1 Year Blogiversary && HelloWench.com

ITS MY 1 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY

This past year has been an absolute roller coaster and you guys were there with me EVERY step of the way. Lets just do a quick recap:

• Moved out of my parents house and into my first apartment with my fiance and best friend
• Learned how to sustain myself and maybe even cook a little
• Moved my fiance ACROSS THE COUNTRY to live with me
• Juggled my last year at university as an engineering major with a full time job, fiance, and family
• Adopted/Rescued Buster
• Lost 30lbs (and then gained it back, whoops!)
• My cousin finally got married!
• First Christmas/Holiday season with the fiance
• Managed finances properly while the fiance was out of work
• Kept team morale up!
• Had pneumonia (wtf, who gets pneumonia in the middle of Spring?)
• Pushed through the final semester and GRADUATED with a 3.0 GPA.
• Took my first vacation in years
• Hit my 1 Year viewing goal of 10k total pageviews!

I can't believe the friends I've made along the way and you guys are seriously the best. Thanks for being there for me.

Also: if you hadn't noticed I finally bought my domain as my one year present to myself! Hello Wench finally has a home! 

HelloWench.com

Here's to another year! *clink*

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New Recipe: Easy Roast Chicken (Update)

New Recipe: Easy Roast Chicken (Update)

Hey guys! Remember that recipe I posted approx. 2 weeks ago? Ya know, This one.

See I'm glad you remembered! But I actually cooked it this past weekend, and I wanted to give you guys an update on the end results!

Yes, I did actually cook this.

The prep overall was pretty easy - unfreeze chicken boobies (because I didn't want to cook a whole chicken) - preheat oven - toss together the sauce - put in oven for 50mins. Done.

So this the the prepped result:

Lets note some changes I made to the recipe: For onesies I doubled the marinade. I also used bone in chicken breasts. This type of chicken is preferred in my house so it was a simple decision. I also used a lot of green onion. I prefer it, I cook with it a lot, and it gave the chicken more green color because my local grocery had no fresh parsley. (it was late by the time I got there) Otherwise, the recipe was literally the same.

-- approx 50 mins later --

Ta daaaaa! *ding*

It looked absolutely delicious - and trust me, it was. The chicken was cooked perfectly and was moist but so very tender at the same time. 
The skin and the marinade gave the chicken and delicious flavoring and it wasn't too much or too little. It was just the right amount for the monster sized chicken breasts that I had purchased. (literally this was the only one there and they was ridiculously big)

As a side dish I ended up making yellow rice. Originally I was going to make mac and cheese, but yellow rice was much simpler and I could leave it cook during the last 20mins while I was prepping the table and getting everything ready for dinner.

Things I would do differently:
Next time I would like to actually try the parsley on the chicken - I'll just have to go to the store earlier in the day before the parsley all gets bought! I also would like to try this with the chicken marinating overnight and then cooking it the next day. While the skin and everything touching the marinade tasted good - the chicken itself hadn't soaked up much flavor. So it still tasted like regular old white chicken meat.

Overall I would count this recipe a success. The boys seriously enjoyed it and so did I. I will definitely be making this again - probably in the near future!

Did you guys try this recipe? Or were you waiting to see how it came out for me?
Check out the recipe right here on the blog. Let me know if you try it out and how it goes!

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Get Ready With Me - Drugstore Edition

This post is picture heavy - so the full post is hidden under this break.

Mood Board: Modani Furniture*

Mood Board: Modani Furniture*

As I posted on Tuesday, I've been hunting through some furniture websites. It literally all started innocently enough when I was in my living room with the boys and I realized that we /seriously/ needed a bookshelf. But not for books, no no no. For all of our board games and "collectibles".

It was seriously like fate was watching me herself, because as I was lurking the bookshelf section of some website I got an email from the lovely Modani Furniture! They asked me if I'd like to do a mood board/post about some pieces and of course I said yes. Their style is everything  modern I'd like to have in a home but I'm wayyy too messy for white furniture and clumsy so I'd probably have more shin bruises from their furniture than a soccer player. (yeah, I'm American, its Soccer here)

They also gave me some amazing pieces to work with, and above is the mood board that I came up with!
Oh yeah, and that amazing black sofa is their 'Monaco black leather sofa'. It looks so seriously comfortable and those Love Pillows would look amazing on it. I'd probably actually take off the generic black pillows and put some silver accent pillows in the corner of the couch. The accessories make the outfit, right?

This post has gone to the dogs

So... I drew eyebrows on my roommates dog

and then subjected her to about a billion pictures and laughed so hard I cried.

There are more pictures under this cut.

My Halloween Party!

Halloween Party!

So this past weekend I threw an amazing Halloween party. I spend the entire week before the party panicking and freaking out about food and who was coming and all the small details.

I freaked out for absolutely no reason, only 2 people cancelled, and some people brought +1's.

