All posts by R.C. Liley

I'm an ex-mutual fund accountant who left the cubicle world to be a stay-at-home dad to my beautiful little girl, Avery, who entered our life on 11/15/13 and handsome little boy, Wes, who joined our family on 11/19/17. Also happily married to my wife, Kelley, as of 8/17/07. Sorry ladies... :) Fitness and nutrition is of the utmost importance in our family and we strive to reflect this in our daily life. I always prepare our meals at home and only go out if it's a special occasion, and even then I tend to not get much. Food should be fun and a joy to eat, not something quickly consumed from a fast food chain or scarf down before the next meeting. I have come from strictly logging high miles to train for the next marathon to keeping exercise varied and focusing more on strength. I still enjoy going for a run when I can, but nothing crazy, and I prefer hill sprints while pushing my daughter, Avery in the stroller. She loves it and I get a great workout! I want to show the world how to appreciate their body and feed it real, wholesome food while moving more throughout the day. In doing so, everyone would be healthier, happier, and we'd all live in a better place as a result. I blog mainly about my life as a stay-at-home dad and frequently include reviews, participate in campaigns, and share my thoughts on fitness and nutrition. If you ever have any questions or thoughts to share, please reach out as I'm always open to listening or helping others however possible. That is, when I have free time since Avery is and my wife are the number one priorities!
Life, Lifestyle

Keeping The Family Pet Safe & Sound

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The infographic below, How to Prevent Losing Your Pet, contains valuable information for every dog or cat owner. It’s something every member of the family should read, as well as anyone else involved with or responsible for caring for the family pet.

As the infographic points out, losing a pet is a traumatic experience. Hopefully the anxiety lasts only a short time, but the sad truth is, many lost pets are never united with their owners. The ASPCA reports some startling and sobering statistics: Of the approximately 6.5 million pets entering U.S. animal shelters every year, only about 710,000 are reunited with their owners — 620,000 dogs and 90,000 cats.

Cat lovers should take special note of those statistics. Fewer cats than dogs are tagged or microchipped, which may explain the disparity. Making matters worse, it’s likely that fewer lost cats end up in shelters than dogs, since when cats are wandering outdoors, people are less likely to assume they are lost and report them to the authorities. And if that were not enough, many communities lack the resources to pick up stray cats even if they are reported lost.

The 12 tips presented in the infographic will greatly reduce the chances of your dog or cat getting lost, and also greatly improve the chances of your pet being returned if it does get lost.

Some of the tips are very basic principles of pet ownership, but perhaps because they are so basic, pet owners overlook them. Keeping your dog on a leash is a good example. Leashes have been around as long as dogs have been around, and every dog owner knows a dog should be on a leash when being taken for a walk or to somewhere away from home. But it’s easy to think, Just this one time without a leash will be ok, or, My dog is trained so well no leash is needed. Well, it only takes one time for dog to bolt after a squirrel and POOF — there goes your dog, maybe forever. It’s not enough to know the basics, you have to do the basics every time. This, incidentally, is why we like the infographic format — you can easily put a copy of it on the refrigerator or elsewhere in your home as a constant reminder.

New technologies give pet owners better ways to keep their pets secure. For neighborhoods with restrictions on physical fences, invisible fences have been a pet security godsend. Beyond that, microchipping makes it possible for pets to be identified even if physical tags are lost, and GPS collars enable pet owners to track their dog or cat’s location from their mobile phones or computers 24/7/365. These tools provide wonderful peace of mind and hefty additional layers of security. You should not, however, let these technological tools give you a false sense of security: Other tips mentioned in the infographic reduce the likelihood you’ll ever have to rely on that microchip or GPS collar.

For more information to keep your pet safe, please continue reading below.

