new bento gear!

YOU GUYS I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP. This is getting ridiculous.

So, three new boxes (oh, and a new set of short flower picks!):

• The Bento Colors box, in purple, which I have been lusting after for...well, more than a year. More than two years, actually. At last it is mine and I am victorious!
• A Bento Colors Mini, in lime green, because.
• The third is a new line, but it was so ingenious that I just had to have it. It's an origami bento (the "squares" design), the idea being that it folds into a bento box, and obviously can be folded flat for storage. I KNOW RIGHT. It was pretty much a law of gravitational physics that I needed to have that box. It even comes complete with little foldable dividers and baran! So cute! My thought is that it would be especially handy for trips since it's lightweight and can be stored without fuss. And it's not paper/cardboard, it's plastic so it's reusable.

Anyway, this was Thursday's lunch, which I didn't have a chance to post, packed in the Bento Colors purple.

• 4-color raddiatore (tomato, carrot, spinach, regular) tossed with a bit of oil, herbs, and salt
• molded egg, cut in halves
• carrots and sauteed asparagus spears
• Pink Lady apple and kiwi slices, with a small cup of dark chocolate covered raisins to inaugurate the new box properly

Today's is back to an old standby, Ms. Bento, thanks to delicious soup leftovers courtesy of Chef Salvatore:

•  broccoli cheese soup
• 4-color raddiatore (see above)
• carrots, steamed asparagus
• a few bits of pepperoni from a stop we made at Dick's Brewing on our trip last week
• cherries
• cinnamon apple sauce

The bento presentation for my coworkers is this Thursday. I finished the Powerpoint presentation over the weekend, which includes two separate photo slideshows, and there will also be a two page handout. Which...okay, that sounds totally dorkalicious when I put it in writing. BUT IT WON'T BE LAME I SWEAR. No really, it'll be cool and awesome. There's even a color-coded cha-

Wait, where are you going...?

the heart of the earth is emerald dark...

...and pulses beneath liquid crystal...

This is Lake Crescent. It's located on the Olympic Peninsula, between steep sided mountains carved by glaciers. It is 624 feet deep, only five miles from the Juan de Fuca Strait as the crow flies yet contains not a drop of saltwater, and is so clear that you can see to a depth of 60 feet when the water lies still. Storm King, the mountain that forms its southeastern shore, is an ancient Native American god who was angered by fighting between warring tribes and smote them all with a cataclysmic landslide that split the lake in two.

the lodge as seen from a rowboat

(click to see the full set of pictures)

As an early birthday present, I whisked Sal off to a four day getaway to the Olympic Peninsula. First, to Lake Crescent Lodge, where we stayed in a quaint little cabin no more than 30 feet from the lake shore. We dangled our feet over the dock, rowed a boat across the lake to Pyramid Mountain and back, took the self-guided walking tour through the old growth forest that surrounds the Lodge, read books in weathered Adirondack chairs, sipped hot chocolate in the Lodge's enclosed verandah, and spent the evenings curled up in massive chairs made from logs, playing Monopoly and Tri-ominoes and nibbling on the delicious treats we crammed into a cooler for three full days of meals. Fruit and veggies, cold cuts and cheeses and crackers, Sal's homemade rolls, homemade cherry-almond scones, homemade chocolate chip cookies, my own fried chicken and pasta salad. And beer, of course. Never forget the beer.

Our trip began Friday as we made our way to Olympia, then turned westward to explore the Olympic Peninsula, a first for us both. We made a leisurely way along the eastern edge of the Hood Canal, then glimpsed the Olympic peaks as the road turned inland. Closer and closer, and finally to Sequim, and then to Port Angeles. We didn't spend time there, but we plan to go back, with a sidetrip across the Strait to Victoria.

Saturday night from our cabin's porchWe arrived at Lake Cresent early Friday evening, with the sun shining and bright blue sky. The weather held for Saturday, too, so we had plenty of time outside. But of course the rains arrived, as they inevitably do, Saturday night and it came down in a ceaseless downpour all night, and all the next day. We left Sunday a little before noon and continued westward on our planned trek to explore the peninsula.

old growth forest from the "Moment In Time" trail near the lodgeWe had reservations for another Lodge, this one on the Washington Coast, but it was less than a two hour drive from Lake Crescent and we still had hours to kill before check-in, so we decided to take a side road north and far to the west, to maybe see the westernmost point of the contiguous United States, Cape Flattery.

