Friday Favorites

If you are a "poop story" friend, make sure you scroll down to read yesterday's entry (amazing - two blogs in two days!) before you dive into this week's Friday Favorites.

So here they are, with no theme, rhyme, or reason this week. Pretty much the favorites this time around are based on things I've encountered recently.

1. SPACE BAGS -- yes friends, they REALLY work! I'm doing lots of spring cleaning and organizing, including packing up my winter clothes, which I've never actually done before (the packing winter clothes, not the spring cleaning). We've all seen the infomercials about space bags and how you can suck out all the air and pack down your stuff and store it away. Well, I went to BBB and bought a pack for $15 (using a coupon - aren't you proud, Kristen?), which includes two large bags, one jumbo bag, and one travel size bag. The large bags fit 12 sweaters each, which is pretty awesome. The jumbo bag fits TWO comforters and four pillows (or a ton of other stuff that would equal that kind of bulk). So now my closet is roomy and spacious, and I feel like the queen bee of organization. Go, Jennifer!! So anyway, if you've ever wondered if they really work, the answer is yes. You stuff the bag, zip it up, and vacuum out the air with your attachment tube thingy. The sweet thing is, they're reusable, so this was pretty much a one time purchase for storing winter stuff. I love starting something new that declutters and simplifies my life :)

2. HUGE TUBS -- I am providing a picture of this one because I'm not positive I'll do a great job of describing it. I went to Garden Ridge months and months ago when Bennett was starting to get a lot more toys and found these gigantic tubs in all kinds of cool colors and I bought a green one. It has thick white rope handles, and stores pretty much all of Bennett's larger toys, like his bag of blocks, his Little People Noah's Ark, his tool box, stacking cups, piano/xylophone, and tons more. It's SO easy to use to store his stuff because when he's done playing, we just dump it all back in the one big tub (note: I'm about to have to purchase another one for his bedroom). You can also find these tubs at Wal-mart, but I think they only come in dark blue (which is the picture I'm including here). I don't know if Garden Ridge still carries them, but it's a pretty basic storage item (I paid $6 for mine) and is totally worth looking into.
**just kidding, can't find the tubs online, so I'll have to take a picture of my own and post it on this blog later.

3. NEW FURNITURE -- Seriously, is there anything cooler than getting new furniture??
Because Michael did something amazing for me. He bought new couches for our house, something I'd been wanting since we moved to Texas almost 4 years ago. This was totally amazing and unexpected. We're also buying a new area rug (once we pick one out). Now, we don't make a lot of big purchases. We use things until they totally wear out, but our living room was in need of an overhaul. We were still using my parents' 15 year old couches that were pretty rough. I have to admit it's totally awesome changing up the main room of our house and making it feel so nice. So even though I wouldn't consider myself to be materialistic, I confess it is super nice to get new things (especially big new things) from time to time. I've also included a picture of what our new couches look like (don't be fooled - that's not me lounging, and that's not our actual living room). They were bought at Ashley Furniture and they rock. I'm looking at a super-fly rug from overstock.com, but it makes me nervous since I can't feel it and see it in person first, so we'll see.

P.S. Thanks to all of you sweet, supportive people who cheered me up and made me feel less slumpish last week. I'm feeling more like my old self again, which I consider to be a good thing :) A special shout out to Haley, who actually took over my Friday Favorites for herself last week to help me avoid possible retribution from my readers. I'm so glad God invented friends.

P.S.S. I know I've been AWFUL at kicking off "Kudos to You." I think it will help to bump it back to Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. I'll try to remember to actually do it this week.