It started at 7pm, and the plan was to have everyone eat dinner at 8. And while that didn't go to plan, everything else did. I tried channeling my Grandma (who may be my hosting/party spirit animal) and had lots and lots of chips and salsa and horderves to eat before dinner. I ended up having a lot more than I even expected after people showed up and brought stuff.

For dinner I made lots and lots of taco stuff. Chris made his Mom's delicious shredded chicken recipe and I made regular beef taco meat. Then we had every single topping you could really ever want to put on a taco. We had both hard shells and soft shells and everyone stuffed their faces until they literally were like "Jenn I ate too much you had soooo much food."

And that was even before dessert.

My best friend made Owl cupcakes that were decadent chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting topped with oreo cookies and M&Ms.

And then someone else brought even more vanilla cupcakes with giant candy corns on the top!

Then the plethora of sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies were abound. 

And candy. So. Much. Candy.

After dinner we had the Murder Mystery part of the night, where they had to figure out who done-did it. I found the template for the party online and I promise as soon as I find it I will link you to it. It was a great ice breaker for some of my friend who had never met before or were a little shy. We gave away the board game 'Clue' to the person who figured it out, and the game 'Sorry!' to the person who got second. (haha, get it?)

Overall it was a great time and I'm thinking of hosting another party/game night/friends night sometime again because even though it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun!

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Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day Everyone!

Over here in the states Labor Day is a national holiday where no mail runs and the only person who seems to have to work is my fiance! It's also the last holiday of summer and traditionally marks the end of summer. I usually spend this holiday with my Aunt and Uncle, Grandparents, and parents on the beach sunbathing and overall having a great time. This year though, my Aunt and Uncle couldn't make it and Chris has to work today! I also made plans to go work on my Engineering Design project with my group today. So Labor Day will be exactly that, Labor!

--Update--

Friday Adventures!

Friday Adventures!

Sooo today is the big day! Blog layout changeover will be happening over the course of the weekend. I'll probably end up coding pieces in stages, but considering I have most of it done already I'll mainly just be copying and pasting and correcting any tweaks I'm gonna need. I'm so excited for you guys to see what my fiance and I have been working on!

Other than that today has been quite eventful. Today was a half day at work considering that Monday is Labor Day. I ended up only spending a little over an hour and a half at work today because my classes ran until I would have gotten out of work. Either way, my class today was about Junk Science (which is a fairly interesting topic) and I ended up missing my second class because Chris LOST HIS PHONE. He was riding his BRAND NEW BIKE and FELL OFF. He scratched up the handlebars and the pedals, and he's got a badly bruised hip. He ended up backtracking and finding his phone. And overall everything is okay.

My new apartment complex has a fancy pool!

Fiancee finally moved + impromptu date!

This past Friday my fiancee finally made the permanent move from New York City to Florida. He didn't come in until late Friday night and we went out with my parents to Quarterdeck where he ate the greasiest burger I think I've ever seen with fried pickles.
Its like literally torture for someone on a 1200 calorie a day diet, with no calories left to eat that day! Its the last burger he's going to eat in quite a while because all I cook now is healthy food! Haha!

Saturday though was my Grandmas big estate sale for her friend so Will, Chris, and I volunteered to help. They didn't particularly need all three of us, and we ended up taking my Grandmas van and loading Chris's two suitcases and his big ol' box + some other stuff into the car and trekking it up to the apartment. Once we got back though we dropped the van back off and headed home. We unpacked both of his suitcases and started his laundry. (Some spices his Mom had packed in his bag for him had exploded and everything smelled delicious)

By the time we got everything unpacked we were exhausted and I was not in the mood to cook dinner, and neither was he. We decided to go on an impromptu date to Ruby Tuesdays so I hopped in the shower and threw this look together.

Two Week Apartment Update + Wifi Issues

Its already been two whole weeks?!

No seriously, its been two weeks since I've moved into my new apartment. There are boxes everywhere still, and Chris doesn't get in until tonight so we'll still have to unpack all of his things. On the bright side though, the kitchen is unpacked & organized, the living room is how we like it, and the dining room is coming along nicely! We went grocery shopping the other day and got food for the week. I think this week I'm going to bring back the Tuesday staple of Taco Tuesday. 
So basically, my rooms craziness is contained to just my room and I still haven't attempted to start my closet yet.

AND I FINALLY HAVE WIFI. So here's the story.

Moving Weekend - Update!

As you guys may know, this past weekend was absolutely crazy! I spent the entire weekend moving and hauling things 45 minutes away to my new apartment. I overall got so much done this weekend it was crazy.

Saturday:

We ended up having a really late start on Saturday. It was monsooning outside and nothing would be packed into the car. Chris and I had a late breakfast, and then Will came over and we loaded the car full of stuff to trek it back to the apartment. We basically spent all day Saturday running to and from the apartment and packing so much stuff into the car/apartment that we were exhausted. We did however end up taking my bed apart and removing the mirror off the back of the dresser. 