Perhaps it was the heavy gray sky and the constant rain, but this was not a nice drive. It's beautiful -- thick forest and most of the way, right along the northern Washington coastline, only a dozen feet above the water. But the signs of human habitation here are...depressing. As if the people here have long since given up, and no longer care about the place they call home. The few little towns are empty shops with boarded doors and broken windows, economies far past saving, junk everywhere, and hardly any sign of human activity. It started to feel as if we were at the edge of the world, and it came with a deep-seated panic and disquiet. We turned around before we reached the end.

me doing my best vampire impressionBack on 101, we continued to Forks. Yes, Forks. It's unavoidable if you're making the trip we were, and it's the last chance for a grocery store and (reasonably-priced) gas for more than 100 miles if you're headed south. The town itself is small but nice, and reminded me of a small Tillamook. The drive down their main street was lolarious, as expected, with every business either incorporating"Twilight" in its name somehow (my hand to God, "Twilight Campfire Wood") or proclaiming "get your Twilight [food/shirts/memorabilia/quilts(!)/gear/ etc.] here!" But god bless them for making the most of the tourist opportunity and hey, who can bedgrudge any fans a pilgrimage to their mecca? Whatever floats your boat, even if it's Twilight. (Although I srsly lol'd at the hotel sign on the way into town that said, "Edward Cullen didn't sleep here!" OH HOTEL MARKETING DIRECTOR I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.)

one of several of the "oldest in the country" very old trees in the Hoh RainforestWe stopped at a local pizza place for lunch -- avoiding the Porto"Bella" speciality pizza -- and then next door to Thriftway for some ice and a few items to add to our food stores. Then we were on the road again through forests even more ancient than before, the rain clouds so low we couldn't see any of the peaks to our left. Unlike the Oregon Coast, 101 is inland for most of the drive so you can't see the ocean as you drive. Still very beautiful, though.

gray and rainy at the coast, just the way we like itWe decided to make the 20 mile side trip to the Hoh Rainforest. Well worth the drive and there are several places to stop and see something beautiful and amazing, like enormous, ancient Sitka spruce and Douglas fir. At the visitor's center, there are multiple trail options, both short and long, easy and hard. Unfortunately, it was late in our afternoon and the rain was coming down hard (and it was cold) so we didn't stay as long as we might have otherwise. And honestly, that side trip up north had deflated us both a bit.

some of the great masses of logs along the bluffs of KalalochThankfully, Kalaloch Lodge, where we were staying for the night, wasn't much further down the highway once we made our back to 101. Perched right on a bluff that overlooks the ocean, we were in a genuine log cabin that faced northwest with an unobstructed view of the beach and water below. (It also had a picnic table right outside the door, which was one of the few times I wished it wasn't raining so we could sit out and eat our dinner with the ocean right there.) And although the weather made it too chilly to go down to the beach, it was perfect for curling up for a smorgasbord of goodies* while we soaked up the view just as we had the two nights before at Lake Crescent. Except this time, our cabin came complete with a wood-burning stove and split cedar logs and kindling. Thanks to Sal's superb firebending skills, the stove got so hot that we could crack the windows enough to hear the surf without getting cold. We fell asleep to the flicker of firelight and the steady roar of the ocean.

*(Both Kalaloch and Lake Crescent Lodges feature restaurants with terrific menus, which I'd love to try if we get a chance to go back.)

The weather did finally clear a bit as we were leaving Monday morning, long enough for me to snap a few more pics of the ocean, this time with blue sky and no rain-speckled camera lens. The rain stopped by the time we reached Humptulips (best. name. ever.) and we had sun for the rest of the drive home once we got to Elma. Thanks to our terrific neighbors, we arrived home to find the house still standing and the cats sleeping contentedly on their cushion by the dining room window, with only a bit of shredded paper on the floor as punishment for leaving them.

What an amazing, amazing trip. We haven't done a trip like that -- someplace completely unknown to us and somewhat isolated -- in a long time, now that I think about it, and even in just a span of three and a half days, it disconnected us completely from our daily life and routines. We've gone a little too long without a vacation together, especially without a recharging trip to the coast, and we were reminded why we try to get away every few months, even just for a weekend. How blessed we are that something so vitally important to us both is something we can do.

Happy Birthday, Sally. Every day with you is a gift.

see the full set of photos

a Google map of our route

happy birthday, sally!

TODAY IS SALLY'S BIRTHDAY!! Be sure to wish him a good one today if you get the opportunity. He plays it cool, but he loves to get happy birthday wishes in any form. I have a very full and meaty post about the festivities to mark the occasion, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Be sure to tune in, though, because there will be pictures. Lots of them.

lunch, black strawberry:

• two mini frittatas -- mushroom, onion, spinach (no cheese); I made a half dozen of these last month to use up some odds and ends while simultaneously building a bento stash, which came in handy last night when I had no time to put something together for lunch today
• snap peas, carrots, and steamed broccoli, with two tiny radishes
• mini blueberry pancakes -- more from the bento stash, made by Chef Salvatore with those fresh frozen blueberries from last summer
• Pink Lady apple

driveby posting

In the office today to do two training presentations and a webinar. A quickie lunch since I don't have much time to eat in between everything, and I'm leaving early (or hoping to). So.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• molded egg
• blanched asparagus spears
• golden delicious apple slices, with some honey peanut butter for dipping
• more of the freshly shelled peas (lightly steamed) as gap fillers

all is forgiven, george lucas

Hilariously awesome astronaut factoid that cracked me up:

"The mental readjustment [returning from space] can be just as tricky. In 1973, Skylab 2 astronaut Jack Lousma told Time magazine that he'd accidentally smashed a bottle of aftershave in his first days back from a month-long sojourn in space. He'd let go of the bottle in mid-air, forgetting that it would crash to the ground rather than just float there."

