Round-Up of Interesting Reads #11: Love, Laughs, Emergencies, Challenges, Teasers and Great Music Edition

I hope everyone is doing well in the New Year.  It’s hard to believe it’s already February and Valentine’s Day is approaching.  If you are gift giving type, I hope you enjoyed my suggestions for gifts for her and gifts for him.  If you are like us, you probably value a night out or some quiet time with each other more than any gifts.

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!