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Thursday, January 31, 2013

What Everyone Wants to See on Their Bill

We had our backyard re-done this past summer. Yep the hottest summer ever and our pool was being renovated...bad timing on our part. Our water people have this thing, where you can file a variance if you use more water then you're supposed to. When we filled our pool, we filled out a variance and they credited your account. Well after we filled the pool we had a leak and didn't know it. Each of us were filling up the pool, not realizing the other was filling it up. Bottom line we got a bill the next month for $416! I nearly choked on my breakfast when I opened the bill. But I filled out a little variance for the leak and guess what came in the mail for our next bill?


We had to pay the $416, but now we have a credit and we won't have to pay another water bill till probably March or April, awesome! I can definitely think of some things I'd rather spend my money on then water.

What did I learn? If you have a really high water bill, try filling out a variance form, you just might get some money back.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Random Wednesday

When I went to take these pictures, and got the tri-pod out, Baby Fox, ran to where I normally take the pictures, pushed all the strollers and toys out of the way and posed for the camera...he's such a ham!



Okay and now onto my outfit. You've seen me wear this shirt before, but I haven't done an official outfit post on it. So here it is.

Sweater - Old Navy, Pants - Ann Taylor Loft, Belt - White House Black Market (old), Necklace - Target, Boots - DSW
 


And now onto some Random Things:

Microwave Saga - They told us it would ship in two weeks, we finally wrote them and said we never got a shipping confirmation, they wrote back and said it wasn't going to happen for another 3 weeks at minimum. So we went out and bought a cheap microwave, we just couldn't do it any more...seriously, two weeks is one thing, but 6 weeks...a whole other story! It was so glorious to have a microwave again...I commend people who don't have one!

 I've been wanting to start a Valentine's project now for a week, but haven't mustard up the energy to do so, it just involves paint, what could be harder, nothing, so I'm going to start it tonight...by telling you guys I'm making myself accountable, so maybe, just maybe I'll get it done!

I got 7 hours of sleep last night and it was glorious! Note to self: when you get more sleep, you actually wake up refreshed and not ready to go back to bed. Must do that more often...

Speaking of sleep...you know you blog too much and stalk too many people when you start having dreams about them being in your everyday life. For example, last night I had a dream that I went to a mom's group and sitting there was Shanna! Just to let you know, she was just as nice in my dream as I would imagine she is in real life, and equally well dressed. I think she was wearing a red blazer and some sort of colored jeans and boots.

Happy Hump Day, I only have one more day left of work, woo hoo! Off on Monday, off on Friday, three day work week, I'll take it!

Linking up with:

Linking up with Shanna at Because Shanna Said So for So Random Wednesday
And The Pleated Poppy for What I Wore Wednesday


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Weekend Recap

So this past weekend (including Friday and Monday) I was under the weather, so I didn't do anything, like no facebook, email, blogging, nothing. Seriously, I laid on the bed, then laid on the couch, then back to the bed, then back to the couch. Mr. even got all of my food. I caught up on my DVR shows...which was a LOT. Before Baby Fox, I watched too many shows, but I had the time to watch them. Now? I have the same amount of shows, but only have about 4 hours a week to watch them, sooooooo I have a huge back log and if a show gets canceled I just delete all of the episodes that I have recorded. Why watch, if it's not coming back next year?

Because I was out, two pictures got taken this weekend. Mr. took Baby Fox to his swim lessons on Sunday and then to a party for one of his work friends, and then to a childrens museum. It was a busy day and Baby Fox has the bruises to prove it.

At the party, Mr. tried to teach Baby Fox how to climb...

This is Mr. before kid.

 And Baby Fox


Baby Fox is rocking it, and doesn't even need a belay rope, already passing up Dad...Maybe Baby Fox can teach us a few pointers.

So Baby Fox and Mr. had a ton of fun on their guys day out. Except for whatever reason Baby Fox kept falling...on his head. When they got home, I could see it from across the room.


Yep, this pictures is making that big bump on his head look GOOD. And you're not seeing the huge bump/concrete scrape on his forehead under his bangs. Funny story, before the big bump on the right, Mr. was going to hide the other bump with his bangs and then wait for him to fall and then blame me for letting him fall and getting hurt. Then he got the BIG bump and couldn't hide that.

