15 Favorite Moments of 2015

Here are my 15 favorite moments of 2015 in no particular order.

Ok while this list is in no particular order I can easily say that getting married is definitely my favorite moment of the year.  The rest of the list is in no particular order though it kind of ended up somewhat chronological.

#1 In November I married the love of my life. It was a wonderful and magical day and we get to do it all over again in a bigger ceremony in June.  I have done a few posts about the days and events leading up to the big event but have yet to do a full recap of the day.  I promise that post is coming and will be full of pictures!

#2 I rung in the New Year with my new fiancee.  We actually had an 8 PM dinner reservation so we were home in our pajamas by the time the ball actually dropped at midnight.  After a pretty eventful last week of the year this was the perfect start to the new year.

#3 This was the first Valentine's Day in 3 years that I did not move so that in itself made this Valentine's Day more enjoyable. My wonderful fiancee got up, snuck out to the store and had these beautiful flowers and a card waiting for me when I woke up on Valentine's Day.  We didn't do much other than that to celebrate but it was just a nice day.

#4 My dishwasher! It took me almost a year from the time I moved in to our condo to convince my fiancee that we needed to replace the dishwasher.  He has always had a crapy dishwasher (even growing up) so he was not aware of the greatness that is a good dishwasher.  We got a good dishwasher and he wondered why it took him so long to find out the wonders of a good dishwasher.

#5 This spring I decided to get an annual pass to Disneyland.  This decision has made for a fun year with multiple trips to Disneyland.  My pass is good until April so I am hoping to get at least one more trip in before it expires.  Maybe even 2 trips if I can swing it!

#6 In May we went with my parents and my sisters to Hawaii to celebrate a big birthday of my mom's.  We had a great time relaxing at the beach and by the pool.  We also got in a little wedding planning while we were there because we just so happened to be on the same island we are getting married at next summer. I love Hawaii and can't wait to go back next year.

#7 I bought a Country Mega Ticket for the summer so I had lots of fun attending concerts with my sisters.  Both my sisters were able to come to a few of the concerts so it was nice to get to spend time with them before they headed (or are heading) off to school in far away locations.

#8 One of my cousins got married this summer so I had fun helping throw them a little wine tasting day, rehearsing with them and then attending the actual wedding. His new bride is great and I am so excited she is now part of the family. They planned their wedding in a short timeframe so when the need came up for me to plan a wedding on short notice I took queues from what worked at their wedding.

#9 My mother in law's birthday was over the summer so it was nice to help her celebrate.  My fiancee and his family are huge fans of buffets so of course we went to a sushi buffet. I like sushi so that was fine with me.

#10 In July we went to the winery that my cousin is the cellar master at for my sister's birthday.  We have done this for the last couple of years and again it was a really fun day. While we were at the winery my cousin used a nice camera to take some pictures that I hoped to use for our Save The Date cards.  She did a little editing on her computer and they turned out wonderfully.

#11 In the fall one my sisters, one of my bridesmaids and I made a trip to the Anthropologie bridal store in Beverly Hills on a dress mission.  We were successful in not only finding a dress for my November wedding but a gorgeous dress for my Hawaii wedding.  I can't show you a picture of the Hawaii dress so I am reminiscing about the delicious lunch we had at Lemonade.

#12 About a week before Christmas we did a special early Christmas celebration with my mother in law and the rest of my husband's family.  We ate pizza, KFC and way too much candy. After we were too full to eat anymore we played games for a while.

#13 On Christmas Eve I celebrated with my husband's family and ate all kinds of new foods.  I even helped make some of the food!  We didn't have a real Christmas tree so we made do with a fabulous pink tree and all the trimmings.

#14 Christmas morning we headed to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with my family.  The last few years Santa has given my husband, my sisters and me bottles of silly string in our stockings which results in a big silly string fight.  The street looked like an Easter egg exploded when we were done.  After doing a bit of birthday things we all go dressed up for Christmas dinner.  I have many more pictures from Christmas so expect a full recap next week.

#15 This one doesn't have a picture to accompany it but I have to say one of my favorite moments of the year has been starting and growing this blog.  I ended last year and decided I needed to do something more creative in my life.  I knew I would be having lots of adventures in the coming years and I like to write so a blog seemed like a perfect idea.  

Let me know if there is anything you would like to see on this blog in the coming year!

Favorite Organizational Tools

I try to stay organized both at home and at work.  I don't know that I have just one favorite organizational tool so I am going with one of my new favorites and a tried and true favorite I have been relying on for years.

As I have mentioned about a million times my husband and I live in a fairly small condo so space is at a premium.  With the amount of make up and hair products I have and my husbands devotion to Costco it is fair to say there is not a lot of extra space in our bathroom.  We have no storage other than under our sink so we have to make the most of it.

Instead of trying to jam things into our one cabinet we invested in some under sink drawers to maximize our space.  We did this about 6 months ago and it has actually worked out really well.  It has pretty much doubled the under sink storage and the tall things (like hairspray) that don't fit in the drawers fit in-between.  

