Category Archives: Life

Still No Giant Tortoise for Father’s Day

06/22/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Last Father’s Day, the first one I celebrated, I had a tiny idea that my wife and mom teamed up to get me a giant tortoise as a gift. If the title confuses you, last year’s post was No Giant Tortoise for Father’s Day, so adding “Still” to my Father’s Day post this year seemed the only logical thing to do.

Unlike last year, I had no reason to believe I would get a giant tortoise for my 2nd Father’s Day celebration. Honestly, I have no clue what I would do with a giant tortoise in our back yard. I guess I’ll cancel my order for this sign though…*sigh*

Actually, if anything, I’d be happy to have less pets. For whatever reason, our Golden Retriever, Abby, and fat black cat, Lou, get on my nerves and are the main reason I vacuum at least twice a day. But Kelley loves them and as long as they make her happy (for the most part), they stay.

Enough about what I didn’t get for Father’s Day, as it was anything but disappointing. We started with Avery waking up earlier than usual (no surprise) and Going Mom making two big batches of French Press coffee. She could’ve stopped there and I would’ve been set for my gifts. #CoffeeAddict

Even on Father’s Day, I like to keep my kitchen duty, so I had a big bowl of blueberry NuttZo oatmeal made for my girls. As they filled their bellies with goodness, I prepped the slow-cooker with a healthy mix of tomatoes, kidney beans, zucchini from our garden, cubed potatoes, onions, and garlic with wild cod on top.

This lets me make one vegetarian meal with beans only, and then another one with the fish. Love the slow-cooker! As I finished prepping, Avery ran around the home and thought Mommy would like several of her sleep pants brought to her.

So thoughtful.

Afterward, we went to the garage where Kelley cut my hair. It was much needed and I think we both agree was the best job she’s done yet! I never complained about the others though, I’m just happy to have shorter hair. Just like my hair, our lawn needed a cut too, so I took care of that rather quickly thanks to our EGO.

Glad I have Avery to turn on the headlights for me!

Feeling extra itchy from my hair and the grass stuck on me, I ran to our neighborhood pool ahead of Kelley and Avery to swim a few laps until they got there. A “few” turned into 1000 meters until they arrived which was more than I’ve done swimming in a long time. Felt good though.

Then we hung out in the kiddie pool and watched Avery walk around all by herself! She loves having the freedom in the water, but we have to be careful since every now and then she’ll trip up and go under. Hunger set in for all of us, so we took the obligatory pictures of each other holding our kid in the pool and were on our way home.

“Just put me back in the water, Dad!”

“Yeah, Mommy knows how to hold me better!”

Kelley and Avery had their usual weekend lunch of steamed broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower with brown rice and wild salmon as I took forever to make the crazy veggie combo I had for the day. Apparently, waking up early caught up to Avery and she fell asleep right after her last bite of food!

We always give her lunch usually right before naptime, but it’s usually a fight to get her to sleep. Not this time. I was even vacuuming (go figure) and used the extension to tickle her feet and she hardly moved. This, of course, meant I had to post it on Instagram.

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Kelley carried her off to bed where she never woke up, but a carrot did fall from her shirt. At least it wasn’t the salmon like she gets on her most times!

For my gifts this year, besides a loving wife, adorable daughter, the best haircut to date, and no giant tortoise, I got another 3 month subscription to the microbrew beer of the month club. I loved this gift last year for my 30th birthday, and am excited to see what I get this time around.

Going Mom also added to the Dad and Avery photo book she made for me last year which I will always hold dear to my heart. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a sentimental guy, and these things mean so much to me.

A photo book of daddy and Avery from my loving wife!

She was trying to be secretive about adding to the book and was going to use another room, but I noticed that the book was missing from the bookshelf it usually sits on and told her I already knew what she was doing. So, as I write this, she is putting it together in the same room as me, I just agreed not to look. She seems really busy though, and if it’s anything like her previous work, it will be magnificent!

Overall it was another wonderful and successful Father’s Day. Number 2 is in the books (hey, no dirty minds here!) and can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year to celebrate my third Father’s Day. Maybe a giant tortoise?

And, before I go, here is the winner of the PicturesOnGold.Com Photo Dog Tag Giveaway.

Congrats, Marilyn, hope you enjoy giving this special gift to a special someone in your life!

Dads, did you do anything special to celebrate the day?

Do you like celebrations that are low key or prefer something a little more wild?

Going Healthy, Going Strong, Life, Parenting

New Shoes for My Wife on Father’s Day and A Workout

06/21/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Happy Father’s Day to all dads out there! Without us, there would be no kids to be father to. Then again, same could be said for all mothers. But we already celebrated them last month, so YAY us!

Fine, to avoid getting hit (too much), YAY all Moms too! I love and appreciate all my wife does, that’s for sure. 🙂

Speaking of Moms, I was so kind as to get Going Mom some new shoes even though it is Father’s Day. Yep, four of them to be exact, and they were not cheap! I’m not one for fashion, but when it comes to performance and reliability, I’m all about it. Which is why her new shoes are all identical and look like this….