Anyway, I'm better now and pictures/posts should resume like normal.

linking up with:

Sami at Sami's Shenanigan's and Leeann at Join the Gossip
for "Weekend Update"
 
and
Faith at The Life of Faith, Sarah at The Not Quite Military Wife and Megan at The Mrs.  
for "Mommy Moments"

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Guess How Old I Am?


I had a different post ready for this morning, but couldn't pass this up. Apparently my former self, that's the Foxy part of me, is 50+ years old. Want to know how I know this? I got this in the mail yesterday. What is AARP you ask? This is their definition:

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, with a membership of more than 37 million, that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial to them and society as a whole

Please excuse the awful hair, it was taken this morning at 5am, apparently I didn't brush my hair that well.
So please excuse me as I go figure out a better way of life for my 50 year old self.

Note: Since this was sent to my maiden name, we think it has something to do with my identity being stolen 7 years ago...yep full on stolen, got letter in the mail from the IRS stating I needed to pay $10K in taxes and we had 15 days to fight it...10 days before we got married, it was awesome.

Another note: Yes I open mail at 5am, why not? No really, I read the clock wrong and got up 10 minutes before I normally do, and decided to open mail to pass the time before I had to leave to catch my van. Might as well be productive. Mr. wasn't so happy that I was sorting mail and going through it, he said it's too early to go through mail, I disagreed, he threw his mail on the ground (seriously, he did, he tossed it over the counter onto the ground in protest, point taken Mr., point taken. NO really, I think he was tossing it over to his other pile of mail on the counter and missed)

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Random Wednesday

I wore this last week to work...it's the most comfy sweater dress ever. I got it from, where else, Ann Taylor Loft, man I love that place! So I have a confession, I have the biggest calves EVER. It's in the genes, I mean guys at the gym come up to me and ask me what I did to get my calves, I say, they just are, while I glance at their chicken legs. I tell them, I'd be happy to switch with them. All this to tell you it's HARD for me to find boots that go up over my calves. Most boots come with a 14" circumference. These babies...are 16" of amazing boots! So if you have larger calves get these, they fit over skinny jeans and are just plain awesome! And they're an affordable price too! I think I wore them three days in a row when I first got them.


Necklace - Mr. got me for Christmas a couple years ago from Forever 21, yep he went into F21 and got me something, what a guy!


And of course it wouldn't be a photo shoot without Baby Fox photo bombing it!
 

And now onto some Random Things:

Two of my favorite bloggers have decided this week to take a break from blogging and focus more on themselves. Good for them, but am sad that they are going to be leaving for a while. I hope that they figure it all out and come back, eventually. Just in case, I won't be deleting them from my news feed.

Having no microwave makes me have to cook more meals, boo. Left overs just aren't the same when it takes just as long to heat it back up as it did to make it. Last week I actually made the same meal two days in a row from scratch because there was no way to heat up the pork chops I had already defrosted before the microwave broke. Our new microwave still hasn't shipped yet...I'm getting impatient.

My husband makes me laugh so hard, I love that after almost 10 years being together he can still make me laugh like no other. He's a funny guy.

Remember Baby Fox's first time out? Well since then he's shut off the light a couple of times, and each time we say "remember what happened when you turn off the lights?" He looks at us and says yea, and walks over to the corner to put himself in time out. We then say, no no, you don't have a time out right now, just don't do it again. And that usually stops him from turning off the light, until the next night at least.

I got a paper cut at work yesterday, right on my finger joint, does that qualify for Workman's comp? I think it should, it hurts! Why is it that the smallest of paper cuts hurts so much?!

Hope you guys are having a great Wednesday. Only 2 more days left of work!

Linking up with:

Linking up with Shanna at Because Shanna Said So for So Random Wednesday
And The Pleated Poppy for What I Wore Wednesday



Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Sisterhood of the World!

I started this blog back in May, but I didn't really start writing every week day until September, so this blogging thing is really new to me. I never thought when I started blogging that I would find so many people that I have so much in common with and that I probably would be IRL friends. Or that I would be so intersted in what they are doing, and feel like when they triumph I triumph and when they fall I hurt for them too. 
I told myself I do this for myself and I don't care what happens, and while I do enjoy posting for myself, it really brightens my day when someone takes the time to comment on something that I've written, so THANK YOU for continuing to come back to see what the heck I'm up to and making those sweet comments. One of those people happens to be Caroline from Miss Oline, she has great taste in clothes and her fiance takes the best pictures, I mean come on that dress in that location? PERFECT! I'm still trying to figure out where the heck her fiance lives! Cause I want to live there too! 


