Here are the bentos for this week. I was able to get a little more creative now that I’m not rushing to get myself out the door for work too. (It helped that the baby has started sleeping a little later in the mornings too.)

Tuesday I sent strawberries, tofu (with kissing giraffe cut-outs) and a slice of banana bread with a strawberry cut into a heart shape.

Wednesday I sent mini-pizzas that I made along with our big pizzas the night before. I also sent an apple cut into chunks and some pretzels to fill in the gaps.

Thursday morning I had scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with ideas for Wyatt’s lunch. It felt like we were out of everything. But look how nice this turned out! I put in some leftover salad greens from the previous night’s dinner with a few red pepper stars to jazz it up visually. He never eats the red peppers when I put them in his lunch though, so I think I need to come up with something else. There is a little balsamic vinaigrette in the little bottle with the black lid. I also sent some salami and a blueberry muffin from the freezer.

Friday I gave him a challah bun with a little teddy bear stamped into it, salami, blueberries and a cheese stick. I always open cheese sticks before I put them in his lunch because he can’t do it himself yet.

January 22, 2009: Zach worked night and day on a big deadline for identi.ca

January 23, 2009:I packed up nine books (seven of them Sookie Stackhouse novels) to send out for Paperback Swap. I bought the copy of Willmaker for my Grandma with my employee discount the morning I got laid off — just in the nick of time.

January 24, 2009: Mmmmmm…French toast for breakfast. I should probably take the Christmas tablecloth off soon.

January 25, 2009:My two boys playing on the floor.

January 26, 2009: Wyatt got a time-out for running out the front door of Longs while I was paying. He looks pretty sorry about it, doesn’t he? (Or maybe not.)

January 27, 2009: Zach doesn’t like waking up in the mornings.

January 28, 2009: I managed to fit six years of accumulated crap from my office in two boxes. Items of note include my pretty, pretty unicorn, a fan, a surprisingly healthy plant, and a mini Etch-a-Sketch that I’ve had on my desks at various jobs for the last 12 years.

Tuesday’s bento box was an example of one made in the artist’s blue period. In honor of Wyatt’s new, blue bento box and it’s matching fork, I decided to try to make a blue-ish lunch. I sent blueberries (of course), leftover string beans, a blueberry muffin and some salami. I also noticed, after taking the picture that it’s sort of red, white and blue, so if you want you can say it’s in honor of the inauguration too.

Wednesday I put some sliced apples, salami, blueberries and some sugar-free jell-o jigglers in Wyatt’s lunch. It’s hard to tell from this picture, but the jell-o was molded into train shapes using a little silicone mold. I forgot to take pictures of the mold this time, so I’ll try to remember to do that next time. I told Wyatt they were his treat and he ate his entire lunch in order to get them. Hee hee.

Thursday’s lunch was blueberries, salami, a slice of whole wheat white bread cut into quarters and some broccoli I pulled out of the freezer. Two seconds after I took this picture, I dropped the lid and the blue half of this box in the crockpot insert that was soaking in the sink. Grrrrr… The hastily made replacement box wasn’t quite as nice looking.

Friday I gave Wyatt baked teriyaki tofu, strawberries and blueberries, and more bread strips. I also gave him a little brownie (for a real treat — not a tricky treat). I got a call from the preschool about five minutes after I got home from dropping him off saying he wasn’t feeling good, so I went back to get him. He ended up eating this as soon as he got home. He’s been home with us all day today and frankly, I think he may have been faking it, but what are you gonna do?

This was a very eventful week for me. Read on to the bottom to hear what happened.

January 15, 2009: Brothers sitting on the couch together.

January 16, 2009: I registered Wyatt for kindergarten on Friday. There were so many forms to fill out, it took me about 45 minutes.

January 17, 2009: Mama and Augie. I love the look on Augie’s face here. I also like how the doorknob behind me looks like a giant diamond earring.

January 18, 2009: Sunday we went to a birthday party for a preschool friend at the Y. I wish we’d had those parachutes to play with when I was a kid. I think Wyatt gets to play with them weekly now.

