First off, welcome to the magical world of Android! 😀
Second, happy new year!
Third, what is your phone? Different phones come with different widgets and apps preloaded.
UCCW is a great tool for both creating your own widgets as well as downloading beautiful templates from Play Store.
If you need weather info, there's also UCCW and Accuweather, HD widgets and many others (you can just search for Weather widget in PS).
Basically, if you want something specific, you just search for it.
(I don't like widgets since they use lots of battery and create wakelocks.)
If you'd like a fresh look, custom launchers are a great choice (Apex and Nova are nice, though there are tons out there).
Rooting the phone will allow you access to your...