Thank You Caroline for thinking of me and for giving me first blog award! You really are the best. So here are the questions I have to answer to receive this lovely award:

Please tell me a story of your fashion disaster experience.
Hmm...fashion disaster, I'm not sure that I have one yet. Although sometimes I put something on, and since I get dressed at 5am in the semi-dark, I think it looks a lot better then it does in real life.  Like the time I thought I was wearing a different color blue, but it wasn't a disaster, just semi-embarassing to think that people might think I'm color blind and can't coordinate colors.
What’s your favorite thing to do, if you are not blogging?
Before kids (okay kid) my husband and I loved rock climbing, we love climbing outdoors the most, but we couldn't do that often, but we love indoor rock climbing too. 
Since the kid...we have gone exactly zero times. But I've always loved to scrapbook and take pictures. I always have a camera in hand, so much so my family doesn't ever bring a camera to events because they know I'll have my camera and send out the pictures within the week.
Who did you want to be, if you had a chance to become a character in your favorite movie?
I think I would want to be Allie from the Notebook. Silly chick flick I know, but she and Noah had such a great love, that even though she had Alzheimer's she still came back to him for moments at a time because of their love for each other, listening to their love story. I hope that not matter what happens to my husband and I that we will always be able to find our way back to each other.
Who inspired you and made you started blogging in the first place?
I don't think it was anyone in particular. When we first talked about trying to have babies, I started the blog to document our journey, then we had a baby and I started using it as a journal only available to close family and friends. Then I finally joined the pinterest world late last year and decided hey I can do DIY projects, and I started Foxy's Domestic Side to document that. But then it turned into a place where I can put things that I don't necessarily want my family to see, i.e what I wore/ate last week. For those that keep coming back to see what I'm up to, thanks from the bottom of my heart!
Favorite Movie?
Okay, another cheesy movie, but I think it's because it reminds me of college and my best friend, but I'm going to say it, Ever After, we watched the movie every single night to fall asleep to.  Cheese acting, but I love how at the end the stepmother and sister get what's coming to them.
Favorite Book?
The Winner by David Baldacci, I read it when I was in high school and I just loved it so much. It was really the first book that my dad had passed down to me to read , and it was the first book of many that got us reading the same material and something to bond over. I think that's why I pick it every single time as a favorite. But it's also a good suspense book, go get it if you haven't read it yet!
Favorite Brand?
I love Kate Spade and everything that she has to offer, bags, shoes, clothes and I even have her china, yep she has china...which I registered for our wedding. And the bonus? It's dishwasher safe!

via
If you had a magical ability, what did you want it to be?
To fly! I have always wanted to be able to fly, to just take off whenever I wanted and go wherever I wanted.
Actor crush?
Currently, Ryan Gosling, have you seen him in Drive? Holy hotness, although a stupid plot to a movie, his hotness makes up for it, and he's super cute/hot in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  Must see Gangster Squad
If you could meet a person who has died, who would you choose?
I probably should say someone smart, like Einstein or something, but I would just feel inferior, so I'm going to have to go with...I have no idea...like seriously no idea. How boring and uneducated does that sound? I feel like I'm not interesting enough to bring someone back to life I guess...
Sarah from Tucker Up -Besides having an awesome name ;) she's doing this no shopping for 365 days, that's right, she's not clothes, jewelry or shoe shopping for 365. I'm not sure if I should worship her or fear that she's going cray cray. Okay not really the last part, but I can't wait to see what outfits she pulls together from what she has. I would also like to add, I think I want her closet as it is, I think she has more shoes then I have clothes and shoes combined.

Laura from Laura Darling - she's funny and I love her bio. I'm not sure how I found her blog, probably through a blog hop, but I'm glad I stumbled into her world called life.

Cassandra from 25 in my 25th - she has fun DIY projects like the one where her and her boyfriend competed for a Golden Globe she made. She won in case you wanted to know.

Rachel from Sugar & Stripes - she is currently doing 31 days of blogging and I started following her because she has a big family, and I love big families and I wanted to see what she was going to say for 31 days.