Another way I stay organized is list making.  I am a huge list maker both at home and at work and always have been.  I love crossing thing off my list so much that sometimes I even write things I have already done for the day on the list just so I can cross them off.

I have one notebook at home and one at work that is pretty much only devoted to my to do list for the week.  I try to make my to do list at home either on Friday night or Saturday morning so I know what needs to be done for the weekend.  My work to do list sometimes is for a whole week but recently with my new position I have so many little projects going on that I end up making at least a couple a week to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

In addition to making lists I have a calendar at home and at work that I write things down on.  My work meetings are on an electronic calendar but work deadlines are on my paper calendar.  I just like being able to look at my whole week and see all the approaching deadlines in various colors.  

I am sometimes not as organized as I would like to be but I try to find a good balance.

A few pictures of the holiday season

As I finish wrapping the last few Christmas presents (or impatiently wait for the UPS guy to bring my last Amazon package) I am thinking about this holiday season.

In some ways this has been a very different holiday season but in other ways it has been a very traditional Christmas season.

With the possibility of a move in my near future I am enjoying all the decorations I took the time to put up this year.  I thought about not going all out with my decorations this year but couldn't resist.

My best friend and her husband came for a short visit to the Bay Area and I was so happy to see her. It was a short visit but I am excited to see her again over the summer in Hawaii.

I am looking forward to spending time with my family and celebrating another birthday. Merry Christmas (and happy holidays to anyone who prefers that instead) to all!

Show and Tell Tuesday-Best Gift I Ever Received

Knowing full well how sappy I sound the best give I ever received was a proposal.  

Last Christmas Eve my now husband proposed to me outside of the church I grew up going to with my whole family watching.  They all (and pretty much the whole world) knew it was coming but I had no idea.  I had a gut feeling that he would be proposing soon but I thought it would either be Christmas morning or New Years Eve.  I even had new pajamas to wear Christmas morning and a new outfit for New Years Eve so that I would look nice when it happened.  He fooled me with the date but not with everything.

He tried to be all sneaky by telling me not to balance our expenses that month because he had bought me a Christmas present and didn't want me to see it.  This would have worked great if he hadn't asked me to purchase my own Christmas present on my Nordstrom credit card so I could take advantage of my employee discount.  He didn't account for me being so observant! I was pretty sure he had the ring because of all this but I tried so hard not to be waiting for it.  

The ring he picked out was perfect and I can't imagine a more beautiful ring to wear for the rest of my life.  We got married in a small ceremony in November and will be having a bigger, more formal wedding this summer in Hawaii.  I love being his wife and unless I have a baby (hey it could happen my birthday is on Christmas) on Christmas I can't imagine ever getting a better Christmas present.

Christmas Tree

Despite the lack of extra space in our condo every year I make space for a real Christmas tree.  Once we have a bigger place I have told my husband to expect 2 trees but for now I enjoy the one I have room for.

This year I decided just to decorate using all my sentimental ornaments and a bunch of purple and silver balls.

I have my tree on a timer so it is always on when I walk in the door from work and turns itself off around bedtime. It is really nice to walk into a lit Christmas tree but in reality it is on a timer because the plug is way behind the tree and hard to reach.

My birthday is on Christmas so one of my sisters bought me this fun Mickey Mouse Happy Birthday ornament a few years ago.

This is one of my Santa Clauses that my grandparents bought me when I was younger. This Santa is covered in beads so it is remarkably heavy.

My grandmother bought me this wooden carved Santa on a trip to Branson, Missouri.

I love monkeys so it is not surprising that that I have a few monkeys that people have given me over the years on my tree. I don't remember who gave me this one but I love it.

I love my little tree and all the fun ornaments that bring me happy memories. I almost never throw away ornaments so my collection just keeps growing.  At the rate I am going I might eventually need 3 trees to house all my ornaments.

Stitch Fix #7

This month I wasn't as thrilled with my Stitch Fix as I have been in previous months.  I didn't have my photographer (aka handsome husband) around to take photos of me in the clothes so I took pictures of just the clothes.  It also could have something to do with the fact that one of the pieces was too small.

This cute grey sweatshirt was the one piece that I ended up keeping.  It has a pattern on the body and a different pattern on the sleeves to make it interesting.  It looks great with my jeans for weekend wear.

When I pulled this dress out of the box it looked like it had potential.  Nice color, nice shape, waaaaay too short.  My butt was almost hanging out the bottom of this dress so it very quickly went back in the box to go back.

Turtle necks and I are not really friends so I didn't have high hopes for this sweater. Oddly, I love scarves but I hate the way a turtle neck feels.  I always feel like there is too much fabric on them.

I didn't like these jeans when I saw all the fading on the legs and it really sealed their death when they wouldn't even get over my butt.  These jeans went back immediately. 

This purse was cute on the inside but I wasn't crazy about the chain. I like the size of this gold purse with a strap but it was too big for me to carry as a clutch so since I didn't like the strap (which was removable) so back it went.

Not my favorite box this month but I am still looking forward to getting my box next month.  If you want to get your own box feel free to use my link.