Tag Archives: love

Neutropenia Plunk (And A Sweet Story of Love)

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by Christie Perkins

First off I must tell you that feel fine. I lack energy, but I always lack energy so it’s fine. I went to the doctor last week and got my results back from my cat scan. I’ve been feeling really good about it and rightfully so. I have found that for the most part it looks good. Nothing additional-tumorous to worry about. Yay!

I love emotional paydays.

neutropenia-kerplunkYet, my neutrophils are misbehaving. They’ve taken a plunk. So a little factoid here: normal range of neutrophils are between 2.5 and 6.0. Mine are a whopping 0.3 (yeah that’s zero point three). They call that neutropenia. (Puts your doctor in shock.)

It’s a bit lame as you get to evaluate your 4 walls while you wait for the neutrophils to get in order. Instead of me running amuck I’m stuck. I go lazy so they can go crazy. Meh. I avoid crowds, and germ infested guests, anyone with vaccinations (and carrying a live virus), and broccoli, cauliflower, and raspberries (because it’s difficult to wash thouroughly). So random right? And of course, I’ve been craving broccoli lately.

La-ti-dah. It’s a low key life when you are neutropenic. Continue reading →

How this Baseball Coach Taught Me to Coach my Kids

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by Christie Perkins

I have learned a great deal about coaching kids through others. Sometimes kids fall. Sometimes they mess up. Sometimes things don’t go quite right. Our response is crucial to their learning process of who they are. Of the many great coaches we have had in life, one moment stands firm in my mind. I feel impressed to share it with you today, not last week like I was going to.

Someone needed this today.

We all have coaches in life. Sometimes we are the coach. Sometimes we are the player. I learned something great through one of my boys’ baseball coach. I believe it is key to how we coach our kids, especially when they mess up.

“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor_ _Winter is dead.”(3)It was pouring rain. But we were playing ball anyway. Too many games have been cancelled this year already. And since the game started out dry that was good enough.

I huddled under layers of blankets with the denim quilt as my oversized poncho and hair destroyer. Lovely. The afghan wrapped around my arms and legs kept me mostly warm with frequent blasts of cold air finding its way through the holes.

Sly comments about a holey blanket in this mad weather kept coming back to me. Again, and again, and again… and I could see the obvious mistake. They were absolutely right. Continue reading →

How Dealing with Cancer is Like Building a House

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by Christie Perkins

If you have ever built a house you know the deep ditch neuro pathways you carve from overthinking details.

You even sometimes dream about the process… or have nightmares.

“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor_ _Winter is dead.”(1)You have lived in other places and you quickly categorize what you like and don’t like. You adopt and adapt from previous experience the things you should do for the next house. But some things you take for granted, like the placement of plugs. You don’t really think about those details because someone else does the thinking for that.

Unless you’ve had a bad experience with that.

In my last house I had one light switch in a bedroom that was vacationing halfway down the wall. Ok. Maybe not that far. But, you would practically jab your armpit with the door frame before you found the switch… and I always prayed that a spider wasn’t playing boogie man as I felt the wall.

That’s crawly (not to mention creepy). Continue reading →

The Key To Better Relationships: Stop & Refocus

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by Christie Perkins

A while back I prayed to find out what I needed to do to be a better mom (that was the gist of the prayer anyway). I wanted a little more mojo between us. Not that the kids and I had a bad relationship but I just wanted more relationship superglue before the teenage years hit. S A I L O R SC L U BYes, I wanted that uber connection-greed associated with moms and their midget genetic counterparts. A specific thought entered my mind:

…get off the computer when the boys get home.

Ah, yes.

Bingo. It was a good idea. I could see the benefit of this counsel. Sometimes those thoughts come and I shift my head back, turn my chin slightly to the side, and scrunch one eyebrow. That? That’s the answer? But not this time. This made perfect sense. Continue reading →

Making Spirits Bright

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by Christie Perkins

Tis the season for making spirits bright. The message is simple: Love, Laugh, Lift.

howperkyworks.com (4)LOVE. See the non-obvious beauty in others. The things that we like about people are easy to see and love. Get to know someone’s true beauty. The best way to do that is to knock down our judgments of others by thinking good things. When I was in 4th grade we read a book about a boy who could read people’s thoughts. I was gullible enough to think that maybe someone really did have that special power.

And it had me on-guard every time I was around people (though I never cared if spiders could hear my thoughts, still don’t care). Continue reading →

Twitterpation

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Finding and Keeping Love

by Christie Perkins

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Spring’s coming. It’s time to find a man. Classifieds or are you in the comics? No. My lifelong love is in the obituaries. Next place for ideas is slave dungeons.

So.  I created this sign in high school.  And I am happy to admit I did not find my guy in the slave dungeon (although he may have found himself in the slave dungeon when he married me… sorry guy.)

I found my guy in the Human Interest section.  Oh yes I did.

He was checking off the list for me: good with kids, treats me well, always talks me up, most forgiving person I’ve ever met, and showcases a perfect bald head (which I discovered later in marriage… he fashioned the parking lot hairstyle for quite some time).

These are just a few of his perks.  Everyone has their unique set of perks and most likely no two are exactly the same.  Everyone is awesome is some way. Everyone.

And we all have our quirks.

I wrote this poem in high school… I think it can apply well to any relationship.

Continue reading →