Olive’s Top 5 Reads of 2022

Here we are at the end of 2022. It’s been a good reading year for me – finished 52 books and found many gems along the way. It’s a difficult task to boil it down to 5 top reads, but I will try! (In case you missed it, here’s my list from 2021). I’ll also include a list of honourable mentions at the bottom of this post. I’ve linked the books to Amazon here, purely for convenience of reference. If you’re able to support your local bookstore or get these from your local library, please do so.

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Blue Day Conversation Guide

Early on in our marriage, we realized that most of our everyday conversations were superficial in nature but we didn’t often get around to talking about the deeper things that mattered most to us. We decided to address this by booking off a day to discuss these topics. After all, businesses and organizations have annual planning retreats, why couldn’t we? That’s how Blue Days were invented. Over the 13 years we have been doing Blue Days, many people have asked us what we talk about. We put this post together to outline the topics we cover.

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Olive’s Top 5 Reads in 2021

It was down to the wire. With two nights remaining until 2021 was over, I parked myself on the couch after the kids went to bed and got to work. I had a deadline to meet. I wanted to be able to say that I finished 40 books in the year that I turned 40. And I did it. (Yay!) Of the 40 books I read, some of them were older books that I’d had on my to-read list for years, others were re-reads of books I had loved and wanted to read again. 14 of them were audiobooks that I borrowed through our library and listened to while painting, knitting, or puttering around the kitchen.

In keeping with our tradition of posting a Top 5 List (in case you missed it, here’s my list and Tim’s list for 2020), I’ve chosen books that were new to me this year. Since they’re difficult to rank, I’m listing them by category. I’m also including an Honourable Mentions list as well as a list of top books that my kids enjoyed listening to me read at bedtime.

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What We Are Learning in Our 0th Year of Marriage

This is a guest post written by Andrew Lee, who just got married this past year. I (Tim) met Andrew in Zoom because he reached out after reading our blog. We instantly connected and it’s been fun giving him feedback on his writing. Andrew is an Asian American based in the San Francisco area, a developer at Dayspring Partners, and graduated with a computer science major from Stanford.

Marriage is a gift. Marriage is also difficult and full of never-ending challenges. But always, marriage is a journey.

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The Two Best Family Practices We Initiated This Year

When I think about what we did as a family in 2018, two practices stand out in as particularly life-giving and beneficial to each of us. These were both spiritual exercises that we incorporated into our daily rhythms over this past year and were only possible because our kids are now at an age where they could both participate. The first was what we call Good Parts/Hard Parts. The second was what we call the Quiet Minute.
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10 Things Learned in 10 Years of Marriage

Ten years of marriage feels like both a long and a short time. As we prepared to celebrate our first decade of marriage today, we sat down to reflect on some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it summarizes some of the main things we have learned.

We realize that our readers come from various places in life – some are married, some unmarried, some are struggling with their marriages, some are divorced or separated. Our intention for sharing is to give a glimpse into our relationship and hopefully bring encouragement or invite pondering. We recognize that the marriage we have can only be described as an unmerited gift – an act of grace in our lives. We are fortunate to have supportive family and friends around us and are grateful for their roles in shaping us as individuals so that we could have the marriage that we do.

Three years ago, we wrote 7 Things Learned in 7 Years of Marriage. This year, we’ve created a new list with 10 Things Learned in 10 Years of Marriage:
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11 Reasons to Attend a Marriage Conference

[We recently celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Thinking back, attending a marriage conference was one of the memories that stood out to us. This is a guest post by our dear friend, Monica Garibay, who incidentally attended the same marriage conference we did.]

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Christian marriage conference. My husband and I decided to go not because we had a particular problem to solve, or because we were on the edge of divorce. Rather, we saw it as an opportunity to get away and work more on our relationship. I believe that human beings are social beings. However, interpersonal relations are the hardest to keep healthy and strong on a continuous basis unless we make a conscious effort of doing so. When my friends ask my opinion about whether or not attending a marriage conference is worth it, I tell them about my experience.

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