Free Party Invitations

Summer is here! This does not only spell beach vacations for the lovers of the sea and sun out there but more importantly, special events for most of my closest friends and relatives, graduation for many students, easter celebration for the Catholics and many more are coming up! I remember when I was a kid, I used to create all sorts of colorful invitations and cards for any affair imaginable. Yeah, I was always a bit of an artist.  I made use of whatever stuff I could find around the house like empty rolls of toilet paper, tin foil, ketchup, mustard and other kitchen items. My folks didn’t exactly use the word “artist” as much as they did “menace.”

These days, making invites is as easy as a click of a mouse. Granted it’s not as fun. Or delicious! But now we can create free party invitations anytime, anywhere and for every  celebration, event or occasion you can think of! April Fool’s day is coming up! Why not make and send a card to your best bud for a laugh! Easter is next. The Easter bunny image will surely get handy during this time. Then there’s Mother’s Day for all mommas out there. Send them your love or throw them a party if you wish! Free party invitations is a piece of cake! It’s so simple. There are numerous images to choose from at NetFunCardsDotCom. You can either send them via email or make printable versions that you can send out.  It’s all up to you. Go and make one now!

Easy Baked Chicken infused with Bacon Mushroom Sauce

Working into the wee hours of the morning usually results in me waking up much to late to prepare anything more substantial than instant oatmeal, which is, don’t get me wrong, an awesome thing in itself on several different levels. I mean, it’s instant! It’s flexible! It helps you poop! But see it’s not exactly what one might call a nice meal.

And I wanted to make a nice meal for lunch today. My lovely wife will be leaving for Indonesia in a few hours and I wanted to make something a little more special. So with no idea what I would be cooking, I raided the pantry and my brain for ideas. This is what I came up with in 20 minutes:

Easy Baked Chicken with Bacon and Mushroom Sauce

I’m sharing you the “recipe” I made on the fly because it turned out to be surprisingly yummy and ridiculously easy to make as well. 

Ingredients:

2 medium chicken breasts

1 small tomato, sliced

1 small onion, sliced

1 handful of of mushroom pieces and stems 

 1/2 cup of Clara Ole Bacon and Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

Rub the chicken breastsgenerously with some rock salt, shake off the excess. Put the chicken breasts on a piece of tin foil big enough to wrap them. Pour the packaged spaghetti sauce on the chicken and then top it off with the tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. Sprinkle some pepper to taste and then wrap it up nice and snug but not too tight and it’s ready to bake. It should only take about 15 to 20 minutes depending on the kind of oven you’re using. I baked mine using an ordinary oven toaster. I think it would also be a nice way to cook chicken on the grill.

While it the chicken was baking, I threw together some coleslaw and made some mashed potatoes which I flavored with some roasted garlic and grated cheese.  I believe some pasta or feshly steamed rice would go well with this too. 

My only regret is that I did not have any bacon at home today. If I did, I think I would have wrapped the chicken in some of that awesomeness. Maybe next time.

Anyway, the important thingis that Jen loved it and we shared a really good meal before she leaves me for her vacation. As a bonus, I  “invented” a tasty and easy to prepare recipe. 

Couple Talk

I’ve been checking out Married Chat City for a few days now and for the most part, it’s looking to be a pretty promising site. For starters, registration is quick and easy. You can be up and chatting in about two minutes. I personally like that the site is pretty much uncluttered. The user interface is also simple and intuitive. Profile customization is limited but that isn’t exactly a bad thing because in this case, they’ve trimmed it down to the essentials. uploading photos is also a cinch.

The best feature of the site however is its small but growing community of users. In most Married Chat Rooms, the “Married but Looking” aspect is automatically implied. For a happily married guy like myself, that form of Married Chat has absolutely nothing to offer. Here however, the discussions are far more focused on real issues that normal everyday couples go through. The conversations revolve less around swinging and threesomes and more around how spouses can keep their relationship fresh and exciting. Now that’s more my cup of tea.

O Hai Gais! Let’s talk about Jesus!

Most people who know me are aware of the fact that I am not a big believer in organized religion. On paper however, I am a Catholic and might I daresay a rather well learned one at that. I did spend 4 years in the seminary a whole lifetime ago, when I was much younger and when I honestly believed I would be a priest. That was followed by another 4 years in a catholic university run by Jesuits. That said, while my faith isn’t particularly ablaze, I did maintain a passion for Catholicism mostly as an academic endeavor. It follows then that when I come question my own unbelief, I often approach the Catholic faith to try and see if anything it offers might spark something.

Which is why I sometimes find myself in some Catholic Chat Room discussing theology with people who have much stronger faith than I can ever hope to have. Incidentally, I’ve been given the opportunity to review Catholic Chat City, a relatively new online meeting ground for Catholics. Aesthetically, I appreciate the minimalistic design. The layout is fairly clean and most of the functionalities are pretty intuitive. It runs on Flash but the site is surprisingly fast although the few people who are still on dial up may experience a bit of a problem. Profile creation is a straightforward affair and uploading pics are quite easy. It doesn’t offer profile customization though but I don’t think it’s a crucial feature for an online community chat site.

What matters more is the quality of the conversations you engage in. It was a pleasant surprise that although the community isn’t really that big yet, the people I’ve encountered so far have been very open minded and level headed. Most of my past experiences in Catholic Chat have been marked by me being bible thumped and judged like crazy by people who ironically know less about Catholicism than I do. Catholic Chat City’s small but growing community has so far been quite accepting of different opinions and that often leads to enjoyably intelligent discussions. This I believe is their key strength and I do hope the community can maintain this kind of quality in the future.