Awaiting Savannah
Originally uploaded by Kyle & Kristy

Kristy and I had another OB appointment this past week. They’re always fun to go to. Since this is our first, it’s all new, which means it’s all exciting. Here’s a picture of our little Savannah Grace.

We did learn that Kristy has Placenta Previa which basically means that the placenta has implanted too close to the opening of the cervix and could cause problems in the future. The good news is that little Savannah is just fine and so is mom. The only thing that this changes is that there is a good chance that we won’t have a natural birth, rather a planned c-section AND miss Savannah will come 2-3 weeks earlier than her due date. So it looks like our new family will start at the beginning of August rather than mid. Yahoo! Now if we could only get into our house by mid- end-of-July, that’d be better!

How in the world can someone use over 100gig of hard drive space? I don’t do design (creators of large files) and I don’t do video (creators of really large files). The culprit? iTunes. My music collection has grown a lot in the past year and before I knew it, I had over 40 gigs of media just for my own entertainment. So here’s the trick. Most likely, your iTunes is importing your music as Apple Lossless Encoder which converts files at 4-5 times the size that you really need, unless you’re a music savant and need absolutely no compression. Here’s how you seriously decrease your iTunes library hard drive space: (just follow the click progression)

• Open iTunes
• From the top menu bar: iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > Importing
• “Import using:” > MP3 Encoder
• “Setting:” > High Quality (160 kbps) — so you don’t lose the quality of the recording
• Click “OK” to get out

Next we’re going to create a smart play list to find all of the files over 10MB

• File > New Smart Playlist > Choose “Size” > “Is greater than” > “10″

This will create a new play list that contains all of the songs/files that you want to convert

• Label your playlist “Songs > 10MB”
• Locate the playlist > select all the songs (Apple-S)
• Review your list and make sure there aren’t any Video, TV or Movies in there; unselect them if there are (Apple-click)
• Advanced > Convert Selection to MP3. Depending on how big your song collection is, this could take awhile (like hours)
• After it’s converted all of the files: go back to your main Music Library and follow these instructions: > View > Show Duplicates > Delete the larger duplicate file

If you don’t have the “Size” column set up in your column view, simply go to right-click (Control-click for apple users) on the light gray header bar that has “name,” “artist,” etc and choose “size” from the menu.

After you’re done, you’ll have a significantly smaller iTunes library and more hard drive space!

This week is a big week for me. Tomorrow, I welcome my very first employee. For those of you who’ve started a small business, you know what it takes to get to this point. In the end, it ends up being a huge step of faith. Never do you really know what the future is. You might be able to predict it, but you really don’t know. So to bring on not only another salary, but someone who will be effected by the things I do (and don’t do), is pretty weighty in responsibility; but I’m excited.

This morning, I read this and got excited…

What you say goes, God,
and stays, as permanent as the heavens.
Your truth never goes out of fashion;
it’s as up-to-date as the earth when the sun comes up.
Your Word and truth are dependable as ever;
that’s what you ordered—you set the earth going.
If your revelation hadn’t delighted me so,
I would have given up when the hard times came.
But I’ll never forget the advice you gave me;
you saved my life with those wise words.
Save me! I’m all yours.
I look high and low for your words of wisdom.
The wicked lie in ambush to destroy me,
but I’m only concerned with your plans for me.
I see the limits to everything human,
but the horizons can’t contain your commands!

The Bible is great and this excerpt came from Psalm 119:89-96. I’m particularly drawn to the last stanza, “I see the limits on everything human, but the horizons can’t contain your commands!”

Over the past year-and-a-half, Kristy and I have walked through a long and challenging transition. One of the most challenging parts of this time has been the preparation for Britt’knee and Elizabeth and what we’ve had to do to prepare ourselves to be obedient in that situation. I have said on numerous occasions, “from human eyes, our life is crazy, but from God’s, it’s exactly where we need to be.” What i was really saying is that I see the limits to everything we’re doing, but I also see the vast horizons of His will. During this time I felt empowered, I felt peculiar, I felt like we were/are exactly where God wanted us to be. All along, I didn’t have a clue how we were going to actually live out this life that He seemed to be calling us to but I knew that His grace was sufficient for today.

