It took me a long time to regain my stregnth and catch up with school work after being sick. And I've finally gotten my camera repaired so even though Gothiphine has a little more than a month left of school, I'll be taking pictures of my bentos again! YAY!

I have never been this sick in all my years. I think with my Lil' Bear going to day care allowed him to collect various disease components and bring the results to me. My only hope is that I don't mutate it and give it back to him since he wants to kiss me all the time to make me feel better. I ended up with it on Friday which effectively canceled my weekend plans to attend ritual down in Augusta with my beloved pagan group there. On top of that the clutch in my car had to be replaced....good thing the income tax money already came in.

Several weeks ago, I had my astrology chart drawn up. I was never really one to read my horoscope in the paper because I felt it was sort of like 'Nick of Time' an episode from the Twilight Zone in which William Shatner plays a guy obessed with following the advice of a fortune telling machine. So why get my chart drawn up by an astrologer?
Well, I've always been intrested in the ideal of 'nature vs. nuture'. Just how much do the planets influence us when compared to the situations we were born into. I've been really thinking about how similar our lives are to that of our ancestors. At some point in time we may have heard how we look just like Aunt Sally or how Uncle Jo used to love doing some activity that we've started doing. The more I learn and reflect, the more I believe that all of these pieces play a part in knowledge of oneself. Nosce te ipsum

Monday Gothiphine was out of school, so we went to one of our local Super H Marts and had a bento lunch! Miso soup, tempura (shrimp, sweet potato, and onion), kim bob, a salad with orange ginger dressing, rice and terriyaki chicken:
( Check out the new bento )

I love the size of this bento because I can pack enough food for two people. Today is such a lovely Autumn day that Lil' Bear and I will take our lunch out to the park and it'll stay warm since it's only a ten minute walk from my apartment. We have chicken quesadillas, a Southwestern Eggroll and dipping sauce leftover from Chili's, black beans with some pico de gallo in it, guacamole and more pico for the quesdillas, green beans, and fruit cocktail. I also packed some warm apple cider since cool weather always makes me think of apple cider:
( Only one more today. )

Today was all about the oni-the ones with faces were stuffed with tuna, other mixed with ume seasoning, the ones with nori faces in Lil' Bear's bento were plain. Everything else is pretty self explainitory:
( What's with the pink thing in there? )

After a short break, my classes started back today so we're still eating from the freezer. Last week, I took a pie crust and made a bunch of little handpies to put in the bentos. Gothiphine got pepperoni pizza ones along with crispy green beans, mandarin oranges and baby pear slices
( There's more )

I’m sure Lil’ Bear will pick out all the peas from this fried rice but I’ve already cooked it in veggie broth so at least he’ll get some of the nutrients:
( check out the other ones! )

For the amount of bentos I make, I really need to make sure that I don't forget to update...otherwise I will get really back logged. In looking at my journal I forgot to update on Friday.
I made up some fried chicken wings the night before and packed Lil' Bear some corn, steamed broccoli, and blueberries:
( this way for more bento goodness )

Okay so I comepletely spaced and forgot to post my bentos yesterday! First an after lunch report: I had to bite into one of the gyoza sammies to prove to my toddler that I wasn't trying to give him anything...yucky. After that he ate happily and brought me his bento when he was finished...which looked like this:
( And now for the bento stash )

I don't usually get so carried away with the cuteness for my lunch but I must say after seeing the idea of using a gyoza maker to press sammies, I just had to get my gyoza makers out and have my own!
My gyoza sammies have Strawberry cream cheese and banana, Roasted red pepper hummus, egg salad and PB and J along with green bell pepper strips, carrot flowers, banana guys on top of raspberries, strawberries and blueberries:
( So cute it's sickening! )

Don't you just love October? I was so excited to pull out a hoodie this morning as October came in with a bit of a cold snap...just enough to put me in the mood for a walk in the woods to check out the fall color! Since I'm not sure where I would go for fall color here yet, I opted for a picinic lunch for me and Lil' Bear and something simple for Gothiphine.
For the picinic in tier one we have soba noodle nests with soba dipping sauce in the yellow container, dumpling sauce in the red container. In tier two we have various fried dumplings (veggie, pork and chicken)and steamed veg. I brought along a couple of apples (not pictured):
( one more )

Honestly, I don't do full out tea parties enough. After a tiring week of getting back to routines, these bentos were fun to put together and some what made up for the fact that I missed the lolita tea party at AWA.
I found a dinosaur sammie cutter so Lil' Bear gets a dinosaur filled with cream cheese and grape fruit spread, salad greens (for the dino to eat 'cuz I know he won't touch them!), blue corn chips and an organic orange:
( join the tea party )

Lil' Bear really loves ramen noodles but will leave the veg bits behind. How does a mom boost the nutrition for a picky eater? Hide it and make it cute! Here we have a mini omelete lion face(veg on the underside)surrounded by a mane of spinach ramen noodles. Banana pieces show varying degrees of unhappiness
( one more )

Wow this week just seems to be flying by! I forgot to a link to my Anime Weekend Atlanta pictures. http://flickr.com/photos/43078071@N00/sets/72157602137250645/
I still have more pictures to add that I hope to get to over the weekend.
Anyway, here's today's lunch:
'Phine had a rough day so I had the bananas make faces at her. Miso chicken donburi on a bed of rice, sakura blossom pickled cucmber slices, tomatoes, a few chunks of honeydew melon, and an apricot flavored prune.
( there's more )

I have to say that I had such a good time at con it was a shame to have to wake up and be back in the "real world". So here we are back to bentos. This year at con, they had a bento making panel and I was so inspired by the presenter I decided to bust out the bento boxes and give cuteness a try again. Yesterday's lunch wasn't that cute as it consisted of con leftovers but today I did get a bit more cuteness in.
Monday we had steamed leek buns, soba noddles with soba sauce, wasabi and daikon, steamed mixed veg and cinamon applesauce
( 2 more )

Arrr'gh Maties! Today be International talk like a pirate day and I be taken a break from the mad final dash of sewing to update the last few days of bentos.
Taquitos make for a quick easy lunch
( Follow me or walk the plank! )

My mom got me these great pumpkin dishes that can be cooked and served in. I made chili and it looked so pretty I had to share it.

Here's another one

Before we get to today's bento I have the final update on the carpet drama. It was finally replaced Monday evening which I'm thankful for but here's the blessing. The manager of the carpet guys and the Maintenance manager got me gift certificates for dinner and a movie complete with popcorn and a drink for my inconvience. How cool is that? Alrighty back to bentos!
So over at Flickr.com, I've joined the "iron bento" group. Similar to the Iron Chef show an ingredient (or dish)is chosen and we use it during the week but there are no winners or losers, just delicious food pics! So this week's challenge was seafood-less sushi. To that end, I found a website called sushiday.com which has some off the wall combinations. Some of the ones I tried included the ham nigiri, kappa (cucumber) and apple maki, and I made my own twist on her BLT maki...BE (bacon and egg), with green onion, red and yellow bell pepper maki. Maybe I'll just call that one a southwestern style maki. I included some apple slices and an Asian style 3 bean salad with an ginger apricot sauce.
( wanna another bite? )

You can tell what kind of week I've been having by the fact that there's been no update. And there's soooo many bentos! So let's get started!
Pita pizzas,steamed corn and brocolli
( Want more? )