Tim and Olive's Blog

“What I Learned” is a guest post series of lessons learned in relationships that matter the most (you can send us your story too). This guest post is by our friend Vincent Ng. [Note: Although Olive and I have never considered a common law relationship for ourselves, we know more people are choosing this option (the 2011 census shows 17% of Canadian families are common-law couples). We decided to publish this post because we value and seek to learn from other perspectives about marriage and relationships, and hope this will generate helpful discussion.] On March 28th, 2013 the government of British Columbia, Canada made some new changes to the Family Law Act that affects common law relationships in our beautiful province. Contrary to popular myth, common law relationships are not dictated by the federal government and are determined on a provincial level. Read More

How do you face disappointment? When a relationship falls apart, or a friend lets you down, or something you were looking forward to (like getting pregnant or clinching the next promotion) doesn’t happen, how do you respond? I don’t handle it very well. My instinct is to run from the pain, to numb myself with distractions and to avoid that awful feeling at all cost. It’s too uncomfortable, unpleasant and painful for my liking. So I scroll through my Facebook feed for the tenth time in four minutes. I lose myself in a certain online game of matching coloured candies. I text my friends to see if anyone’s around to chat. I search for something, anything, to soothe the aching hole in my soul where my dream used to be. Then I come to my senses and I sit down to blog.
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Happy April Fool’s Day! Last year I played a prank on my wife on April 1. I recorded it on video, just in case it turned out to be a super funny clip that would go viral. The prank backfired, and she got mad at me. Really mad. And I had no clue why. Needless to say, that clip never made it to YouTube. Fortunately, not all my pranks have backfired like this.
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With the release of our second book this week, I’ve gotten many questions about what it is like to self-publish a book. This blog post is a preview of a guest post with Salt+Light and interviews with The Bucket List and Daddy Blogger TV about self-publishing.
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[This is a preview of a guest post I wrote for ESL Marriage]

Before I became a first-time father, I prepared. I took a pre-natal class with my wife, asked other parents what their experience was like, and read numerous blog posts and books about the subject. But even with all that preparation, there were many things about being a new father that surprised and shocked me. No one warned me about these things (or maybe they did and I wasn’t paying attention).
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Today we are launching our new book, Then Came The Baby: The Wonder, Mayhem, and Hilarity of Our First Year As Parents. To celebrate, we are giving away three bonus gifts worth $23 to everyone who buys a copy this week and emails me the receipt. I’ll share the details in a moment.
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Exactly 5 years ago I asked Olive to marry me. Rather than popping the question with a diamond ring, I planned to propose to her with a goat. It wasn’t a pet goat for her to keep in the yard and take for walks in the park, it was a goat to give away to a family in need. It was what she wanted, and it was one of the reasons I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this particular girl.
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 [This is a preview of a guest post I wrote for SheLoves Magazine]

“Why do you keep thinking you don’t have enough energy?” my husband asked me one night. “You made it through today. You made it through this year of being a new mom. Why do you insist that you’re in deficit?”
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One of the best gifts of becoming a mother is that I have the privilege of watching the process of human development unfold before my eyes. As I’ve observed Allie, I’ve come to (re)learn some basic truths about what it means to be human. As an adult, I find it easy to lose sight of the fundamental qualities of my humanness so I’m grateful that my baby, in her unfiltered and uninhibited way, shows me and reminds me of these things.
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When Tim proposed to me, he had no idea he was signing up to live with a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). I didn’t even know I was an HSP. We were both aware that I was more sensitive than your average person. I was sensitive emotionally, yes. But I was also sensitive to my physical surroundings. Certain places would be too loud, or too bright. Most perfumes and colognes would give me headaches. I would notice the slightest changes in my environment.
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