on Saturday afternoon. I stopped her about 60 miles from Houston and took over since I wasn’t comfortable with her driving with more than a few other cars on the road. She’d already drifted into the left-hand lane several times. Oh well, I’m extremely proud of her. She also drove for about an hour on 175 once we hit Kaufman. She was nagging at us to let her drive before that, but I did not want her driving my car on 2 lane highways. Not when, she’s already drifted into other lanes. However, on the second highway trip she was much better. I only had to remind her twice to stay in her lane and not take over the entire highway. I should mention that my sister is 15 and these were her first experiences driving on the freeway. She’s looking forward to getting her license in February, much more then I think any of us did except my brother Charlie. I waited to get my license until I was 18, as did everyone else in my family. Bro wanted it before he was 18, but was content to drive illegally since getting your license before turning 18 requires a class or your parent’s help.

It’s hard to sit in a car with a beginning driver and not freak out. I think I did a good job with calmly giving Kat suggestions and keeping her focused on the road and not allowing her to change the radio station or play with any controls until I knew she could handle it. Now I would feel more comfortable with it all. It was funny, she actually asked my Dad if he would let her drive herself to seminary in the mornings from now on. It’s about 10 miles, mostly highway and 6 am so the raids aren’t busy. I feel guilty now, my Dad asked me to drive my sister to school in downtown Dallas this morning and I said no. If I’d known to car was going to cost $3,000 to fix (it’s in the shop right now and they’ve got a rental car) I would have probably said yes, or maybe not. I don’t think my current slow reflexes would be good with downtown traffic. Besides, you would think Dad would want to enjoy driving that big SUV the car repair people gave him to drive as much as possible.