Love the One You're With (That's You)

Love the One You're With (That's You)

Confession: I have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day.

The idea of a holiday where you buy fancy trinkets to show how romantic you are just feels… icky. But what if we pressed rewind and took it back to Elementary school? Or even better- what if we work on loving the person we have to live with every single day, no matter what. Ourself.

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Book Report- The Five Love Languages  

Book Report- The Five Love Languages    

f there is one thing that I truly believe, it’s that we are all works in progress. Every day we have the opportunity to get better. Since the moment I committed to Rob in front of our friends and family our marriage has been something I continuously want to make better.

Which leads me to this book.

I borrowed it on audio from Hoopla (but I have a physical copy in my library!) and we listened to it together on our mini-road trip. To be fair, I borrowed a couple books so I could let him choose which one we would “read,” but he let me choose, and I went with this one since I knew we could complete it during our trip.

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1st Year of Marriage- Relationship Check-Up

1st Year of Marriage- Relationship Check-Up

Monday is our 1 year wedding anniversary. And you know what? Marriage is hard. Like really, really hard. To quote one of my favorite authors,

“All due respect to the Resurrection, but two-becoming-one might be the greatest miracle ever.”  (Thank you Jen Hatmaker for keeping it real in your book For the Love)

Don’t get me wrong. It’s also amazing, and exciting, and a whole lot of fun to be able to see your favorite person first thing every morning… but I feel like the movies give us enough of that stuff. What I find lacking in the conversation about marriage is real, honest accounts of how tough marriage can be, but how it’s totally possible to still make it work. We hear the really great stuff, or the really bad stuff. But rarely do I hear people talking about the in-between stuff (except Jen, who I mentioned earlier has a fabulous chapter devoted to it in her book, For the Love. If you haven’t read it do yourself a favor and pick up the audio copy, because listening to her read it will have you laughing out loud).

So while our first year of marriage was far from perfect (what even is perfect?), we did pretty okay. And I thought I’d share some of the stuff we did to navigate the in-between in case you need a little inspiration in your relationship.

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Love Languages to Improve your Relationships

Love Languages to Improve your Relationships

Is there anything worse than getting a card with nothing but a signature inside?  Not to someone whose love language is words of affirmation.

How would you feel if someone sent you flowers because they flaked on you… again? If your love language is gifts, you’d probably appreciate the thought. But, if your love language is quality time, you might just wonder if that person is trying to buy your affection.

So what exactly is a love language? Well, the ones I’m talking about are “the 5” of the The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  In his book he explains how different people not only experience but express love.  While the original book is really aimed at couples, love languages can be used in any and every relationship. Yes, even at work.

The Languages are:

  • Words of Affirmation (words)

  • Quality Time (time)

  • Physical Touch (touch)

  • Acts of Service (service)

  • Gifts

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Know your Type to Improve your Relationships

Know your Type to Improve your Relationships

Have you heard about the Enneagram?  Do you know your type?

The first time I heard the word Enneagram was on a podcast sometime late 2017 or early 2018. When I really think about it, it almost surprises me that I hadn’t heard about it sooner.  It’s a personality typing system where you “choose” the type you most identify with rather than be assigned a type by taking quizzes or tests.  

I’ll be honest, I love this stuff. I love knowing it about me, and I love knowing it about all the people around me.  I want to know everything from your Love Language (mine are words of affirmation and quality time) to your Myers-Briggs (ENFJ with my E right on the E/I line), to your Tendency (Upholder with some Obliger) to which Disney Princess you are (Belle).

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