I srsly lol'd at that. Speaking of hilariously awesome, there's this, which made the rounds of Tumblr last week (and appeared on my dash on May 4th, natch). It reminded me that his codename is Renegade for a reason:

Look at that stance -- that is the stance of a man who knows his way around a paduwan training course, is what I'm saying. OUR PRESIDENT IS A SEKRIT JEDI MASTER YOU GUYS.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• Cotswold and Niman Ranch ham in a sundried tomato wrap (with just a smidge of plastic to protect it from the asparagus spears)
• blanched asparagus spears
• Murcott tangerine sections on a bed of freshly-shelled peas, courtesy of OCI's culinary students (who had to shell a bunch as part of a meal assignment)
• a lovely carved radish, courtesy of the exceedingly talented Chef Salvatore, with more peas as gap fillers
• BOTH yogurt covered and dark chocolate covered raisins

in these crystal spring mornings, we will fly like birds

This is the view from our kitchen door and back porch to the back patio and yard. I took it late in the morning yesterday, just after one of several heavy rains that happened throughout the day, each followed by a bright burst of sun, although it was so chilly out there I expected to see my breath while I was snapping these pics.

I've mentioned peripherally that spring this year has been totally crazycakes. And by that I mean, totally non-existent. We've had weeks -- nay, months -- of endless rain, rain to an extent that's unusual even for here. But more than that, constant cold and unrelenting gray. Day after day, for weeks and weeks at a go, with only a handful of days where the sun has even appeared, let alone been out long enough to dry things out or warm things up. Maybe not even a handful.

Now, I am completely content in this weather. I love me some spring, and I've missed not having a real spring like I've gotten used to here, but the days and days of rain haven't bothered me. But even I have noticed the just how relentless it's been, how my fellow PNWers, native or otherwise, have slowly gone bugshit as we rolled through April and now into May with it still feeling and looking like February.

More to the point, I can't help but notice how Nature herself has been in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the sun and the warmth to signal it was time to get in gear. In fact, most everything seems to be about two months behind: the lilacs have just started to bud in the last week or so, tulips are only now finishing up, and the azaleas in our rockery still haven't opened up. That is cah-razy, you guys. These are flowers that normally start blooming in March. Mid-April at the latest.

And like all the flowers and trees that seemed to explode at once at the first sign of sun and warmth, everyone seems to burst out onto the streets in manic fits of activity, as if to cram an entire season's worth of spring into a single day. All Summer In a Day, life imitating art.

    

lunch, french bistro:

• Niman Ranch ham, cream cheese, and asparagus spears in a sundried tomato wrap
• snap peas
• golden delicious apple slices
• murcott tangerine sections

clearly, i've lost my mind

And so anyway, because I obviously don't have enough to do, I decided to host a presentation for my coworkers to talk about bento. As in, I voluntarily decided to prepare and give a presentation about my lunchtime pastime for the people I work with. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN. Srsly, brain, give a girl a chance to just be a lazy sod for awhile.

This is actually an idea I've been knocking around for quite awhile, and then thought about for another while, and then came up with a plan and thought about that for awhile, and then finally decided to just go ahead and do it. See, I now have a small group of coworkers who attend the unveiling of my lunches each day (if they're around and I don't go to the park to eat) like some kind of weird but fun Hollywood event. I'm constantly getting questions about my lunches -- even though I don't eat in the kitchen -- and enough people have expressed interest in trying it themselves that it just seemed like it could be a fun idea that people might find useful.

I sent out an initial email last night just to gauge the interest before committing to anything. I've had 17 responses. That's about a third of the company. Holy crap, you guys.

So I've set a date (three weeks from tomorrow; I am crazy) and planning has begun. Seriously, there's going to be a PowerPoint and everything. This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

lunch, lunchbot duo:

• my totally awesome potato salad (potatoes, vinegar, oil, salt, dill)
• snap peas
• molded -- and dyed! -- egg
• murcott tangerine
• broccoli as gap filler

special snack, cute animals sidecar:

• another molded -- and dyed! -- egg (although it apparently didn't mold long enough, since it's lost most of its star shape since I first did it last night)
• murcott tangerine
• Sally's very delicious angel food cake

cooking for charity

The radio silence last week was unintended, just a product of a busy week and lack of bentos, which are one of my prompts for posting. The lack of bentos was due to two different charity lunches, so no need to pack anything.

Tuesday was our team's turn for "Tasty Tuesday" (where one team volunteers to make lunch for the rest of our coworkers, who then donate money to go toward our charities). Our team opted to do a stir fry bar thing, which resulted in a heaping plate of yum. It's great fun, what we do, but each team feels obliged to one up the previous team, so it's become a challenge to come up with a plan.  We do try to do something healthy, but I suspect our next team lunch is going to involve the words "sundae" and "bar".

Thursday, I volunteered with a group of coworkers to serve lunch at the local Ronald McDonald House. (Ronald McDonald House is one of the charities our company partners with (the other being Habitat for Humanity) so we have events like this where employees can donate time, as well as organized fundraisers on their behalf.