January 19, 2009: Stupid drive-through Starbucks. It’s so easy to zip through and get something to drink when the baby has nodded off in the car. Before Christmas I was drinking a pumpkin spice latte almost every day. Now that we’re having a heat spell, I’ve been getting big honkin’ iced teas.

January 20, 2009: We don’t have a TV, so we watched the inauguration on my laptop at the kitchen table while we ate breakfast and I put together lunches. It was such an exciting, historical moment. I kept getting teary-eyed.

January 21, 2009: I got laid off. This was the third round of lay-offs in four months for my company and I was one of the unlucky ones this time around. I’d worked at Nolo for over six years — longer than I’ve ever worked at any job. I’m definitely sad to be leaving and I hope that things turn around for Nolo soon. The economy is just killing the book industry. I think I’m going to take a few weeks to look around at what jobs are out there and think about what I want to do next before I start sending out resumes. My dad suggested that I write a bento-themed mystery novel. Anyone else have some clever ideas for a new career for me?

Friday afternoon, Augie and I took a field trip down to the Daiso store in Union City. The first time I visited this Daiso I forgot my camera, so this time I was sure to bring it along. I wasn’t actually after bento supplies on this trip (I needed containers to organize our freezer) but I thought I’d take a few photos of the bento shelves to share with all my bento buddies. Daiso is truly a fantasy for the bento obsessed. It’s so cheap (unlike eBay) and the quantity of bento stuff is remarkable.

OK, so here is the front of the store to give you a little context. Just an unassuming store front in a strip mall. “Oh look! There are pink flowers on this building,” you think. “There might be something interesting in there.”

Then, you go inside and spot the large poster board sign with the word “BENTO” spelled out in neon papers. You are drawn like a moth to a flame. And then you spot the piles of bento boxes.

You turn your head to avoid being blinded by the glory of adorable lunch boxes and you are met with the site of even more lunch boxes, some of them fancy enough that they cost $3, $4…even some that are $5. Those are really special.

As you move a few feet down the aisle you spot some cute foil and paper cups. This is perhaps the largest assortment of paper cups you have ever encountered. All the different shapes! All the different patterns! There are pink things!! Oh my!

But then you move along and discover even more paper cups! Yowza!

The next aisle over has picks, silicone cups, little bottles, and more decorative food dividers than you have ever seen in your life. There are chopsticks too, and little forks and spoons but your photographer failed to take a picture of those.

I spent about $25 in the store, but very few of the items I got were bento related. I bought some baskets to organize our freezer, a mini-piggie bank for my desk at work, a calender, plus some other odds and ends. I did end up getting two bento boxes and a couple of little forks though.

When he saw these forks in the case, Wyatt told me, “These cases are here so that if I maybe poke you in the bottom with my forks they don’t get all dirty.” Ha ha. Sheesh.

I am so proud to be an American today! So very, very proud. I haven’t been able to wipe the grin off my face all day long. President Obama isn’t actually the candidate I was supporting at the beginning of the election (Kucinich!), but he is who I voted for in both the primary and the general election. Obviously, I’m thrilled that my candidate won, but I’m also proud that my country elected an African-American president. My friend Evan pointed out today that 150 years ago, 11 states seceded on the election of an anti-slavery president. Today, 79% of Americans support our black leader. I wondered if I would see this day in my life time and now it has come.

I made a point of having both boys watch the actual swearing in with me. We don’t have a TV, so we watched on my laptop on the kitchen table. Wyatt asked questions and I think he got the gist of it, if not all the details. (“Is Rock Obama our new king, Mama?”) Augie didn’t really understand it either, I don’t think. But some day, I’ll be able to have a conversation with them about the history they witnessed today, what went before and what this means to our country.

I was heartened by the President’s inaugural address and I found it filled me with…yes…wait for it…hope. Hope that some of the violence perpetrated by and against our country will come to an end. Hope that our privacy and civil liberties will be restored (besides my husband’s conviction that that will never happen to his satisfaction). Hope that science, logic and reason will prevail. I loved this line:

We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.

And I was impressed by this one as well:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.

A shout-out to agnostics and atheists! An acknowledgement that people of all beliefs should be respected! Cool.

The tide is turning. No matter how this turns out in the end, there’s no doubt things are going to change around here.