WELCOME...

My name is Mike Miller and I wanted to take this time to welcome you to my site. Some of you may be coming here for the first time because of the newspaper article that ran on the Sunday paper. I figured it would only be fair to say hello and to acknowledge you on the site.. and to say thanks for visiting!

This has been quite an amazing ride for me so far and I know that it's going to be even more exciting. But before I go any further, let me give you a little background about myself and how I became a "stay at home" dad. Back in February, I received a call from my VP at the time saying that because a current account I was working on didn't need as much one on one attention that he wanted me to help out with some other accounts for the company. Seeing that he was the boss and that I was rather fond of receiving a paycheck, I was all too happy to oblige. The first account had me traveling up to Virginia for an overnight, which wasn’t too bad. Then I got the call that I was needed in Tennessee for a top account that was valued by the company. Again, knowing that I needed to keep my job, I said yes. Neither my wife nor I were very happy about it, especially since we had a recently turned 1 year old in the house. But we soldiered on like we were supposed to. She would drop off our daughter at the daycare in the morning. Go to a hectic job during the day. Come home to pick up our daughter during the evening to be able to spend maybe an hour or two with her before putting her to bed and then collapsing on the couch. Meanwhile, I was in a different state, missing my family terribly and wondering for the life of me how long this situation was going to go on. Once I was home for the weekends, life wasn’t much better. You see, we had to run around like a chicken with its head cut off to try to make up for lost time during the week. So we really didn’t have any time together as a family or a life to really speak of. And... Oh boy! We got to look forward to doing it again the next week.

After several months of this, both my wife and I had had enough. We had been praying about what we should do because we both knew that this was not working. We both had great paying jobs. We had “stuff”. We even had a little extra at the end of the month to play a little bit. But what we didn’t have was a life. And, more importantly, what we didn’t have was control of our time and our family. So after much deliberation, we collectively decided that one of us needed to “pull over to the side of the road” so that at least one of us could take care of our daughter and instill the morals and values that we felt were important to us growing up. We also knew that our daughter may have the advantage of being more connected to her family by spending more time with at least one of them throughout the day, hopefully giving her an extra emotional foundation that so important to children at this age. Finally, we knew that with at least one of us home, we’d be able to get more done during the day, thus allowing for more “family” time during the evenings, as it really should be. So after much deliberation, we both decided that it would be me that steps down and takes the new challenge of staying home with our daughter.

We knew that it was going to be difficult financially to adjust from going from two paychecks to one. But we were given hope when we were introduced to an incredible business from the company called Reliv International by our neighbors. Let me state for the record that this is in no way a shameless plug for what I do. The reason I mention this is because we feel that the decision to have me stay home and us being introduced to this business happened roughly around the same time. It just seemed that everything was happening as if it was preordained from above. I will say one thing about this company. I have personally seen tons of people get results both with their health and finances with this company and I had the opportunity to study up close and personal how the corporate leaders operate with this company and I have never seen a stronger company when it comes to ethics and integrity than with this company. That and the opportunity it brings for so many “normal regular” people like you and I out there to do something special with their lives and the lives of others around them, gave me a greater since of purpose about my own life and career over anything I have ever done. So I wouldn’t be saying all this if I strongly didn’t believe in it. If anyone ever has any questions about what I do while being able to raise my daughter at home, I would be happy to talk to them about it. It’s an opportunity that I feel everyone should look at. It may not be for you, but you at least deserve to see it and decide for yourself.

So we have started feeling some what of a pinch financially but it’s really not as bad as I had thought. Sure, there are times in which things have already been tight but we are learning as we go. The word “budget” has really been reintroduced into our vocabulary, which is actually a blessing in disguise because it had made us look at the things that we have been wasteful on and make adjustments. But I cannot begin to describe the sheer joy I get every single day with the ability to be able to stay at home and experience life through the eyes of an 18 month old. We play. We learn. We go out and do things together. Oh yes... I have already discovered that staying in the house all day long makes Mikey a dull boy. The great thing is that the older she gets, the “easier” – I say that now. Wait until she doesn’t want to hold my hand any more and goes screaming across a store, leaving a wave of destruction in her wake. But for now, she likes to hold dad’s hand, look around at everything, make comments every now and again, and take it all in. And of course dad gets the “oh how cute” comments everywhere we go (for the baby, NOT for poor dad). 

Life is good. Long gone are the days of the corporate hypocrisy, where you have to be a “yes man” to the corporate line or else be on the chopping block. Now I just have to deal with a lot of no’s and a few tears every now and then. No longer am I dealing with the day end day out “crap” that you have to listen to in meetings where people just talk to hear themselves talk. I just deal with dirty diapers. But most importantly, I am making the biggest impact in my daughter’s life right now. And to me, all the money in the world and all the machismo in being a man couldn’t come close to how I feel and what I’m doing. So I hope you enjoy the journals. It may seem boring at times but I can honestly promise you that each day is completely different than the next and I never know what to expect from both our lives and from her. And, not that I didn’t have it before, but the respect for all stay at home, whether it be mom or dad, is there from me completely. But I am humbled to be the few, the proud….the STAY AT HOME DAD.

Thx –

~Mike