It was fun and inspiring to see the house and all the measures they take to make it welcome and homey for the families who stay there. Every room is different because each of the rooms is "adopted" by a company or organization who can then decorate and furnish it in whatever theme they want. The Blazers have a room, of course, and both the the Ducks and the Beavers do, as well. (The Ducks room was occupied while were there, but we got to see the Beavers room.)

And they really go all out with the themes. One room was done in a Lewis and Clark Theme and it included a huge Pendleton blanket on the wall that was a map of the Oregon Territory, as well as a little built-in bench made to look like a canoe. So clever! There were lots of communal spaces to draw people out and promote the sense of community and family, and inspirational stories in every little detail. Just a really great organization all around.

Anyway, we made chicken enchiladas for the families staying at the house, along with a green salad, a fruit salad, and flan for dessert (one of my coworkers makes a killer flan). We did get to eat lunch as well as prepare it, but rather than satiate my craving, it just made me want more. Hence the enchiladas Sal and I made for dinner and the leftovers in today's lunch.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• enchiladas: seasoned beef, cheese, red onions, corn tortillas, mole', with some sour cream in the condiment cup
• mixed wild greens with a bit of dressing in the sauce container
• Murcott tangerines and part of a Pink Lady apple

I did actually have a bento for last week's Prompt workshop but forgot to post it so I'm including it here. No bento for tonight's Prompt, which is the last one. It's been a fun workshop and a good challenge -- highly recommended to anyone who's interested!

dinner (last week's Prompt), matryoshka:

• broccoli
• apple slices
• carrots
• crab

hall house update, with a bit of astoria thrown in for good measure

I'm getting back on track with catching up some things on the site. Including, yes, the library and guest room/studio projects. The next phase from a few years ago is now posted:

Library, Part 06: Installing Hardware

Guest Room & Studio, Part 06: Installing Hardware

Also, I'm working on a backlog of pics from trips and getaways from the last several years. Recently added: our little getaway to Astoria about three and a half years ago, in which we stayed in a delightful B&B, actually climbed to the very top of the Astoria Column (yes, all 165 steps of it), checked out bakeries and pubs from Sal's "must do" list, and spent an entire afternoon at the fascinating and incredible Columbia River Maritime Museum. I'm really not kidding about that, by the way. I've been to my share of museums of all sorts, and I can honestly say it's one of the best I've ever been to. The exhibits are well-done, engaging, and informative, they have an amazing, amazing plethora of items, and even though the topic sounds dry and uninteresting, you will come out with a newfound love (and appreciation) for all things Columbia River Maritime-ish.

apparently, not low maintenance enough

I worked on a presentation I have to do Monday basically all day yesterday, and I do mean all day. As in, from the time I got up to the time I went to bed, with a few breaks sprinkled throughout for an errand, zoning out with Tumblr for a bit, a few games of the new Angry Birds, and some kitty cuddling. BUT! I am also triumphant, because despite the long-ass work day, I still managed to A) make a decent dinner and B) pack a delicious little lunch as a result. Behold, for I am multi-talented.

Also, one of the pieces I wrote for this week's Prompt has prompted me (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) to look for a local landscaping company to come in and get the yard whipped into shape. Because the spring that's been delayed by, like, three months thanks to the 77 straight weeks of cold, wet weather appears to be exploding into existence in the space of approximately 6.432 days. Which means that the winterizing work we didn't do on the yard last fall has now come back to haunt us liek whoa, and I simply cannot take it any more. Looking out my windows to my wonderful yard should not cripple me with guilt. So perhaps if we splurge on a one-time infusion of professional help, we'll magically be converted to grown-ups once again and resume caring for our low-maintenance yard on a more regular basis. THIS IS A FOOLPROOF PLAN I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE.

lunch, black strawberry:

• chicken teriyaki meatball
• rapini and caramelized onions sauteed with just a smidge of stir fry sauce
• short grain brown rice
• blood orange halves and kiwi slices
• dark chocolate covered raisins

ten

One day every month at my workplace, we all gather in the big conference room and celebrate that month's birthdays.  There are cards handmade by one of our workmates who does such things, and there is cake and/or pie, unless it's January when everyone's on a New Year's resolution diet of some sort, in which something ostensibly healthy(ier) is served. We do a big rendition of "Happy Birthday", garbling the names of the celebrants at the "Happy Birthday, dear _____" line in a random mix of all the names -- we've never come together and settled on a single thing to say, like "Happy Birthday, dear everyone", probably because it never occurs to us that we should until we're in the middle of the song and then we realize oh crap, we're coming up on that part again.

During these gatherings, we also celebrate that month's anniversaries with a round of applause and a joke or two. Five-year anniversaries are preceded by a small (usually humorous) speech and a plaque to mark the occasion. Five-year anniversaries are few and far between, but getting more common than they used to be. A sign that we're doing better than we were, despite all the challenges in the last few years especially.

