On a good note: My wifi started working again this morning.
On a bad note: I have no idea why.

I didn't touch it, reboot it, reset it, reconfigure it, re-anything it. I guess that is the best kind of tech solution you can have, but it leaves me puzzled why over a span of 24 hours it wasn't working at all. It also leaves me frustrated because I really needed it to work last night when I was trying to get some work done. I wound up sitting at our home computer, with my work laptop in my lap, plugged into the network hub so I could get some work done - not exactly as comfortable as the arm chair, but it worked.

Yes, I said W-i-F-i... in case some of you thought I was frustrated with Andrea :-)

I was trying to get some work done last night, just as I am right now, and my WiFi is dragging for some reason. I tried resetting everything, but no luck. If this keeps up I'm going to have to call our DSL provider and try and talk them into giving me a new replacement one.

It's frustrating when a large HUGE percentage of the work I do is computer & Internet related and I have to drag through my work waiting on my connection to catch-up with my will to work (which, believe me, isn't always as high as it is at the present time)

Our TV schedule has been out of whack a bit this year. I think I've said this before... When we first got TiVo (I think it's been 5 years now), we began to only watch what we wanted (no more channel surfing!). The longer I've had TiVo, though, the less I wanted to watch.

We usually pick out a few shows that we record & follow. This spring it was pretty much American Idol & Lost. Oh, and we recorded 24 but somehow stopped watching mid-season. Now I'm looking at my TiVo's "Now Playing" list and we have 14 back episodes of 24 beckoning us to sit down & watch! We have planned on watching it over the summer, but at this point part of me wants to just delete the lot and reclaim disk space (although it's probably only going to be recording cartoons for the kids, classic movies for Andrea, and World Poker Tour for myself).

We'll see. I feel like I definitely have better things to do this summer than worry about catching up with past episodes of a show which, while I enjoyed, isn't something that I'm feeling like I've missed out on for the most part. Andrea & I are reading the Harry Potter series (& watching the DVDs again as we finish each one), and we are about to have plenty of company over the course of the next couple of months.

I think I'll chew on it for a little bit longer, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jack Baeur meets his end at the hands of my TiVo remote :-) (although, not having seen the show this season, he may have already bit it)

Ever since I heard last year that they were going to be coming out with a Transformers movie this summer, I knew I had to indoctrinate my kids the right way, like any good dad who grew up in the 80s would - making sure they had a full dose of the original, classic, Generation 1 Transformers that I grew up on as a kid. (Yes, I'm still lamenting that I didn't hold on to my Optimus Prime transformer.)

I quickly tracked down the first several seasons (beginning circa 1984) and began to watch the episodes with Josiah & Micah. All I can say is that they are definitely their father's sons and this quickly became a 'dad & boys' thing (much to the chagrin of my lovely wife, who I think could have probably died a happy woman without having ever been exposed to the series). The ultimate goal was to make it through the first two seasons in order to be able to watch the original Transformers movie that was released in theaters in 1986. No cheating - the movie fell right in line between the 2nd & 3rd season of the cartoon series, and we wanted to watch them in the order they originally aired. A worthy goal, if there was one, as the first two seasons comprised of 65 episodes!

Andrea had plans with some friends tonight, so we decided to tackle the last few episodes we lacked (63, 64 & 65) and then watch the movie. It was great! I'm not sure if I even was able to see the movie in 86 when it first came out - I didn't remember it if I had. For those of you who never were into the series, you probably wouldn't give the movie too many stars, but for someone like me who had lived & breathed Transformers at one point in my childhood - it was great!

We still have season 3 to tackle (about another 30 episodes). Then, I plan on going to see the movie by myself (or with a friend) to see if it is something the boys could see or not. I've promised them we'd watch it together - whether we are able to see it in the theater, or wait until the DVD comes out so we can skip through any too intense scenes.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Cliffjumper is my fav.

I brought something new to my office today to hang next to the other drawings the kids have made me. This one is an outline of Emerie's hand that she did this past Sunday at church. Apparently they were talking about how to be helpers as the sheet is labeled "We are helpers - 2 Cor. 1:24" at the top, and her name, along with the rest of the family's names are listed on her "fingers." Underneath is a list of how she helps others in her family, as told from her to her teachers:

• I help clean up my room


• I help pick up my toys


• I help Daddy mow the yard

The picture above is an old one (from two years ago, I believe) - but you still get the point of how she 'helps' Daddy mow the yard :-)

Friday night we watched ABC's new game show, "National Bingo Night" with the kids. If you haven't seen the show, it involves allowing viewers to print out bingo cards from their website & play along to win prizes. The show is fun, in & of itself (especially the Indian 'referee' in the crowd that shouts, "No Bingo!"), but this interactive part really makes it even more fun.