Fast forward to today and I realize that Kristy and I have been engaged in spiritual experiment. Dictionary.com defines “experiment” as:

a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition, etc.

When I look back, I resonate most with the part of the definition that says “…an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle…” The tests, the steps of faith, the risks of invested emotions, time, finances and the rejection. All of these were an experiment by the Lord with the purpose of discovering something unknown….not to Him, but to ourselves. We were placed in a position of testing the principles in which we’ve lived our lives for years and both Kristy and I have realized that the foundation which we’ve been building, is strong and deep. Never have we felt more in the midst of God’s will than in the past 1 1/2 years. We are EXACTLY where God wants us and we couldn’t be more excited about what may come! I don’t know where we’re going, but I can tell you, it’s exciting…

I don’t know the weight of fatherhood yet, but this makes me think twice.

Lately, it seems that the days of my life are becoming more important. Not like an increase in MY importance, but an increase in accountability for my time. I find myself constantly asking if what I’m doing is the best use of my time. Perhaps this is why I’ve begun devouring books like Getting Things Done and The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It. Although the content of both books seem to be unrelated, in essence, they are teaching me about being deliberate. With that perspective, it’s easy to see why the weight of being responsible for my time and energy have increased.

When I step back and look at what being deliberate means, it’s means living life on purpose. Further distilled, I realize that it’s all about knowing my personal values and being committed to them. After thinking this through more, I have come up with five core values for my life:

• Spiritual Development: Basically, this is my pursuit of God and the constant refinement, readiness and willingness to live a life as a dedicated disciple.
• Family: My wife, my child(ren), and my immediate and extended family
• Work: Owning a company is a responsibility that I take very seriously. It’s not something that I use for solely for personal gain, it represents: assignments, people, excellence, the small things, giving back and fiscal responsibility.
• Relationships: The pursuit, strengthening and nurturing of the relationships I am responsible for
• Me: Pursuing the things that I want and need to further enhance the other core values. Further defined, that means spending time in the Word, praying, working out so I am able to do anything that’s required of me, and pursuing the hobbies and interests that I enjoy.

What are yours?

Last night, i laid my head down on Kristy’s belly to see if I could hear Savannah’s heartbeat and SMACK! I got kicked in the ear. This is the first time I’ve ever felt Savannah from the inside. Seriously. How cool is that. My wife has a human growing in her gut. Think about it. It’s pretty amazing…just sayin’.

We got word yesterday that Britt’Knee and Elizabeth aren’t going to come live with us this month. If I were honest, it’s a bit of an emotional let-down. It’s taken a lot of mental energy and stamina to prepare ourselves for their arrival so to just let it go, is proving to be hard to do for me. Maybe because it seems like a final decision. I don’t know that Britt’Knee is expecting that, but her deciding to not come in May complicates our future decisions. Last she mentioned, she’d like to move up here the week before the baby is born. At this point, that isn’t happening. It’s not fair to my wife. It’s not fair to Savannah and it’s not fair to Elizabeth. So I rest it into God’s hands and work towards really letting this go.

Proverbs 16:9 (New Living Translation)
9 We can make our plans,
but the Lord determines our steps.

I can’t think of a title. In fact, I can’t think of what I want to say entirely. So here goes a bullet point of things that should be blogged, but I’m running out of words to express:

• We’re having a girl and I’m getting a daughter, Savannah Grace. I just started using the word daughter today. It’s still a bit surreal
• We’ve been planning for the arrival of two lovely ladies later this month (May), but it looks like things might be changing. Constantly having to figure out God on this one.
• May 29 brings the arrival of Rachel Matheis to the Motiveight staff. Our first employee.
• Our house is in the sheet rock stage.
• Vacation in Destin, May 12-19.
• Lately, I average 5-7 hours of sleep a night. For some reason, it feels more like 3-4.
• Recently read: E-Myth and Getting Things Done. Highly recommend both.
• Relearning that I must live daily. I can’t change yesterday and I can’t predict tomorrow. Live in the middle of God’s grace and mercy today and at the end of the day, I’ll be in the center of God’s will. That I know.

Peace.

I’m gonna be a dad.

cool.

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Kyle