April 2nd marked my tenth anniversary at my company. Only the founder of the company has been there longer.

Today was our monthly celebration. For me, there were (purple!) balloons, a chocolate cake with raspberry filling (they know me too well), a (purple) homemade card signed by everyone...even a purple tablecloth. And instead of a plaque, I received a lovely glass sculpture to memorialize this milestone.

This isn't a job I went to school to learn to do, and like most people, it's nothing like what I thought I'd be doing. But I am very good at it, and pleased to work with the people I do, and proud of what we've been building. And on days like today, I'm reminded why I'm still here after ten years.

...and just to add a little dash of excitement to the whole affair, we had to evacuate the building not long afterward due to a suspected gas leak. It lent an air of mardi gras to the afternoon, particularly when the fire trucks showed up with sirens blaring and cars slowing by on the street to gawk. We were lucky to have a sunny, not-too-chilly day (which, considering the very cold, very wet, and very gray spring, is a minor miracle in iteslf) and giggled as we all took out our cameraphones to snap pics of the firetruck ladder going up. Because we are all secretly twelve years old. Happy Anniversary.

breakfast, matryoshka:

• mini blueberry pancakes, made with berries we picked at Sauvie Island last summer
• blood orange and kiwi half
• Pink Lady apple slice

bento, French bistro:

• Pad Thai (takeout leftovers from Saturday night) with chives for garnish
• carrot sticks with a bit of rapini (aka broccoli raab)
• Pink Lady apple, kiwi half, and more rapini
• dark chocolate covered raisins

furry little terrorists

Our cats are going to be the death of us.

They're now 15 years old with no signs of slowing down. The only sign that they're getting older is that they've gotten increasingly needy and demanding, particularly in the last couple of years. Since Hobbes' earlier troubles with urinary tract infections a few years ago, he's learned the power of peeing ouside the box and now wields it like a weapon. Smaug has decided to become assertive in her later years, and has developed a particularly evil one-two punch of strategic peeing (heating vents) and yowling at just the right frequency to curdle both blood and milk. For hours.

Like good parents, we thought perhaps they're trying to tell us something is wrong. But vet visits thus far have yielded little. They're both ridiculously healthy -- which...I mean, obviously we're happy since neither of us can contemplate life without them...okay, one of us can't contemplate life without them -- and with the exception of the usual signs of geriatric(!) cats, tests come up clean. They eat fine and as long as they are the center of attention for the full length of time they deem necessary, are perfectly behaved.

Any change in routine or schedule is likely to result in a destruction of property of some kind, the severity depending on the length of time we're gone, how close it is to feeding time, and probably whether or not Mercury is in retrograde. For example: anything made of paper left out where Hobbes can get to it is inevitably going to suffer shredding when he's displeased about whatever. The morning I came downstairs a half hour later than usual, I was greeted by Smaug's last vet bill in a million itty bitty pieces all over the dining room floor. When I refused to let them into the studio while I was writing, I came out to find the stack of user manuals for appliances that had been temporarily stacked on the credenza now pushed on the floor, their corners systematically chewed and mangled. When Smaug decided that the canned food she'd been eating for four years suddenly wasn't up to snuff, suddenly peeing along the living room baseboard became the the new fun activity of the moment.

And the list of things that cannot be left out unattended continues to grow: blankets, pillows, clothing, shoes, fabric of any kind, loose rugs, plastic bags, dish rags/towels, loose papers, plants, glasses with any liquid, food of any kind (including dishes not completely clean of any food residue), bags, purses, anything that rolls, or magnets. And probably something else I'm forgetting.

To say that they dictate in our household would be an understatement so large it would have its own gravitational field.

lunch, lunchbot duo:

• maple rosemary chicken breast
• glazed sweet potatoes
• steamed broccoli
• orange sections

snack, matryoshka:

• molded egg
• carrots with peanut butter for dipping
• orange sections
• dark chocolate-covered raisins

new boxes + family fun = happiness

There are many things to be excited about today, but two things that are bummers. Bummer the first: I was sick yesterday and still don't feel so great. Well, sick-ish. Not full-blown sick, but just kind of meh and I figured that was A Sign. I still feel sort of meh, but knew if I didn't get into the office today to at least simmer down some fires, it'd be a full blown conflagration in no time. My job title should really be "firefighter".

Bummer the second: New Seasons will stop doing grocery deliveries in a couple of weeks. This is totally a first-world, problem, I realize, so I hesitate to use such words as "devastated" to describe how I feel about it, and yet.... It's only because of New Seasons' delivery that we have had food in the house for like, the last seven years. The thought of having to somehow fit regular trips to the store into our crazy schedule just makes me want to curl up in a fetal position.