Meg from Henning Love - She has amazing food recipes all the time that I wish she lived next door and I could taste everything she makes. She's down to earth and tries to have a good time, I 
 think we would be great IRL friends if we lived near each other. 
 Here are some rules to receive this award :


  • Acknowledge the person who passed the award to you and provide their link.
  • Include the award logo on your blog.
  • Answer the ten questions I posted below.
  • Nominate blogs and link those you have especially enjoyed reading. The number you can select is up to you.
  • Notify each individual that you have nominated them.

  • Here is the award logo :

    Here are your questions ladies:

    What is one of your most embarrassing moments?
    If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Food categories are okay.
    What is your favorite thing to do outside of blogging?
    Who do you admire most and why?
    If you won a million dollars what would you do with it?
    What color shows up in your closet the most?
    What is your favorite go to outfit?
    Best Memory Ever?
    What was your first car?
    What is something that scares you?

    Can't wait to see your answers! 

     

    Monday, January 21, 2013

    Weekend Recap

    My weekend started on Thursday, Baby Fox and I drove up to my parents house and Friday we went to see my cousin and her kids for a weekend of scrapbooking! Yep I still do that ancient thing called scrapbooking :) But Baby Fox got some good cousin time in.

    Before nap time

     We put my cousin's daughter down for he nap first, and let the boys have some boy time watching Cars, they thought they were too cool.
    Later that night we wanted to get the great grand kids together for my grandma. She's really sick and we thought she would like to see all the kids together.


    She loved it

    Before they left they got some bedtime stories from Baby Fox's Grandpa (my dad)

    Saturday I scrapbooked for 7 hours, yes, 7 hours and in those 7 hours I got 13 pages done...yikes! I have a LOT more to do, but it's a start, I'm motivated and can do the rest...right? Trying not to feel overwhelmed with how far behind I am. Just trying to focus on one thing at a time and eventually I'll get to it. My cousin and I decided we're going to try and scrapbook all day Saturday once every other month, we'll see how that goes. Saturday night we went to celebrate my Uncle's retirement, it was really fun and there were other kids for Colton to play with.

    *Like I said on Friday, I forgot my camera and have no picture to show for Saturday. Darn. The picture I do have were from other people's cell phones. Mine isn't that fancy.

    Sunday we saw this show, it was really amazing and worth going to! If it's coming to a neighborhood near you, go check it out. The performance of all of the dancers was beautiful and you could tell they love what they do.

    via
     This is us waiting for the show to start.


    Since we weren't allow to take pictures, I found a picture on their website to show you.
    via
    While we were there, Baby Fox was at a friends house enjoying their train sets.



    He thought the train sets were so awesome that he decided he didn't need a nap and wanted to just keep playing...which led us to last night and him not even wanting to eat dinner, just wanted to sit on the couch. I got some good cuddle time in, so it wasn't that bad, plus I was really tired too and wasn't feeling up to a toddler's energy, good thing he was tired too.

    Wow I look tired

    It was a super busy weekend but really fun. We were all tired and I went to bed at 9:30, unheard of if you knew me. And that my friends was our weekend!

    Note To Self: Don't ever forget your camera again, makes weekend updates really hard! It's like the weekend never happened!

    Linking up with:
    Sami at Sami's Shenanigan's and Leeann at Join the Gossip
    for "Weekend Update"
     
    and

    Faith at The Life of Faith, Sarah at The Not Quite Military Wife and Megan at The Mrs.  
    for "Mommy Moments"

    Friday, January 18, 2013

    Big Accomplishments - Half Dome

    Accomplishments...today is a big day for Foxy's Domestic Side, it's my 100th post! I can't believe I've been blogging long enough to have 100 posts, wow! In lieu of this, I thought I would blog about one of my big accomplishments, besides Baby Fox of course.

    The time that Curtis and I hiked this guy, also known as Half Dome:

    We took this picture the day before when we went for a drive, we couldn't believe we were going to hike that!
    So how this came about, I saw a picture of Half Dome on my cube-mates wall and asked what it was, I said, I'm going to hike that, I wrote Mr. and email and said, we're hiking Half Dome, he said..."Okay", not knowing what it was just that I wanted to do it. What a guy!

    So we reserved our camping space 5 months in advance and we were set, besides the fact that we had never hiked anything before. My training...consisted of walking with an incline on the treadmill...and we took a small hike when we got to Yosemite two days before the BIG hike.

