I'm Such An Idiot

Last night I finished up everything I needed to do early. So I figured, at about 9:30PM, that I would change out the jewelry in my nostril piercing. It should be healed by now and I have another nose screw (sounds like something dirty, eh? ;) ) that has a gem I like better in it. It took me about a half hour, but I finally did get the original nose screw out. The thing is, I should have stopped when I found it difficult to remove. I should have known better. 1 hour later, after countless attempts, I could not get either the new or original nose screws in. I was in tears. I didn't want to lose the piercing, but there's nowhere you can go at 11PM around here to get a piercer to put the jewelry in for you. Feeling like a fool, I stuck in some fishing line as a makeshift retainer and called it a night.

This morning, my nose hurts so much!! I'm home with sick Maggie again so I called my sister before she left for work and begged her to stop at the body piercing studio in the town where she works to get me a retainer. She has a friend who has a nostril piercing, too, who has shown her many times how to remove and re-insert nose jewelry, so she thought it was pretty funny. Hopefully, it doesn't close up before she gets here.

Yes, another sick day with Maggie. Diarrhea. It seems she gets a bout of this *every* month and it always lasts about a week. I keep thinking of this report I read, "One Sick Day Away", every time I have to call in sick to work for her. I guess a lot of employers are not that understanding about family matters like this. I was telling Brian about the report and he said "But they can't fire you because you're home with your sick daughter! You have plenty of sick time!" (Which I do have about 4 weeks banked and I earn 1.5 days for every month I work...sadly, I haven't accumulated in a long time.) But what he doesn't understand is that they find ways around it. And any mom who has been forced to stay home often with a sick child knows how easy it would be for their employer to claim that work quality has suffered so you get the boot. I mean, missing 2 days on average per month will make your work quality suffer, no doubt about it. And it's not like I can do my job at home. But there isn't a darn thing I can do about it either. All of my family works, and Brian only gets 5 sick days a year, so I'm the likely candidate to stay home when she's ill. I have no choice in the matter. So far, my boss has *seemed* understanding, saying she remembers those days from when her kids were babies. But she's also been known to be a totally different person when you're not around, if you know what I mean, so who knows...

Life goes on...