Onward to the good things! Firstly...new bento boxes! I updated the Bento Gear page so you can see all the specs on both of them. Because of no bento yesterday, and they're both smallish, I'm using them both today for a kind of early lunch/afternoon snack combo. Aren't they delightful?

lunch, french bistro:

• ham, Cotswold cheese, in sun dried tomato wraps
• carrots and snap peas
• my famous potato salad -- potatoes (those small creamer potatoes from the bin), dill, oil, apple cider vinegar, with some fresh chives for garnish

snack, matryoshka:

• two molded eggs (haven't seen those for awhile!) and a couple of snap peas for garnish
• tangerine
• cherry decadence trail mix
• sea salt for the eggs in the small container

The other good thing...a wonderful, fun-filled and inspirational weekend with Sister for a Girls' Arty Weekend, in which we shopped 'til we dropped and made big messes with paint and crayons and glitter, oh my! Because we are secretly twelve, she brought her allowance, I brought my birthday money, and we proceeded to fill bags and bags with art supplies.

She came up right after work on Friday and we hightailed it over to Collage to get a headstart on the shopping. Then on to Pizza Fino, where, despite 40 minutes on the waiting list, the delicious meal that followed more than made up for the wait.

Saturday, we stopped across the street from the art store for a quick bite and coffee/hot chocolate at Caffe Umbria. Then it was on for a tour of the wonderousness of Utrecht, where I proceeded to give her a tour of all the different kinds of mediums and tools. AND! She bought her very first acrylic paints! A basic color theory set, along with a starter set of brushes, palette knife, gesso, and gel medium. (And other things, too, of course.) And later that night, we did a little tutorial on the basics of acrylics and then I just set her loose and she's officially in love with acrylics now. SCORE!

Their inventory sufficiently decimated by our shopping spree, we headed over to SCRAP. For those unfamiliar: it's a non-profit that takes in donated (mostly used) items to be used for arts and crafts and sells them for cheap, cheap, cheap. They have everything -- fabric, yarn, thread, paper (omg the paper), paints, crayons, pictures, tiles, calendars, old books, old electronics, old craft kits, glass...well, you get the idea. They take a lot of stuff that isn't even art supplies, but that artists end up turning into something really cool.) I thought poor Sister's little head would go kaplooey at all the stuff to see and look at. Many things are sold by the handful (ex. crayons are 25 cents a handful) or by the inch (old photos are 10 cents an inch, meaning how high your stack is. I get a lot of ephemera there for my mixed media collages and art journal, because I can walk out with a bag full to the brim and only have spent 5 bucks. Oh SCRAP how I adore you!

thanks to birthday money from my momSo here was my haul for the day:

Collage:

• new set of acrylic alphabet stamps (most expensive item I bought there)
• 2" alphabet stencil pack
• 3 gel-ly roll pens (white, purple, black)
• 1 blue Tombo dual marker (forgot to include it in the pic)
• 1 pink Sharpie paint marker (also forgot to include it in the pic)
• 5 little wooden stamps (including one of a grasshopper for Miss M) that were on sale

Utrecht:

• a set of 4 black PITT pens with different tips, which I've wanted forever
• a set of technical/design pencils (5B to 5H) -- for sketching, especially working on faces
• a tube of dioxazine purple acrylic paint -- I have a good range of colors now and of course can mix purple, but I use so much of it that it's just easier to have this one as its own tube
• a tube of alizarin crimson acrylic paint -- same as above
• a new offset oval palette knife with a nice wooden handle -- I have my old straight palette knife but I'm doing so much work at table level rather than on an easel that having an offset knife is useful
• a wee (like 2" high) wooden easel to use for my business cards at work :)

SCRAP:

• two metal printing plates from an old greeting card maker (SO COOL OMG)
• a large acrylic stamp w/block (I don't care about the stamp, just needed the block part)
• a partially used white pigment stamp pad
• some random thermal set letters from an old print shop
• a big handful of used stamps cut from envelopes (10 cents per handful!)
• a big assortment of photos and promo cards, various sizes
• an old slide of a lakeshore
• a negative sheet of random photos
• an old sheet music booklet (sonatas and concertos, mostly)
• a vintage women's jacket and skirt set sewing pattern for collage backgrounds
• a set of 10 transparencies from an astronomy teaching book
• 4 random upholstery fabric swatches
• a small bit of really pretty rainbow yarn
• a small ball of ugly orange/yellow/brown yarn (I wanted something that I didn't care about the color, since it gets covered with paint and glue to use as texture for a collage background)
• a small stencil with two stars on it

We spent the rest of Saturday happily creating our little hearts out in the studio, then a late night viewing of Tangled, which she hadn't seen yet (WHAT), and then when we were headed to bed, got sidetracked with more fun in the studio. Hee. After pancakes the next morning (made for us by Sal), it was time to bid her adieu. Goodbyes are never fun, but I'm so, so thankful that we get to do these weekends, and that Guy and Miss M and Sal are so accomodating to make them possible. In other news: Best. Family. Ever.

if the oregonian were more regularly this awesome...

...I might actually subscribe to it. Hat tip to April Henry, who posted the following yesterday about the headline that's got everyone in town talking:

Actual front-page headline in today's Oregonian: "Scary Bright Ball in Sky Will Go Away."

It was sunny yesterday.

The last time before that?

