Faith

Lately I have been praying for God to increase my faith. JP always says that is a loaded prayer! And he is right. Because right now as I sit on my couch typing this, I am thinking that I need a lot of faith to make it through the next few days.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30am Riley will be having surgery to re-implant her ureters. She was born with urinary reflux which means that urine backs up from her bladder to her kidneys. Because of this there is a high risk of her having kidney damage. So she has been on daily antibiotics since she was 6 months old. I had this condition and so did both of my sisters. John Mark had it as well and so do 3 of my nieces and nephews. When we met with her urologist in November he said that we had a choice to make...either continue with the antibiotics or surgically correct the problem. This was a HUGE decision for us! My sister Wendy and I had the surgery, my sister Tracey, John Mark and my niece Paige have outgrown the condition and my nephew Joey, Riley and my niece Ainsley still have it. UGHH....what to do.

After a lot of prayer and consideration, we decided to go through with the surgery. I still don't know if this is the right decision, but I know it is not the wrong decision. But it doesn't make it any easier. I am nervous. I am scared. I would give anything to have it be me tomorrow. But right now, I just need to have more faith. We serve a God who loves Riley a million times more than I do. He will hold her and protect her and comfort her in her time of need. And for that I am thankful. I will keep you updated as to how she is doing. But for now, I'm going to work on my faith.

Beauty in a Historical Event

I am feeling the need to blog about the inauguration of President Obama. You may or may not agree with me, but hey, this is my blog and I am using it to voice what I am feeling.

First off....I slept through the inauguration. This was not in protest of our new president....it was simply because I had worked the night before and just needed to sleep. In fact, NEEDING to sleep through this major event in history made me sad. Looking back, I wish I had set my alarm to get up to watch. But when I woke up in the afternoon and turned on the TV and checked out the Internet, I began to feel the energy of the rest of the nation. We are experiencing history! And whether you agree with President Obama's views or not....he has made history.

I don't know what it is like to be oppressed. Or really treated differently just for who I am. But I watched some of the older black people in the crowds yesterday and I was touched. This is a day most of them never thought they would see. Now I have never felt that someone's skin color is a criteria for a job, but I grew up in a different time than some of those people. People who were not allowed to go to the same schools or ride on the same buses or eat at the same restaurants as people who had lighter skin than they did. It seems pretty ridiculous to us now, but to that generation, it was a reality.

We were trying to teach John Mark about Martin Luther King, Jr the other night and our conversation boiled down to this. If we are all created in God's image, than our skin color or our language or what we look like is beautiful to Him. I am beautiful to God and Barack Obama is beautiful to God (and his wife looked great in that white dress too! haha). Every person born on this earth is beautiful to God and that is a great thing.

So as I reflect on living through history with this new president, I know that there will be the issues that will arise that God will rejoice in or those that will break His heart. I know there will be issues that I will support and issues that I will oppose. But I do promise to pray for and respect this leader of our nation because in God's eyes, he is beautiful.

Disaster Strikes

For the past few days, temperatures here in Middle Tennessee have been extremely cold. Even hitting the negative degrees. I know that for some of you reading this, -2 degrees is not a big deal, but for us here, it is down right freezing. We just are not prepared for these temperatures. So much so that John Mark even had school canceled yesterday due to extreme coldness. (Something I had never heard of having grown up in the North!).

I came home from work on Friday morning and JP told me the upstairs pipes were frozen. This has happened before and they have defrosted in a few hours. But as I was sleeping, I suddenly heard a loud noise of rushing water. I went into our bathroom (in my sleepy state) and heard the rushing water louder, but could not see where it was coming from. When I walked out of the bathroom, I heard what sounded like rain coming from the kitchen. I rushed downstairs and it was a literaly rainstorm in our kitchen. The door frame between the stairs and kitchen was like a waterfall. There was water streaming out of the ceiling and door frames. There was 1/2 inch of water in our kitchen. I immediately picked up my phone and called JP (in what he called my panic-stricken state). Then I ran out to the water main outside but I couldn't figure out how to turn off the water. JP got home about 15 minutes later and got the water off. While he began to vacuum up the water I called a plumber and the insurance company.

Basically when the day was over, we had discovered that one of our pipes had burst. It amazed me that the hole that did all of this damage was a 1/2 inch slit. We had a plumber at the house within the hour who replaced the section of pipe. Our insurance adjuster sent out a company who specializes in water damage. They spent 4 hours ripping apart our carpet, walls, floor, and ceiling. Then they set up 3 industrial sized dehumidifiers and 8 industrial fans. All which make our house sound like a train station and feel like a wind tunnel. Here are some pictures of the current state of disaster.

