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

Comments

[Anne Hawley]

That Lunchbot is wonderful! I've been tempted myself. But since I have yet to even USE my gorgeous all-wood real Japanese Bento Box, I'm being strict with myself about new purchases.

Your day trip to the coast sounds lovely and haunting.

[Bitty]

I've been wondering about that wooden box of yours, if I'd missed pictures of it in use or if you hadn't used it yet....

I LOVE the Lunchbot. It's funny how you develop "tastes" for a certain kind of box. Like, round is my least favorite, square is harder than expected, I really like the challenge of the slimline, and the single-tier has unexpectedly become one of my favorite types. Weird, huh?

My day trip was indeed lovely and...momentous. Haunting is absolutely the perfect word for it. There's some backstory that goes with it, including some art journal spreads, that I expect to go into in more depth in other places. When you see those, you'll realize why your choice of descriptor made me shiver with its accuracy.