Top Ten Posts in Q1 2010

1. Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?
2. Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: A Real Path to Family Financial Freedom
3. Our Debt-Free Marriage: How We Paid Off $54,500 in the Name of Freedom
4. 37 Family Things to Do at Home on a Rainy Sunday
5. Write an Awesome Romantic Love Letter: The Simple “5R” Approach
6. How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?
7. Love Everyday – Thoughts on Loving Amidst the Chaos of Life
8. Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage
9. 10 Awesome Gifts for Married Couples
10. I Love My Wife Enough to Shop at Wal-Mart

As you may know, I am a proud member of a wonderful blog network known as the Extraordinary Life Network.  Please check out the top posts from each of the member sites over this same period:

Enemy of Debt: Great Financial Advice From The In-Flight Safety Handbook

Mama Notes: Rain Gutter Bookshelves

My Super-Charged Life: Attitude for Success: Design a Better Life

The Wisdom Journal: 26 Ways To Make Extra Money While Keeping Your Day Job

Thank you again for your continued support of this site!  If you haven’t already joined us on Facebook or Twitter, I encourage you to check out the conversations going on there.  I’ll be announcing some special Facebook-Fan-Only giveaways real soon, so make sure you become a fan and don’t miss out!

So, what was your favorite post so far in 2010?

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Top 10 Posts of 2010 (so far)

Tags: Blog Progress, Link Round Up

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1. Some Old Posts for the New Year

In case you missed it, I am having a “button” made to represent Engaged Marriage on other sites who want to show their support of this blog and what it represents in their own marriage.  There is a great discussion going on over at our Facebook page, and I’d love for you to stop by and leave your thoughts on what our motto should be!

I wanted to once again share some high-quality reads that I think you will enjoy.  If you have a great link to share, please feel free to add it to the comments for everyone to see.

From my fellow members of the The Extraordinary Life Network:

• How To REALLY Screw Up Your Life (Insurance) from Ron at The Wisdom Journal

• The March 2010 “Manage Your Money” Challenge: Featuring Pocketsmith – Are You In Or Out? from Brad at Enemy of Debt

• Steps to Self Improvement: Climb Your Way to Success from Jeff at My Super-Charged Life

• Mom Talk (of Rockstars and Jobs) from Samantha at Mama Notes

Other great stuff:

• Love Everyday the FREE e-book that myself and 27 others put together recently, which has been read by approximately 25,000 people so far!

• For the Guys: Lust and Your Lady at The Marry Blogger, which was a great guest post by Carrie at Make Mine Happen

• Pornography: A Secret That Can Destroy Your Marriage over at ONE Extraordinary Marriage where you can find a growing number of fantastic podcasts designed to help you in your relationship

• Best of Money Carnival #37 over at Pondering Money where my article Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts? won first place! (not bad for a marriage blogger )

• There Will Never Be a Good Time from Sherri at Zen Family Habits

• Want to Improve Your Marriage? Build a Budget! from some loser over at Simple Marriage

Finally, I wanted to share with you an awesome video that a reader shared in the comments earlier this week.  I hope Bethany and I can do this after 62 years of marriage…of course we’ll have to learn how to play the piano together first!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Round-Up of Interesting Reads #12: Rock Out with Your Teeth Out Edition

Tags: Ask the Community, Link Round Up

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We shared an awesome date night recently with good friends and great music.  It just so happens that I am close friends with the musician that night, and he has recently written some incredible songs.  You can check those out in this edition of the Round-up along with a hodge-podge of other cool stuff I’ve found on the web recently.  Enjoy!

• Send a Valentine from Valentine…or Loveland.  My buddy Stu at The Marry Blogger gives us a quick post with ideas of how you can mail your valentine to add a special touch this year.

• Debunking the Myths: Common Home Emergencies.  I found this post at Dumb Little Man to be really interesting, and probably pretty valuable if I encounter any of the emergency situations discussed here.

• Brad’s Totally Excellent Baby Advice. My friend Brad from the techno-blog RantsandStuff.com posted this gem of an article on his personal family blog.  I’ll bet you get a few good laughs out of this one.