Sunday:

Late Post: Friday's moving update

I was supposed to post this is Friday, but I didn't really have anything to write about until very late at night, and at that point I was so exhausted I just went to sleep and didn't write this post. Either way, here is EVERYTHING that happened to Friday.

For one: I requested the day off to be able to move allllll day long. Which thank goodness they requested. I felt like I was grossly underprepared to start moving that weekend, but it all ended up coming together (which I will get too). Chris arrived at 9AM & I drove to the airport to pick him up. We called Will to tell him to come over, and after a few hours and 2 different full carloads, we drove the 45 mins to my new apartment.

Packing up my life in a weekend~!

Unicorn Warrior Status - dont mess with the best!

Its less than a week now until I move to my new apartment. And I hadn't even started packing yet, so this past weekend I started. On Saturday everything ran exactly on schedule, my two best friends came over to help and we had an amazing time reminiscing over things. It was so amazing to find all these obscenely old things and laugh with my friends over memories. I loved reading some of the old diaries I had kept, most of them were  covered with stickers. But some of them had some weight to what I was going through at the time. In one entry that was particularly poignant to me was from when I was about 12. And it made me realize that not much as really changed. It did make me realize however, how much I have grown and how much more confident I have become since then.

Sunday however, was one of the most hilarious days ever. A ton of work was done and many more laughs ensued. I found a ton of things from when Chris and I first got together. Looking back though, I realize that our love has grown and matured and I love him more now than I ever have. Its lovely to find these things when love was blossoming and track your relationship as it bloomed.

However, I also found some of my vices: cats and unicorns.
Both boys have approved a unicorn themed apartment. Some through different means than others. The shield is a pillow pet and the sword/club is a stick unicorn that made noise. I have no shame.

In almost everything is some kind of horse/unicorn and cats.

Also, my new room-mate Will decided he would be king of the squeaky hammers. His coronation was very reminiscent of Queen Elsa's coronation in Frozen.

Squeaky Hammer Sceptre...? Uh, YES!

I seriously can not wait until Friday when we finally move. This next year is going to be a journey for all of us, and I can not be happier with the people I'm going to be experiencing this with.

-Jenn

T-minus 1 week until move day!

It is exactly 1 week until I move from my childhood home to my new apartment! Oh my goodness I'm so excited but severely unprepared for this move! I feel like I dont even know where to start with the packing. I was supposed to start cleaning out my room last weekend, but I never actually got around to it. (my best friend moved back home, read here)

I know most people are probably a lot farther along than I am at this point, but I guess I need help. Or I just need a list of how to tackle my room, with my closet being a major part of it. Haha!

I'm still anxious and definitely more than a bit nervous about the whole move. But I'm also excited and looking toward the future that I'm building for myself. It is time for me to step out on my own, and although this is one of the more terrifying things to do. I'm ready.

We sign the papers next friday, and I'm hoping to get the kitchen and dining room done. It'll be a bonus if we can start the bedroom closets and organizing that (what I know will be) a mess. On Saturday is the day we move all the furniture, we're getting a big truck and hauling furniture from our respective homes. Asking for volunteers from anywhere we possibly can. ;) Sunday will hopefully result in us getting everything else in order and then another crazy week starts. My final project is due for my class next week but I have a final the wednesday after I move in. Eep!

These next few weeks will probably be nuts, but oh well, here we go~!

-Jenn

Happy 4th of July!

This weekend is one of those weekend where I just enjoy myself. I sit on the beach/poolside and soak up the sun. (while wearing the proper sunscreen, the weekend before last I seriously regretted not vigorously reapplying sunscreen).

One of the hardest things for me to do is to let go and to let my brain slow down. But where I am this weekend (Naples, FL) always has the uncanny ability to immediately make me slow down and relax. Its nice to be able to get my life off of moving, my fiance, work, school, and just life in general. Plus I get to spend some quality time with my Brother and my Grandparents that I have come to cherish.

I hope you spend the weekend enjoying yourself. I'll post pictures on Monday.


-Jenn

Moving Pains

Recently, I've decided to try and spread my wings.

Honestly, I had been almost completely dependent on my Grandparents for everything. They wanted me to focus on school, and nothing else. So I did, I didn't work, and I attempted to get good grades. In this past year, however, I've gotten a (shaky) footing and have been making a steady income. With my entire IT department (okay, there was only 3 of us) resigning and moving onto bigger and better things, my boss offered me job security. Which affords me the opportunity to be able to move closer to work and school. My family is happy for me, but I know I'll be missed. And truthfully, I'm starting to feel like the first time I moved into the dorm again.

At least this time though, I'm moving with people who I know will love and support me: My fiance and my absolute best friend.