Infographic provided by LandAirSea Systems
Going Green, Going Healthy, Health, Parenting

How To Set A Green Example To Your Kids

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green, earth, pollution, health, recycle
Credit – CCO Licence

If you care about your kids doing the right thing, and you care about the planet, then you are probably going to want to find some way to make these both coincide. That essentially means that you are going to be looking into some of the ways in which you can hope to set a green example to your children, and that is something that might be easier than you think. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the best ways you can do this, so that you are more likely to help the next generation cope with the demands of the world when they grow up.

Build An Eco Home

Everything starts at home, and when you are trying to set an example to your children this is certainly the place to do it. If your children grow up in a home which is distinctly ecological, and which is clearly doing its part in helping to keep the planet going strong, then they are automatically going to understand and appreciate the importance of that way of living. So one of the best things you can possibly do for them is to build an eco home which they and you can live in, and in so doing to ensure that they understand what it is that makes it ecological. You should find that this makes an enormous difference to how they think about the world, and it can only be a positive effect.

Teach & Research

The more you know, the more you can pass on to your children while they are young, which in turn helps to give them a head start when it comes to being green. So you might want to spend some time doing some research around the whole issue of climate change, just to make sure that you are clued up on it as well as you could be. Then you can spend some time home-teaching your children about its importance, why we need to be taking action now, and what it is that they and you can do to help things along. The more you do this, and the more they hear it directly from your mouth, the more engaged they are going to become about the whole issue. If you can start them young with that, they are going to have much more chances of helping to change the world.

Recycling, Energy Use & More

Finally, remember that it’s all those daily actions you carry out which really matter, and which they are going to watch with intrigue. These are the things that affect your children’s behaviour, so make sure that you are always remembering to do the essentials: that means recycling as well as possible all the time, being sensible and conserving your energy use, and all those other little things that we know add up to make a huge difference. If you can instill these behaviours in your kids now, the world might stand a chance.

Life, Parenting

How to Tell Your Kids You’re Getting Divorced

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Telling your kids that you’re getting divorced can be a difficult conversation. Here are some helpful things you can do to make the conversation easier for everyone.

divorced, kids, family, separation, separated, marriage
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Plan Your Conversation

Don’t go into a conversation that has as much weight and gravity as this unprepared and fumbling over your words. It’s going to be an emotional conversation and knowing what you want to say and communicate to your children is of the utmost importance. You should plan not only what you want to say but also when you want to say it. Consider having the conversation on a weekend or when you can spend some time with them directly afterwards. Don’t drop the bombshell on your way out the door to work This planning should be done together with your soon-to-be ex so that you’re both on the same page.

Get Everyone Together

It’s important that when you do have the conversation, you have it as a family. Everyone involved and who is going to be affected should be present and both parents should absolutely be there. It will help show your kids that you are going to be in this together and are committed to working together when it comes to their future. You want to make sure that when you first announce it that all your children are there, including stepchildren if you have them. The last thing you want is for your kids to find out from their siblings. Once the initial discussion has happened, you can engage with kids individually if they need it, particularly older kids who might have more questions.

Explain Why It’s Happening

Be clear about why you are getting divorced, but don’t overshare. This means you need to avoid blaming each other or calling out specific issues, but you do need to be honest and open with your children. This explanation should be general and non-specific, and you want to avoid any accusations of infidelity. A simple explanation that lets your kids know that you just can’t fix the relationship and that you are friends but are no longer in love will usually do just fine. Avoid complex adult themed problems – you are talking to kids who probably won’t understand them anyway. When it comes to the why, the truth isn’t as important as being there to support you children.

Be Able to Tell Them What Will Happen Next

Ideally, you want to be able to answer the questions that will undoubtedly be asked. Your kids are going to want to know what’s going to happen and which of you is going to be moving out and where they are going to live now. Knowing this will give them the answers to help cope with the conversation. Try and be able to tell them this along with how visitation and co-parenting is going to work.

Divorce is incredibly difficult on children because often they just don’t understand why it must happen. Do your best to reassure them and disrupt their lives as little as possible. Be there for them no matter how they react to the news, and if they shut down, don’t pressure them into talking.