• Where Your Money Goes: An Interactive Tax Calculator.  Sure I’m a nerd, but I found the calculator that was linked to in this post at Get Rich Slowly to be really fun to play with!  You can put in any salary and see your effective Federal tax rate going back to 1940.  It also gives you a breakdown of where the Feds spend all those tax dollars you send them.

• The March 2010 “Manage Your Money” Challenge: Featuring Pocketsmith – Are You In Or Out? My friend Brad at Enemy of Debt is hosting a series of money challenges at this site.  This is the first one, and he has some great prizes up for grabs!

• The Love Challenge.  I really “love” the idea behind this 20-week campaign being held over at the “Sweet as Punpkin Pie” blog.  Each week, she’ll be posting a new little challenge for you to try in your own relationship.  You can learn more and sign up at this link.

Finally, I want to introduce you to someone who I think is going to hit it big in the country music world soon (think Keith Urban meets Bon Jovi).  I am proud to call Michael Sonders my friend, and I really enjoyed watching him perform during our date night last week.

Michael has written numerous songs and recorded three recently for his demo.  My personal favorite is “Your Pretty Face” which he wrote for his wife (also our buddy).  Please take a few minutes to listen to his work on his My Space Music page here: Michael Sonders.  And if you love what you hear and happen to know a big-time record label exec, pass on the good word!

P.S. – Please keep an eye out next week as myself and 25+ of my blogging buddies unveil our free collaborative e-book on relationships.  Here are a few teasers: the subtitle is “Thoughts on Loving Amidst the Chaos of Life” and one of the entries was written by none other than best-selling author and my idol Dan Miller.  Yeah, this thing is going to be huge, and we will be giving it away and encouraging you to share it with everyone you know.  I’m stoked!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Round-Up of Interesting Reads #11: Love, Laughs, Emergencies, Challenges, Teasers and Great Music Edition

Tags: Link Round Up

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We told our two (out of utero) kids the big news on Christmas morning after they opened their gifts, and I am proud to report that they were even more excited by the thought of a brand new baby than by their shiny new toys, at least for a few seconds.  When we said, “We’re going to have a baby!” my almost five-year-old son’s immediate reaction was “RIGHT NOW?!?!”.  From the mouths of babes…

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, it’s also time for another round of links to awesome reads that I recommend you check out.  There are a lot of links here, but I had a lot of time to read over the Christmas break and I wanted to share a nice variety of stuff.

And I’ll throw in a picture of my favorite new t-shirt that I received for Christmas for good measure.  It is super-sweet!

• A Good Marriage is the Enemy of a Great Marriage.  Simple Marriage is one of the best marriage sites out there, and this post is good example of why.  I am really excited to be a monthly contributor at Corey’s awesome site.

• Ask the Moms: How Do You Make Your Home Safe?.  With the big news, this great post over at Mama Notes really hit home for us.  We’ll have a new baby to protect in just six short months!

• People Need an Excuse to Spend Money, and They’re Eager to Find One. Enemy of Debt always finds a fresh way to make me more accountable and purposeful with my spending, and this post is the latest example.

• Social Experiments. I found this out-of-the-box post over at Do You Dave Ramsey? to be a great read.

• Setting Goals in Marriage: The Goal Ladder. The Marry Blogger is another favorite blog of mine.  Stu put together a nifty little video to help us with our goal-setting, which is critical for a good life…and a great marriage.

• Top 5 Personal Finance Resolutions. Ron from The Wisdom Journal boiled down where we need to be focusing the renewed enthusiasm many of us feel this time of year in this great post.

• Debt Free Now What: Moving Beyond the Financial Basics. Jeff from My Super-Charged Life delivers again with this informative read.  As you know, I love living with a plan and achieving family financial freedom!

• What is the Point of Marriage? Kathleen is putting together a wonderful, thought-provoking series of posts over at Project M.  She asks and then tries to answer this basic, but very important, question about marriage.

• 6 Ways to Knock Out Creditors. J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy adds his entertaining style to a tough subject that many are resolved to tackle in the new year.

• ThemeWord 2010. I love this post at Make Mine Happen!  By the way, MY ThemeWord for 2010 is Breakthrough…and it applies to so many areas of my life (marriage, family, fitness, career and Engaged Marriage) as I lay out a game plan for the New Year.

