wash your hands frequently to avoid illness

I am not working right now, which means I barely leave the house.  For me, that is a good thing.  The less interaction I have with strangers the happier I am (serioulsy, if we had grocery delivery in Detroit I would be a shut-in).  An added bonus, is that the less contact I have with people, the less exposure I have to germs, hopefully resulting in less illness.  It actually did seem to work out that way last winter, with me barely catching the sniffles the whole season, even when we saw our nieces and nephews (I love kids, but they are full of germs  FULL!).  Apparently that is not how this year is going to work out.  I am already in the midst of a full-on cold type thing, complete with an earache and chest ache and drainage.  The only difference this year, is that I got the dreaded flu shot.  I am not a believer in the flu shot.  I'm sure it's great for some people, but I have a problem with having all that stuff injected into me (especially the extra stuff), only to find out at the end of 'flu season', that the strains that made up the flu shot that year weren't the right ones, sorry about that.  Plus, the last time I had a flu shot, I was sicker (with worse things) than I have ever been in my life.  It's starting to look like that is what is happening again this time.  So much hassle for something I didn't even want (I made the mistake of scheduling a check up in October.  I don't think my doctor was going to let me leave her office without getting the shot).  If that is the case, it's going to be a very long (and sniffly) winter.