41 days ago.

it doesn't feel like april

We've had something like 36 straight days of rain, a circumstance that's been cause for comment even in the rainy PNW. I never tire of the damp and the gray, so I'm happy as a rain-drenched little clam, but at this point, I can certainly understand why my fellow Portlanders are getting a little squirrelly.

Usually we've had some glimpses of spring by now, and a few warm days (read: above 60 degrees) by now. We were set to break a record with no 60 degree days before the end of March, but then had a 65 degree day on the 31st. Still, we usually have about ten 60 degree days by this time of the year, and even a few 70 degree days, so it's no one's imagination that it's been an unusually cold, wet, and gray first part of the year.

Anyway, thanks to the weather I'm still craving warm, hearty foods and potato soup sounded like just the thing last night. We had a leek and some chives in our most recent bin, along with more of those adorable little baby potatoes to use up. So I made a big ol' pot of it, and it was so good that I've been looking forward to my lunch all morning.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup: baby potatoes, leek, chives, dill, corn, spaetzle
• carrots, snap peas, and half of a Pink Lady apple
• tangerines and dark chocolate-covered raisins

Also, I got my new Lunchbot box added to the bento gear page, as promised.

the glamorous life i don't lead

taken from a lookout above Cape DisappointmentBack from vacation and leaping right back into the fray. I made some decent progress on my task list, although not as far as I would've liked. The bags and boxes of papers that needed to be gone through have all been sorted and filed (or tossed), but my big ambitious plan to also get our budget tracker up-to-date with the last seventy gajillion months of financial data downsized by significant degrees over the first couple of days, so that by Wednesday evening I was all, "RESPONSIBILITY WHAT IS THAT." Sigh. Being a grown up is hard. But! I did mainline S1 of Boomtown (yes, again) while I worked and watched the BSG mini-series and first couple of episodes for the first time in years, so at least the most important items on my list got crossed off.

one of the beaches at Fort Stevens, looking out across the mouth of the Columbia toward the Washington CoastThursday, I took a day trip to the Coast, Astoria, Ft. Stevens State Park, and up the Washington Coast a bit to Cape Disappointment. It was gray and dark and wet the whole day, which doesn't bother me but did lend a very definite sense of moody atmosphere to the whole affair. The rest of my vacation I spent playing in the studio making a big mess with art supplies, and then all day Sunday writing. Not exactly the most glamorous vacation ever, but a welcome respite nonetheless.

I also indulged in a new bento box! Well, boxes (she says sheepishly). I finally broke down and bought a Lunchbot at New Seasons after more than a year of resisting the temptation, as well as a cool new glass drinking bottle with a silicon sleeve for good measure. Impulse buy? Never heard of it. Anyway, you can see the drink bottle in both of the pictures below, and I used my new box for today's lunch.  (I'll have it added to the Bento Gear listing shortly.)

And then because I was on a streak, apparently, I finally also ordered a couple of Shinzi Katoh boxes I'd been eying forever and a day, mainly because there were originally four boxes I wanted, but two of them had sold out in the months that I'd been gazing longingly but never purchased, so I figured sometimes, delayed gratification can go too far. And since I was saying to hell with my rigid rule about no more new boxes anyway, I'm about this close to also buying a few others on a different site that I've lusted after for, like, years. Because when my self-restraint finally crumbles, it crumbles in spectacular fashion.

I actually had two bentos yesterday since I had Prompt in the evening, but forgot to take a picture of my dinner and then by the time I got home was too tired to write up and post my lunch. So today you get two, two, TWO bentos in one.

yesterday's lunch, black strawberry:

• chicken apple spice sausage
• broccolette
• mini creamer potatoes with strips of gouda
• Rancho Royale apple slices
• chocolates handmade by Sal

today's lunch, orange Lunchbot

• ham and gouda in sundried tomato wraps
• carrot sticks and snap peas
• Pink Lady apple slices

getting things in order

I've taken next week off from work so today is my last bento for a bit. I'd packed it with the idea that I would try to leave a little early today, and figured a small lunch would be added incentive to do that, but it's now 2 PM and I'm just now getting to eat it, so we see how well my plans tend to work out....

Not going anywhere for vacation or anything, just taking a break that I'm planning to use to spend on some organizational stuff at home. Which probably makes me the boringest person ever, but I'm actually excited about it. I'll put a favorite show in the DVD player to marathon while I sort through papers and shred things and fun stuff like that. It'll feel good to put affairs (back) in order and be checked out of the rat race for a bit.

lunch, deli club:

• steamed broccoli
• two very wee creamer potatoes with cheese
• imitation crab (packed while frozen)
• orange wedges
• dark chocolate covered raisins

we have doors!

We have eave closet doors! Which you can't see yet! Because we still need to paint them! But still! DOORS!

Six years, you guys. Six years we've had big gaping holes uncovered closet openings in our attic eave walls. To say that we are overjoyed to finally have doors for those damn closets would be an understatement so gigantic it has its own gravitational field.

Of course, given our track record, it'll probably take another six years to get them painted, but let us hope for all our sakes that it does not. Let us hope that the preliminary plan of attack we came up with for getting them painted in a reasonable and timely manner actually, you know, works.