Be honest, how many of you already knew I was talking about tires? Her car was overdue for a new set and as a car enthusiast and someone who used to work on them every day, I happily researched and settled on these beauties. Nothing extreme, but better than OEM. So thanks to Tire Rack for shipping to a local tire shop to have them installed.

I hated not being able to do it myself since I used to do it all the time, but that requires a special machine I obviously don’t have access to anymore. Plus, I was able to make good use of the 90+ minute wait time by heading to a place nearby with an outdoor fitness area. The only bad thing was that I had to walk across hell’s parking lot.

Luckily, I survived and made it to my destination. It wasn’t much, but had all I needed for what I planned on doing.

After a brief warm-up, I did slightly altered version of the Crossfit benchmark WOD “Cindy“. Instead of pull-ups, I opted for chin-ups and did as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

5 chin-ups

10 push-ups

15 body weight squats

I love this routine as you can do it almost anywhere, and as long as you go hard for that 20 minutes, you’ll feel it! I’m not great at chin-ups, so that always slows me down, but practice makes ~~perfect~~ slightly better than before. I usually have a pen and paper to mark each round I complete, but since I didn’t have that, the wood chips had to do.

Yeah, 16 rounds. Not my best, but I was going off of only black coffee at the time in my defense. Now that I’m another year older, I have a little thing I must do every day. Last year, for 30, I did 31 1-legged squats/leg + 31 push-ups almost every day. If I didn’t do that, I did 31 burpees + 31 push-ups. It’s always one more than my age.

This year, I’m sticking with 32 split squats/leg + 32 push-ups. The split squats really let you feel it the next day and I’m happy I chose them to do every day! You should try too. Find a move you could safely do every day and do reps of that move for how many years old you are. It’s great to say you did something, and might motivate you keep going.

For instance, after the WOD, and my 32 squats/push-ups, I went ahead and finished off my legs with 100 walking lunges/leg. Then walked around another 30 minutes until the tires were finally ready. Yep, I have no legs now….

No clue what’s in store for today, but if Kelley really knows me, it’s a whole lot of not much at all. And a Ferrari. 🙂

Hope everyone is having a happy Father’s Day or just an awesome day if you’re not celebrating!

Do you ever find ways to keep active instead of sitting in a waiting room?

If you said no, are you going to try next time your car is in the shop or something else?

Life, Parenting

A Parent vs Toddler Standoff

06/19/2015 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

So it’s come to this. We have stooped to the stubbornness level of our toddler and now have a standoff at least twice a day. It’s usually us asking her to pick something up, but she won’t budge and neither do we.

We both end up standing there waiting for the other to act, but nothing happens. Well, my wife or I will repeat ourselves more than any parenting book would recommend, and Avery will usually let out a series of whines and/or a cutesy “hi” with a cheesy grin.

Seeing as to how Kelley and I are both pretty stubborn already, and Avery is, well, a toddler which automatically equals stubborn, these standoffs can be quite time consuming. As a matter of fact, I was able to take pictures during one of our said standoffs and figured I’d go over how the event went down here.

The scene begins right after Avery dropped her almost finished green smoothie. Instead of picking it back up, she walked away to a corner in the kitchen despite my request to hand me the bottle.

I ask her to pick it up again but only get that “I’m innocent” look.

Going Mom and I have both been through this several times, so I knew it was going to be a while before one of us caved. I asked once more trying to keep a straight face as her turned all puppy-dog-eyes on me.

Meanwhile…..

Ummm, can't someone at least just stand me up? — Ummm, can’t someone at least just stand me up?

5 minutes have passed at this point, but it felt like 30. I just kept busy with food prep and dishes for the day while she stubbornly stood in her favorite corner. Just as I was about to give in because we had plenty more to do that day, she walks over to the bottle.

I freeze, try to be nonchalant and keep away from the camera, but all she does is stand it up on the floor and step away.

My relief that our standoff was over quickly turned into anguish as I realized she was going to continue dragging it on. Her smile said it all, “I won’t give in that easy, Dad!”

It was on, there was no way in hell I would give in now! All chores could wait. Kelley just might come home from work hours later to see us staring at each other with the bottle still standing on the floor. I would win this standoff, dammit!

Several minutes slowly passed as I looked around for something else to do while asking her to pick up the bottle a few more times. My angst about how long this would last kept growing deeper, but finally a glimmer of hope emerged; she bent down to get the bottle!

Was this the end of our impasse? Would the household chores and a workout actually get done? My anxiety eased up a little with each progressive move she made.

Yes, contact! Keep going…..

We have liftoff! I think even Avery felt relieved as she held the bottle high in celebration.

I was about to hold my hand out for her to give me the bottle, but I guess all of that time in between made her thirsty.

Ummm, Avery, can I have the bottle now? I’m pretty sure she was telling me to hold on a minute here.

Finally, after finishing what was left, she relinquished the bottle and most importantly, our standoff. But she didn’t want to act happy about it…

I took the bottle with a giant grin and praised her for doing good. I think that turned her mood into something better and she even gave herself a little round of applause.