    In case you didn't know Half Dome is a 16 mile hike round trip, with an elevation gain of 4500 ft.

    We were going to leave about 4am so that we could have plenty of light to get back. We woke up about 2am and it was POURING rain...we thought, great, but went back to sleep in hopes that it would stop raining before we started. We didn't really sleep and just listened to the rain coming down. Our alarm went off at 4am and it was STILL raining...so we sat and tried to sleep, around 7am it's still raining but it's just drizzling. We figured let's just go for it and see what happens.

    
    Waiting in the tent for the rain to stop
    So got our rain ponchos on and started hiking...no one else was out there, we were the only crazy people enough to try it! So let's get this show started!




    The rain eventually stopped and we kept on going, running into people here and there, but mostly it was just us and nature. It was pretty awesome. At time we weren't really sure we were on the right path, but we just walking and we would eventually find signs that said we were.




    At Nevada falls, most people turn around cause the hard part is after this, but we felt great and wanted to keep going.


    We kept seeing these signs. We'd run into some rangers and they would tell us that we should turn around that the Half Dome is probably wet and it's super dangerous to climb up when it's wet. But we kept on going. Figuring lets at least get to where we really can't go any further.


    We're getting closer!
     

    Right before you get to the top, you have to climb these switch backs...so hard and really narrow, especially for someone afrad of heights!

     
    Yep no railings
     
     
    We finally make it and have to take the cables...I don't know if I can do this!
     

    Yep we climbed up that!

     
    I was resting and Mr. said he was going to go check it out, I look down to get something and look back up and he's half way up the cables...a few choice words came out and I thought, well I wasn't sure I could do it, but he is NOT going to leave me behind! Another guy that was there said that he had already gone up and back down and he would go up with me, his friend came along.
     
    We made it! Remember that little point jetting out in the first picture? Yep that's where we are standing!
     
     

    What made this trip so amazing was that usually there are hundreds of people hiking this and you can sometimes wait hours to get up the cables...but us, there were about 10 people there because most people did even start the hike because of the rain. We took the longer less steep way back to camp...
     
    We made it! Still smiling and ready for some dinner!

     
    It took us about 11 hours to finish the whole hike and it was worth every single sore muscle I had the next few days. I don't think this experience can ever be repeated just based off of the fact that there was only 5 people on the top of Half Dome with us, which will probably never happen again.
     
    On our way back home, we got a call from our realtor who told us that we had gotten the house we put an offer in on!
     

    Want to read some more about hiking? Check out Amy's blog, the Dirt Life, she hiked both the Appalacian Train and the Pacific Crest Trail for about a years worth of time, different trips though. Talk about amazing!

    So that is one of my big accomplishments along with of course blog post #100! Have a great weekend, our weekend is jammed packed and of course I forgot my camera!

    Thursday, January 17, 2013

    Butternut Squash Puree


    Back with another baby recipe*. Okay so this one is SUPER easy, so it won't take long. I promise.

    What You'll Need:

    Butternut Squash
    9x13 casserole dish
    Water

    What To Do:

    Tip: Use gloves if you have them, I find that the squash is really hard to wash off your hands, at least for me, so I use gloves.

    Step 1: Preheat oven to 400°F

    Step 2: Cut the squash down the middle


    I like to cut it down one side, then flip it around and cut the other side, then bring the knife all the way through to the bottom once I have that initial cut, if that makes sense.

    Step 3: Scrape out the seeds


    I find a large spoon works best.

    Step 4: Place cut side down in pan and add water till it's about an inch or so up the squash

    Step 5: Cook for about 45 minutes to a hour. When you poke the squash with a fork it should give easy. This is the tricky part, I find that if you let the squash cool cut side down that it tends to absorb all of the water left in the pan, so I try to flip them as soon as they come out of the oven with some tongs and a fork so prevent a lot of water from seeping in the squash and making it a little more watery.


    Step 6: Scrap out the "meat" and put in a bowl


    Step 7: Blend

    I use an immersion blender to do this


    And of course having helpers is always welcome, especially when it comes to using things that make loud noises.


    And that's it, butternut squash puree for your family or your baby. You can always put it in a pastry bag and do those fancy swirly things that fancy restaurants do.

    Next week: Something yummy that uses this recipe and the butternut squash recipe you just made.

    * I got this recipe from the Baby and Toddlers cookbook from William Sonoma