Merry Christmas and an organized NEW YEAR

 It has been a while since I have posted anything! I guess I have been waiting on life to be "blog worthy". I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post about Christmas. It is always a special time with family. This was our first Christmas as a married couple, although this is our 8th Christmas together total. We maxed out with family time and made the rounds through six different family gatherings (one being my family) and enjoyed all of it. It is always nice to gather with family and celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Although Christmas is really the "prized" and most popular day to celebrate this month, my favorite part is starting a new year. I LOVE New Years! I love the feeling of being able to start over brand new regardless of how rocky, or boring the previous year was. 2011 was a great year for me. I got married and started a long journey that will hopefully last a lifetime. It was exciting and different, but in 2012, I have a lot more new things and changes to look forward to. During the next year Josh and I will turn the big 25. It is a really scary thought for me. We have places to go, people to see and things to accomplish! Every year older we get is like a big clock ticking away the minutes that lead up to our goals. We live in a humble one bedroom apartment made up of mostly borrowed furniture and wedding gifts. My biggest goal is for us to purchase a house this year. I want this so bad, I plan on saving every last penny I can to make this happen.

Buying a house made me realize a lot of things (like the fact that we have nothing) and it inspired me start getting organized and making purchases that would benefit us when transitioning to a house. So I decided to start with the closet. It was a BIG job. When I moved into this apartment I went from having a nice sized walk in closet all to myself, including two dressers full of clothes, to a closet half the size that I had to share with another person. I also had to give up one of the dressers. It was a difficult fit to say the least. Our clothes have pretty much been smashed together for months. It was way less than ideal. So the first thing I did to help the situation was go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I love that place!  I found so many things that helped immensely!

 My first purchase was this shoe organizer. I really have never liked organizing my shoes in this manner, but I had to take extreme measures to make this work.

My next purchase was this pant hanger from the Real Simple collection at Bed Bath and Beyond. It holds 5 pair of pants on one hanger. It was a miracle worker in making room on Josh's side of the closet.

 I then bought a skirt hanger. It holds 5 skirts in this one hanger. I bought 3 of them and even put up to two skirts in one clip. The only down side is that it does leave a small mark on the silk and delicate fabrics. A small price to pay for a TON of room. 

I then purchased these tie hangers. They were my favorite! Josh has so many ties and I color coordinated all of them so they would be easily accessible. His ties used up four of these.

Then I purchased the actual regular hangers to hang blouses, dresses and shirts. These are AMAZING! They are so thin and and streamline. They are also no-slip, even better! It also has a little hook in the middle to accessorize your outfit while on the hanger, I do this all the time! They are a little pricey, but I started off with 50 hangers and I will keep building my collection until my closet is complete. They are worth it.

The very last thing I purchased was these drawer organizers. They are simple and inexpensive, but they helped my drawers a lot. I would definitely recommend these. They are just plastic so really any bin you have can be used for this, but they fit so perfect in my drawers! They have 3 different sizes.

This really was quite a random post, but I was all wrapped up in organizing my closet these past two days I just had to share what I found. Josh told me I needed to "chill out" with the organizing, but I completely disagree! It's almost "fun" for me to organize things. I hope to have the entire apartment organized in such a way, that when we do move it will be a calm and orderly event. 

I am excited about starting this new year, and Josh and I are making New Years's resolutions to try to make healthy, and economical decisions this year. I'm looking forward to a GREAT 2012. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!