• Declutter Your Way to a Happy Home.  This post at Zen Family Habits is fantastic.  We did a lot of decluttering during our time off work over the holidays.  It makes the house a much more pleasurable place to hang out!

• 30 Bloggers to Watch in 2010 Who Didn’t Make the List at Problogger.  I had to throw this post from Serene Journey into the round-up.  I am just so excited to have Engaged Marriage included in such an awesome list of highly-respected blogs…thank you guys for all of your support!

Without further ado, please check out my new t-shirt, proudly displayed here late into the night of our New Year’s celebration (pretty tame party given the prevalence of pregnant women ).  For reference sake, my “day job” is as a transportation engineer!

Engineer by Day, Marriage Ninja by Night!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Big News for Our Family & A Happy New Year’s Link Round-Up

Tags: Children, Link Round Up

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• Brad And J’s 1st Annual Christmas Stimulus 2009. Brad from Enemy of Debt and J. Money from Budgets are Sexy have teamed up to offer a truly generous giveaway.  All you have to do is leave a comment on each of their posts, and you will be eligible to win $300, no strings attached.  Talk about a sweet Christmas gift!  Hurry, though, because the deadline to enter is midnight on Saturday, December 19th.

• A Brief Guide to Holiday Tipping. J.D. from the great Get Rich Slowly blog provides some practical and straightforward advice for who you should be tipping for Christmas and just how much you should give to avoid looking like a Scrooge.

• Traveling by Plane With Kids: My Tips & Experiences. For you poor souls that must travel long distances with small children over the holidays, I suggest you take a look at this very helpful post.  Samantha from Mama Notes has lived through a very long plane ride with her baby boy and lived to tell about it!

• 8 Tips for Handling Extended Family Stress During the Holidays.  This awesome post from contributor Corey at the Simple Mom site is a must-read for anyone who will be dealing with enjoying extended family as part of their Christmas festivities.

• Keep Christmas Simple: 5 Quick Tips to Help Stay Focused.  With all of the hustle and bustle of the season, it’s easy to forget to slow down and enjoy our time spent with family!  Jeff from My Super Charged Life gives some very helpful tips to help keep us focused.

• 5 Ingredients. 5 Minutes. 5 Meals. – Holiday Appetizers. Zen Family Habits is always a great place to find practical resources for a fulfilling family life.  If you will be hosting guests, I think you’ll really dig these simple recipes.

• Man Knowledge: Early 20th Century Battles Every Man Should Know.  The Christmas season always helps remind me of the constant sacrifices made by our armed forces.  Their selfless service is very much highlighted during the holidays when many will not get the opportunity to share Christmas morning with their own families.  I think everyone should read this post from the Art of Manliness, which will grow your appreciation of the heroic service provided by so many military members throughout modern history.

• Don’t Wait Until January 1st – Button Up Your Life NOW.  Ron from The Wisdom Journal encourages us to take action today to improve our lives.  And in Ron’s typical style, he doesn’t just give advice, he provides solid resources to help you reach your goals.

By the way, if you need a “push” and some motivation to get off your butt (like I do), you won’t want to miss a little competition  I’m cooking up to kick off the new year!  Look for a post in the next few days that announces “Improve Yourself! 2010“.  If you don’t already, I’d really encourage you to subscribe to receive new posts by RSS or Email so you don’t miss your chance to be part of this exciting contest…great prizes will be included!

• 10 Awesome Christmas Gifts for Married Couples. If you still need to buy a gift for your spouse or another married couple, why not make it a meaningful and helpful present?  My post makes it easy with links to great gifts that you can buy at the lowest price from Amazon.  If you know someone who could use some career advice or some motivation/direction in their life, then I highly recommend you check out Dan Miller’s site at 48 Days.  Click “Christmas Deals” for some insane discounts, including autographed books!

• Finally, I’d like to share an awesome compilation video from one of my favorite Christmas movies…I think you’ll recognize it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And please don’t forget the reason for the season:

Keep Christ in Christmas!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Round-Up of Interesting Reads #9: Santa is Coming!

Tags: Holiday, Link Round Up

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