The hole the plumber cut in our ceiling to fix the pipe.

Tearing up the carpet and vaccumming out the water.

Our kitchen floor with half the linoleum ripped up.

The hole in our wall and the wet sub-floor

Kitchen and stairs.

The dehumidifer that is taking up all the room in my kitchen.


More dehumidifers and fans


Dehumidifer and fan in the hall between the kids rooms.

Everyone keeps saying that at least we will get new carpet and flooring, which I am grateful for. I am also grateful that I was home, no one was hurt and that we have insurance. I am trying to focus on these things because right now it is hard to see past the mess we are living in and likely to be living in for at least a month (or more!).

I think next time we will remember to leave the water dripping upstairs!!

Reality Brings Me Back

This past weekend, I went with 5 0ther women to a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN. Now I went to Gatlinburg about 8 years ago and vowed to never return due to the overwhelming amount of stores that sold nothing but fudge....but this time, we were going to a nice cabin...no fudge. We left Friday around lunch time and got back Sunday at 5pm. It was AWESOME!!! We had a couple of rules. #1 No kids #2 No husbands #3 No agenda. We stuck to all 3 rules. We ate when we wanted to, slept as late as we wanted to, and stayed in our pajamas pretty much the whole time. We watched the 6 hour Pride and Prejudice movie which I will say (and this is a big deal for me), is as good as the book. We read books, drank wine and hung out in the hot tub. I crocheted my heart away (a new hobby for me!!). A couple of us ventured out once to hit a few outlet stores, but no serious shopping or anything! I came home feeling refreshed and thankful for girlfriends.

But now I am back to reality. And that includes cleaning and laundry and bills and work. JP has declared 2009 as the Robinson's Year of the Clean House. Obviously I did not make that a priority in 2008! I am trying to stick to it the best I can...except the kids rooms. Those are just a disaster! I just wish that laundry and dishes would somehow just freeze in time and that there would just be enough to occupy a small portion of my day instead of the majority. Oh well!

I am also committed to start scrapbooking once a week and so far so good. Here is a shot of my opening page for our 2009 book. I'll let you know (any of you other scrapbookers will understand) that I am by no means "caught up" on our family albums. For me, scrapbooking is a release of my creativity and I do what subject, date, idea I want to do. That being said...I have a little bit of everything started and nothing done. But I like it this way. It's me.

And one more glimpse into the reality of Jill with a story about Riley. Yesterday she was at her home-school preschool and was playing in the kitchen. This was her conversation to her teacher Miss Heather. “We are going to have dinner now. Baby Johnny and Baby Susie are having milk to drink because they are babies. Munchie is having apple juice because she is a big girl. And I am having wine because I am the mom.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my reality.

The End of My Strike

OK, so I am coming off of my blog strike. No I was not protesting anything except maybe life. It's not a very interesting story, but for those of you who were wondering where I was here goes.

I have always loved Christmas. Next to my birthday (the national holiday that is July 10th), it is my favorite time of year. I love the decorations, the music, the baking, the spiritual side....all of it. But this year, Christmas and I just didn't click. I still can't put my finger on it, but I just never caught the Christmas spirit. Oh I still did the decorating and made my 117 handmade Christmas cards and listened to the Christmas carols, but I just wasn't into the holiday. In fact, I did minimal baking and didn't even make my famous Christmas candies (sorry to those who are normally recipients of those!). I spent the month in a blah mood. I was having headaches for no reason for most of the month, but I don't attribute the way I was feeling to that. I really don't attribute it to anything...I'm not that analytical. So instead of posting negative posts that were all bitter, I went on strike.

Then the week after Christmas was a whirlwind for us. I worked two horrific nights in a row. I was busy getting JP ready to take 70 people on a ski trip (and I was responsible for all of the paperwork and forms and money....yadayada). My parents came for a visit. I had to clean the house the best I could. And we had a wedding which JP officiated so we had the rehearsal and the wedding commitments. Yikes! So on New Year's Day JP left for 4 days. On January 2nd, my parents left and I just crashed.

Then I kicked it into gear....and got the house in order!

So now it is a new year and I am feeling pretty good about things. I am going to try a new work schedule that consolidates my days. I am committing to read through the New Testament in a year with our church. I am headed back to the Rec Center to work out. I am determined to keep our house picked up. I am dedicated to setting aside time each week to scrapbook. None of these are resolutions, just needed changes that will hopefully prevent those blah times that necessitate a blog strike!