We also, also got doors for the kitchen shelf space that is actually the back side of the dining room buffet. Those doors also need to be painted, and we need to get glass for the inserts, but the frames, at least, are done. And even unfinished, they look wonderful. I can totally see why some people prefer to renovate with a checkbook instead of a table saw.

We didn't get started on the painting this weekend, however. Sal had to work for a bit yesterday in preparation for the big James Beard Award event taking place at OCI today and he was also fighting off a nasty cold. And I...well, I just played around in the studio all weekend.

Which means I have no good excuse for my sad little bento today, nor for not having a dinner bento for tonight. I am not proud of this bento. This is a bento composed entirely of laziness, sloth, and procrastination, with a side sauce of not-giving-a-crap. But, I figure I should post the bad with the good, so here, let me inflict it upon you.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• orange ginger chicken
• Thai sticky rice with green onion for garnish
• orange ginger chicken sauce

All items are courtesy of last night's takeout leftovers from the neighborhood Thai place. Which is delicious. And is probably the main reason I have a lunch today. Clearly, it's time for a vacation.

tip reminder about time management

A quick post for a quick (and quickly packed) lunch.  I was up late last night working on stuff for website clients but thanks to the wonders of leftovers, managed to pull together a tasty and pretty (if I do say so myself) little meal. I already had the flowers done from a few days ago for Tuesday's lunch, which is a good reminder that if I can do a little extra when I'm preparing a meal and keep a stash of things made/cooked/cut ahead of time, it'll make life easier on days and nights when I'm pressed for time.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• chicken teriyaki meatballs in green lettuce leaves (to use as scoops so my fingers don't get greasy)
• steamed broccoli
• honey glazed red garnet yams
• orzo pasta salad (mushrooms, roasted red peppers, caramelized onion, parsley, rosemary, and balsamic vinaigrette) with two glazed yam flowers and a purple heirloom carrot tulip for garnish

distilling a personality with four simple letters

Today was another work retreat like the one we did last month. Which meant bringing in both a breakfast and lunch and again eating it while everyone else ordered from the restaurant menu. For someone who prefers not to call attention to herself, I've become remarkably ambivalent about this. Remarkable only to me, perhaps, but still.

We took one of those personality/temperament tests (a Myers-Briggs sort of test) as a team building exercise, and let me just say that I am apparently the most textbook case of the "Rational" temperament ever invented. I am, in fact, an INTJ, quantified in this particular test as a "Rational Mastermind". Which makes me sound like the most boringly benign super villain ever. Among other things, I:

• have a temperament (Rational) considered rare (5% to 10% of the population) and a personality type (Mastermind) even more scarce (1% to 2% of the population). [No wonder I often feel like I'm from another planet.]
• value logic and pragmatism above almost all else. [And that planet was apparently Vulcan.]
• am ingenious, independent, strong-willed, and skeptical.
• am generally even-tempered and goal-oriented. [Unless there's something good on TV.]
• yearn for achievement and accomplishment. [A high score on the Scrabble game on my phone counts as an achievement, right?]
• have an innate ability to grasp a project's necessary progression and understand how each step leads to the next.
• prefer to stay in the background, reluctant to take command despite a skill for big picture thinking and focus on details. [HAHAHAHAHA TEST PEOPLE HOW DO YOU READ MY BRAIN WITHOUT A PROBE SCANNER THINGIE FROM A SCI-FI MOVIE.]
• am fascinated with developing strategic plans for others to use. [Hello, my entire job.]
• prefer a work environment where I can exercise intellectual freedom, am provided with challenging work, and have flexible hours, needing time to play at my own outside interests. [Otherwise, I get a little stabbity stabbity.]
• am more comfortable alone than in a crowd, and if a job or social situation requires me to be outgoing or take center stage, I can soon become exhausted and need down time in a quiet place to rest and recharge. [SRSLY TEST PEOPLE YOU ARE KIND OF CREEPING ME OUT WITH YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF ME.]
• draw energy from private, solitary activities, including reading, listening to music, and working by myself on my latest project or hobby.
• crave closure and finality, as well as orderly procedure, and can be quick to make schedules, agendas, or timetables for myself or others to follow. [Excel is my woobie.]
• feel unhappy or unsettled when my personal space is a mess. [HAHAHAHAHA NO REALLY]

There are actually 18 pages of details and charts in the report. My entire me-ness distilled into 18 pages with the accuracy of a DNA test. I read some of it to Sal last night and it was so spot on that he just started laughing. Somewhere around page three.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• cream cheese and barrel pickle in a sundried tomato wrap
• Fuji apple chunk with an heirloom carrot garnish
• peanut butter for dipping

lunch, Paris slimline:

• honey-glazed red garnet yams, with a yam garnish
• steamed broccoli
• parmesan-breaded chicken breast
• orzo pasta salad (mushrooms, roasted red peppers, caramelized onion, parsley, rosemary, and balsamic vinaigrette)
• Fuji apple slices and heirloom carrot sticks
• peanut butter for dipping with carrot garnish
• yogurt covered raisins with carrot garnish