What's even greater about the show is that it is a (nearly) perfect fit for TiVo owners/viewers. We rarely watch shows live (heck, I probably couldn't even tell you what time or channel some of the shows we watch come on), which means that watching any kind of interactive game show experience would pretty much negate us right off the bat. Not so with National Bingo Night.

Continue reading "The (Near) Perfect Game Show for TiVo" »

Well, it's not quite over, but thought I'd write down my thoughts about the weekend before I got too tired later & crashed in bed.

This has been a really nice Memorial Day weekend. Probably the nicest I can remember in recent memory. We have spent a lot of time relaxing, swimming, playing Paper Mario, reading, napping, & the like. I probably have slept more in the last 24 hours than I have at any other given 24-hour period thus far this year.

If you know me very well at all you know that I don't take to sleep all that well. It is hard for me to "waste" time napping, and I have been known to burn the candle at both ends more times than not. I think something in me is changing, though.

Continue reading "Nice Memorial Day Weekend" »

Just finished eating lunch after hitting the Y for a lunchtime workout. While I was there I weighed in on the 'good' scales (our scales at home tend to be a bit temperamental). I weighed in at 182 lbs! That's two pounds beyond my original goal that I set back in February! Three pounds lost last week (actually probably not that many - the home scales were probably reading a little off last week) & a total of 28 lbs lost in 15 weeks.

I'm still plugging away. I'll probably lose another 5-6 pounds. Then, I'm going to begin lifting weights with more regularity in addition to my 3x a week workouts to try and add some muscle mass.

I'd have to say I'm feeling great. If I could get more disciplined about getting a good night's sleep each night I'd probably feel better than I've ever felt. Still working on that, though.

Continue reading "Weigh-In Time - Made It!" »

It's good to be home. I just rolled in from another day at LifeWay in downtown Nashville. Changed my clothes, grabbed a quick snack to tie me over until dinner, and then sat down in probably my favorite room in the house to relax for awhile. It's good to be home.

I don't think I ever fully appreciated the idea of 'home' like I do nowadays. I've always appreciated our home and family, but it seems like it means more now (and I have a feeling it will continue to mean more as I get older). Maybe it was because we spent a bulk of our time living next door to work (while in Coffeyville), or not living somewhere long enough for it to begin to feel like home (while in Edmond).

This is it - it's my favorite place. I look forward to 'hanging up my hat,' so to speak, and leaving my LifeWay work behind - enjoying this place that God has brought us & enjoyed the family He has knit together.

It's good to be home.

Six soccer games in six days - that was our past week. It sounds much worse than it was. I think due to the fact that we normally give only one night a week up for soccer (Friday nights both boys have practice) and the fact that Si & Micah usually have games either back-to-back or close together on Saturdays made the one week increase bearable.

All of them were good games. Yesterday was a doozy as well.

Continue reading "The Soccer Madness Ends" »

We've had a great week. I think for me getting on top of all of my workload helped a great deal in how I was feeling. We've been pretty busy around the Ediger household, as well. Yesterday was the last of six soccer games we had the past week - four of them being make-up games from previous rain-outs. With all of this activity, I was beginning to miss my wife a bit. We hadn't had a chance to talk during the week as much as we usually do (I normally call her at least once a day from work & then we, many times, have a chance to talk about our days at the end of the day - not as much last week).

Friday I worked at home so Andrea could go to a big homeschool curriculum fair that was out at the state fairgrounds. A friend of hers went with her, and I kept their three kids here as well. Having six kids around the house doesn't seem like a very conducive environment to get work done, but it worked really well. Having their friends over to play meant that I actually had more chance to get work done as they all were playing together really well throughout the day.

When Andrea got home mid-afternoon, we were talking and she said, "I think it's about time we got the heck out of Dodge." Thinking she was just kidding around I said, "Oh, yeah, where do you think we should go." She then proceeded to tell me that Blaire was going to be at our house in 10 minutes, that she had already planned a night away for the two of us and that I had better start packing my bags!

Continue reading "A Nice Surprise from Andrea" »

Weighed in for what I hoped would be my goal-making weigh-in this past Friday. Didn't quite make it as I only lost one of the two lbs I needed. Probably should have seen it coming as I have been consistently losing two lbs a week for quite some time (which was bound to end at some point) and because whereas I had planned on working out everyday in an effort to get to my goal, I only wound up working out on Friday alone because of giving all of my extra time to getting organized (see previous post).

I was a little disappointed, but I'm certainly not going to get depressed over losing weight :-)

After a nice weekend that included eating a wonderful steak dinner and having Maggie Moos with my lovely wife, I'm back on track. I plan (God willing) to work out each day this week, just as I had planned on last week. We'll see how it goes.

At this point, the 184 is just a symbolic mark, anyhow, as I'm planning on continuing to lose - getting down to at least 180, and more likely, 176 or so in the end. We'll see how I look/feel after hitting the 180-mark.

