Amanda Kuzak, Silicon Valley's premiere professional organizer, is an energetic go-getter and has a passion for helping people lead more efficient and organized lives.
Last year was a wonderful year for Kuzak’s Closet and I have a lot to be thankful for. I exceeded all of my business goals by leaps and bounds and am looking forward to what is headed my way in 2013. Yesterday I had two people contact me about organizing estate sales for them so that is a good start!
I typically post the top blog posts of the year by now but there hasn’t been a free spot on the blog in the last few weeks. Today I wanted to look back and see which posts from 2012 were most popular with all of you. Here is the break down, let me know which project was your favorite! Happy New Year!
We live in Silicon Valley and our winters are pretty mild, we have a few weeks of rain and some chilly nights but even when it cools down the sun still shines and warms us up. After I took my Christmas decorations down in January, I put out my snowmen to keep things looking festive (even though we don’t get snow). I bought this cutie at the Lake Street Emporium in Port Austin while I was visiting my family in Michigan, isn’t he cute? I typically put my snowmen away by the end of February but I struggle with ideas for keeping my house cute between Valentine’s Day and Spring. Do you share in my struggle? Do you have any ideas? Please comment!
It’s always fun to look back at which posts are the most popular on the blog, looking at the stats the most popular posts over the last 12 months were the organizing, recipes, and decorating posts. Take a look and let me know which one was your favorite!
It seems like yesterday I started blogging so it is hard to believe that today is my 500th post. That may not seem like a lot but in a year and a half that is almost a new post each day. All of my posts contain original content, ideas, and photos. People always ask me how I find the time to blog and at this point it is just habit. It is an ingrained part of my day, a part that I enjoy so much. I love reading your blog comments, being featured on your blogs for my organizing ideas and recipes, featuring you on my blog, receiving and posting your guest posts, seeing that you “like” what I am up to on facebook, and watching my reader numbers grow.
I thought I would feature what my favorite blog posts have been so far. Here are my top 15 favorite posts from the last 500, I can’t wait to see what comes next!
I keep all of the photos used on my blog in organized files in my iPhoto program. Once in awhile I browse through them to remind me what I have been up to, it really helps document my life and I think it will be fun to look back in years to come. Besides all of the before and after photos from my professional organizing projects, recipes are the second most popular topic.
About a year ago I reorganized the recipes that I have posted on my blog under the recipe tab. It really comes in handy when I am sharing a recipe with a friend or looking for an old favorite for myself. Over the weekend I was looking through my archived blog photos and recipes looking for ideas and I was reminded of great recipes that I tried last summer that I need to make again soon. Here are some of my favorites, give them a try!
One of our favorite restaurants in Silicon Valley is the Alpine Inn. Calling it a restaurant is a stretch, it is more like a dive bar and grill. They have the best burgers and fries and the beer is cheap and served in plastic cups.
We met our friends Ken and Kai there for dinner on Friday night, we all needed to kick up our feet after a long week and we wanted to celebrate Chris’ recent promotion at Google. I happened to bring my camera in so that I could capture the essence of the Alpine Inn, as you can see it is pretty fancy…ha!
The burgers at Alpine are served on grilled submarine sandwich buns,
I think this is what sets them apart from the other burger places in the area.
Sharing a basket of fries is must! Who can resist the crinkle fries!
Did I mention that the service at the Alpine Inn is horrible? They are always so rude
to everyone where, I think it is apart of the appeal. The first time we went I ordered
4 pickles and the woman behind the grill told me I could not order 4 pickles, I was only
allowed 1. I was kind of surprised when she said that but I had to go with it, she was running
the place! When the pickles were ready for us at the counter I found out why we were only
allowed 1 pickle, it is because they cut up a giant pickle into 10 spears, amazing!
The decor defines the Inn, there are old beer posters from the
80s and picnic tables with carvings from the last 40 years.
After dinner we shared a pitcher of beer and as we cracked jokes and told
stories about our week I noticed that someone famous walked in…
MARK ZUCKERBERG!!!!!!!!
Yes, that is Mark on the right, he was sporting his signature hooded sweatshirt
and sunglasses. I elbowed Chris so hard when he walked in. He ordered
burgers and fries and dined outside on the patio with his friends.
I loved it and I was so thankful that I brought my camera!
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook in the middle. For some reason I was surprised
at how short and skinny he was, you can tell in this picture because the
guy next to him looks like a giant and he wasn’t.
I love our local Silicon Valley celebrities because most of them are self-made, super smart business people like Mark. I can’t wait to see who I run into next! To help celebrate Chris’ work promotion I thought I would leave you with Google’s new Chrome commercial. If you haven’t seen it tune in, it is a tear jerker! Love those creative Googlers!
Each Sunday my sister Ashlie and I co-write a blog post about our favorite things and host a linky party called Sister Sister Sunday. We live 2,000 miles apart (she is in Michigan and I am in California) so Sister Sister Sunday is a great way for us to keep in touch every week and stay connected. Each week our theme changes so make sure to visit us every Sunday to check out what we are into next.
Winner!
We have been blogging together for a year and a half and a year ago we decided to add a linky party at the bottom of our Sunday posts. It has been such a great way for us to find out about cool blogs and projects and we really appreciate all of you coming back each week to show us what you are working on. As a token of our appreciation we are giving away a $25 giftcard this week and the winner is Dani from Drop in the Bucket. Thank you for following Kuzak’s Closet through Google Connect, please email me at kuzakscloset@gmail.com to claim your prize!
To celebrate our anniversary we are going to take a trip down memory lane to revisit the top 5 most popular Sister Sister Sunday posts from the last year.
We are always looking for guest bloggers, it is really fun and easy. You don’t have to have a blog to be a guest blogger, if you are interested please send me an email at kuzakscloset@gmail.com.
Now let’s party! Please link up to our Sister Sister party. Show us what your favorites things are right now and inspire us for next week. We are always looking for new favorite recipes, clothing, cosmetics, DIY projects and much much more. We will feature our favorite next week! Don’t forget to take our button to spread the word about Sister Sister Sunday.
Lots of readers and clients ask me about specific products I use as a Professional Organizer. To make my favorites like skinny hangers and ornament bins easier to find I decided to create an online store so you can order them quickly along with all of my other favorite products. All of the products in the store are products that I use and love. Check it out by clicking on “Favorite Products” on the right side of the page or by clicking here.
Getting organized is one of the top 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Americans this year and I am not surprised. We all need more space, more money, and more time. Being organized helps us obtain those things.