As I was giving Emerie a bath tonight, she started to explain how life works. She told me that she was four now, but that she couldn't go to someone else's yard to play (like her older brothers). She said that everyone starts as a baby...

"First you're one and your a baby,
then you're two and you're a baby,
then you're three and you're a big girl,
then you're four and you're a big girl,
then you're five and you're still a big girl,
then you're six and you're still a big girl,
then you're seven and you're still a big girl,
then you're eight and you're still a big girl,
then you're nine and you're still a big girl,
then you're ten and you're still a big girl,
then you get married and then you die!"

I asked her how old you were when you got married. She said, "Ten!" I quickly corrected her and said, "Not ten, Emerie. You get to get married when you're forty-five. FORTY-FIVE." :-)

Well, had many passing thoughts this week that I felt like reaching over & grabbing my laptop & blogging about, but never seemed to make it to the top of the priorities list.

What I have been doing, however, is getting organized - and I mean really organized. I've been looking for a good solution/system to handling some of the new work loads that I have now that I've switched 100% over to Threads/LifeWay Young Adult work & misc web design needs at LifeWay. All of a sudden I have started having to have many deadlines, projects to manage, etc. and I was doing a pretty poor job of handling it all. I missed some deadlines (none that were too important, thankfully) and just generally was walking around feeling stressed that I was going to miss more important details/dates if I didn't get a handle on my work.

Started asking around at work & found that there was a good number of people recommending Getting Things Done by David Allen. So, I stopped by the bookstore & picked up a copy a week ago yesterday.

That's when the fun began...

Continue reading "A Very Organized Week" »

This must be some sort of record - 4 posts in one day! Actually, this post marks the 451st post on TheEdigers.com. I thought I would commemorate the occasion by reminding you that we have four years worth of entries detailing the life of our family, covering a wide variety of topics, over three states!

We began this site actually as babyemerie.com (no longer active) - launching in May 2003 with Emerie's birth. You can read the first entry here: "Baby Emerie Arrives"

I'd encourage you to take some time, when you have a chance, to take a peek into what God has done in our lives over the last four years. You can access the monthly archives for the site by looking under "Archives" on the bottom right side of the homepage.

Well, we just pulled the plug on something that I still think was a great idea - our staff ministry blogs at Gladeville. We started over a year ago and had four of our staff (including myself) blogging - well, at least sort of. Truth is that I kept up fairly decently with my staff blog, the #s dropped off sharply from there. So, rather than trying to upkeep a system that really wasn't being used, I decided to make my life easier & just pull the plug.

Since I had 70+ posts over the past year on the blog, I decided to bring them over here & make them a part of our family archive. You can flip through them, if you want, by clicking on "GBC Blogs" under "Categories" on the right side of the homepage (toward the bottom)... or by clicking here: Gladeville Blog Posts.

As part of the import/export process of moving my Gladeville blog posts over here, I realized that in 2006 we posted a sum total of 11 posts on our family blog! That's just pathetic! I think I've probably posted at least 11 times so far in May 2007 alone!

Thanks for hanging in there with us, if anyone is still reading (hello? hello [echo]... hello [echo]... hello [echo]...)

Of course, you could just prove that you're still there by posting a comment on the site :-)

I just got finished going to Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies. We are having a few people from our community group coming over for dinner tonight and to hang out. As I was leaving the store, getting ready to walk through those electronic "gate keeper" devices (the ones set to go off if you try to leave the store without paying for something) - and I held my breath.

Why? I don't know why. Honestly, it happens almost every time I walk through those things. What makes it even more humorous is the fact that the sum total of what was in my bags was little more than a few bananas, hamburger patties, and carpet cleaning solution - nothing that would have even set the alarms off! :-)

It's the same kind of mentality that I have when I am driving down the road and I pass a police officer. It doesn't matter how fast I am going - I could be driving 20 miles an hour in a 40 miles an hour zone - I always look down at my speedometer. There is a bit of apprehension whenever I see that because I am worried that I am doing something wrong.

There's something inside of us - this natural mentality that believes that innately we're no good. Even when we try hard, we're no good. And we beat ourselves up. It can build up and become weights of guilt in our lives, if we're not careful.

Now, if you really are speeding, or shoplifting, that apprehension and fear is well-founded. What I'm talking about is the 'pins and needles' feeling we have many times, that God is some form of "Big Brother" (or "Big Father") looking over our shoulders to see what we're doing wrong.

It's simply untrue and an unhealthy way to look at a Father who loves us - a Father who looks down at us, and doesn't see our sin - but the sacrifice of our Savior instead.

Three things invariably happen when I work out-of-the-office from Panera (which I do most Fridays)...

1. I drink WAY too much coffee
2. I wind up freezing - I guess they think if you're cold enough you'll want to buy coffee?
3. I get a lot of work done

I'm not sure what there is about working from my office at LifeWay - it's relatively quiet enough. I still wind up getting less done on a typical in-office day than I do on an out-of-office day for some reason.

Been awhile since I've updated information about what I'm currently reading. "When last we left you..." I was reading Organic Community by Joseph Myers. Excellent book - finished it a couple of weeks ago. When I have some free time (chuckle) I'll post my thoughts on it here.

My newest read is Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel. This was an impulse buy a few months back - me and bookstores are not good mixes. I invariably wind up picking up a book or two that I seldom get around to reading anytime soon. Confessions was the same way. Bought it in January/February & just picked it up recently.

Craig is the founding pastor of LifeChurch, a multi-location church (10 nationwide locations & counting) based out of Edmond, OK. Andrea & I have been there several times & enjoyed every bit of every visit. Craig is an excellent communicator who very visibly has a passion for God. Confessions is the book form of a message series he did at LifeChurch sometime last year.

Continue reading "Worry is for the Birds" »

I think we've been mesmerized by the story of Greensburg, KS - the small town in western Kansas that is all but gone due to a tornado hitting last weekend. I don't think you can really appreciate the magnitude of the destruction or story without having lived in the midwest at some point. Andrea & I both grew up in what is known as "Tornado Alley" - a section of Kansas & Oklahoma (and other midwest states) that historically gets hit with more major tornados than any other part of the country (see image below):



I've been fortunate enough to never have been in a tornado (not for lack of close calls: "Another Close Call", "Tornado Near Miss", "Day and Night"). I heard one pastor from the town say on Good Morning America on Sunday that when they heard the tornado sirens they took a DVD and went downstairs to their finished basement to watch a movie - hearing the sirens was a regular occurrence and something that they probably didn't take seriously enough because of the regularity. All I can say is, "been there, done that." You never don't take it seriously at all, because you know the danger posed, but when you hear tornado sirens multiple times each year I think you just never think it will actually hit.

Here's a good look at the level of destruction on the town:

• Aerial Photos of Greensburg Tornado Damage

Our prayers go out to everyone in the town of Greensburg, to those who have lost loved ones and friends in this tragedy, and to the continued work of the mayor and city officials as they work to rebuild this small town. Small towns have a hard enough time surviving, let alone having to rebuild 95% of the city after a storm like this.

New Flickr photo albums posted in the last few days...

• More Emerie Birthday Pics
• Emerie's 4th Birthday Party
• Allen & Cheryl's Visit - May 07
• LCA 2007 Achievement Night
• LCA 2007 Field Day

Our "visitors section" of the year has officially begun. I remember the first year we were in Nashville and we counted something like 40+ guests we had spend the night at least one time during 2005! I think we would probably tell that to some people who couldn't imagine having guests hardly at all. We enjoy it. It can be exhausting at times (especially when we have back to back (& sometimes to back) guests). I'm still thankful we have people in our lives with whom we love to share time & experiences with. These are memory-making time and our family & friends are very important to us.

My dad & Cheryl arrived on Friday morning. We had a little birthday party for Emerie with two of her friends. It was a Disney Princess party - complete with the three of them dressing up in their princess outfits for the party (the boys got Emerie a Sleeping Beauty dress-up dress). Andrea made a pink princess cake (you'll have to check out the pics - she did an amazing job!). We played a few games (played 'pin the crown on the princess'), had cake & ice cream, etc.

Continue reading "Thankful for Family" »

Another week - another weigh-in. I think I probably was looking forward to weighing in this week more than I have up to this point. As I shared last week - if I lost any weight at all it would be the first time I had weighed in the 180s in several years.

I weighed in at 188 lbs - two more lbs closer to my target weight of 184!

Part of me is considering trying to hit 180, although I really want to just reach 184-185. I think I'd like to be able to say that I had lost 30 lbs - that would just be cool! We'll see how I feel after I lose four more lbs.

Well, amazing enough I made it through the Ediger flu invasion of 2007 unscathed. Not sure how, although I did everything in my power to keep those flu bugs away from me! I'm thankful and somewhat still a little skiddish from the whole thing (there's still a chance I might get sick, right? To hard to believe...).

I don't have much to say - other than what I said in my previous post (below) - God is truly good & He still chooses to answer prayers. I know He is omni-everything and that it is solely up to Him in His wisdom to do anything on our behalf, but I am just thankful & ever-aware that in His goodness He still chooses to intervene & intersect our lives. I don't want to go into great details, but I don't think the details are all that important. The important thing is that our heart was burdened about something, my lovely wife prayed that God would take care of it in His wisdom (not even doing this or that - just that He would be God in our life), and that is exactly what He did.

Praise God!

God is good & He still answers prayer!