Tarte Make Believe in Yourself Palette

I have been eyeing the Tarte Make Believe in Yourself eye shadow palette for months. It's a limited edition palette, and when it went on sale at Sephora for $30 last week, I let myself be talked into purchasing it.

Tartelette Tease Review

Until last year, all of my makeup has been Mary Kay or drugstore brands. MaryKay changed their formulas over a decade ago, so I had to switch, and I think I went through every drugstore brand of eye shadow out there. Unfortunately, all of them were too powdery and bothered my eyes, or they outright caused allergic reactions. I started purchasing the MaryKay eye primer, and that helped me enough to be able to use the eye shadows, but by the end of the day, my eyes would be burning and sore. Honestly, I just assumed that makeup and I were no longer friends.

I was tired of being miserable at the end of every wedding, funeral, and job interview (the only times I wore make-up), so over the winter I went searching for something new. After Ladylike on Buzzfeed mentioned Sephora several times, I decided to check it out. After weeks of sticker shock, I purchased the the Tartlette Tease and some Too Faced Shadow Insurance Glitter Glue Glitter Bonding Eye Shadow Primer. I WAS SOLD.

My eyes didn't burn at all by the end of the day! The color pigment on the My eyes didn't burn once I figured out that I needed to tap off extra shadow so powder didn't get in my eyes. I thought it was absolutely adorable that the color names were printed on the palette.

Gracenote

I've mentioned The Coffee Trike before, and I was thrilled for San (the owner) when I found out he was opening a brick and mortar location. What a wonderful new endeavor for him!

Quick Definition List to make this post easier to follow:

1. Gracenote Coffee Roasters (Gracenote Coffee) have been around since 2012. They roast locally, and they source some delicious beans.
2. Gracenote Boston Espresso Bar (Gracenote Boston) is the brick and mortar shop that San opened in October 2015. 
3. The Coffee Trike is the wonderfully innovative trike that San used to bicycle in to Dewey Square every Monday to Friday unless the weather was super bad. He used Gracenote Coffee.

Unfortunately, The Coffee Trike had been parked right outside my train stop during my morning commute, and while Gracenote Boston is only a few blocks from there, location, it's in the opposite direction from my office. An extra eight blocks on a winter morning is huge. This morning I decided to hell with it, I missed my morning deliciousness, and I was going to get some. There are two great coffee shops near my office, but they aren't The Coffee Trike, and it's about damned time I checked out Gracenote Boston.

The full review can be found behind the link after this quick summary:

PROS

• Delicious cold brew. Seriously. The best.
• Friendly, helpful staff.
• A charming and pretty shop.
• Located close to South Station.
• They use Gracenote beans and also sell them so you can bring them home.
• They use Square so if you have the app on your phone but forgot your wallet you can still get your caffeine goodness. 
• The daily Twitter posts are useful and generally accompanied by craving-inducing photos. 
• Some staff (maybe all? I don't know) might use beautiful latte art on your drink.

CONS

• San wasn't there. Thankfully his staff is super friendly, so I had a lovely introduction to my morning.
• No seating.
• Small drink size.
• The shop was built for tall people. 
• Weird location that's off the beaten path but only by about .15 miles.
• Really hard to find the first time. All future trips will be a piece of cake
• The website doesn't provide info on the brick and mortar location.

SUMMARY

• Go there. 
• Seriously. Go there. 
• YUM!

Uni Kuru Toga .5mm Auto-rotating Lead Pencil

My Uni Kuru Toga and My/Mon Mini Journal

My baby pink Uni Kuru Toga .5 mm auto-rotating lead pencil from Jetpens looks so cute with my My/Mon Mini Journal (4" x 5.5")! My Pretty Pretty Princess (that's my friend's name) brought me this delightful little notepad last time I saw her. I'm sure her plan was that I constantly pair it up with the pencil she hadn't known I'd recently purchased.

It's been ages since I reviewed anything, but that doesn't mean I'm not constantly trying out new products. Mechanical pencils are always an iffy proposition for me, though. I don't own many because I am so picky about them. I looked through a pencil blogs, and it seems that most are focused on the wooden pencil. The mechanical pencil reviews are isolated in their own mechanical and draft pencil blogs. I love that there's a blog out there for everything!

Photo from Jetpens.com

APPEARANCES AND FEEL IN HAND 
My baby pink Uni Kuru Toga is the cutest pencil I've ever owned.  Look at that tip - the shiny chrome look moves up to the pink edging which continues on smoothly to the clear plastic cover that shows off the rotating mechanism. This visible portion of the rotating mechanism is orange and white, but I think it might only be for decorative purposes to differentiate it from other pencils because I can't actually see anything happening. The eraser cap is pink and slightly see-thru. The pencil is very smooth in my hands, but my guess is that if I carried it out and about instead of just leaving it on my work desk, it would probably lose some of the extra smoothness. I would have liked the pencil name on the white clip to have matched either the pink of the body or the pink that's down by the pencil tip, but truthfully, I didn't even notice that they didn't match until I sat down to review the pencil. One thing this pencil is missing is a cap over the sharp tip. I've ruined more sweaters by putting pencils like this in my pocket then snagging yarn on the sharp point as I pull the pencil from my pocket.


The gray pencil has a blue ring where the hot pink ring is at the tip, you can't really see the mechanism clearly through the gray plastic shell, and the eraser cover is dark blue and almost see-thru. While the pink pencil is adorable, the gray one is very plain with simple. The pink looks more expensive, too, but I can't figure out why I think that.

BUT HOW'S IT WRITE?
I've only used this pencil with HB (hard) lead: the Uni .5 HB lead that came with it and the Pentel Ain Stein .5 HB lead.  Pentil Ain Stein had good reviews, so I picked it up, and until today I didn't really notice any difference than with the other leads I've used. Taking a look in my desk drawer, I see that's because the third lead I own (BIC) is also HB, and I don't really know enough to differentiate between leads.  However, when I filled my gray pencil with the Pentil Ain Stein and left the Uni HB in the pink to test the different leads, I discovered that I have a slight preference for the Uni lead. It seemed to write more smoothly, although they both are working well with the pencil and not causing any problems or difficulties. I have no idea if the fact that it's a Uni pencil and Uni lead makes a difference.

The rotating mechanism definitely keeps my point sharper. It doesn't keep it "new lead" sharp, but the lines never become as thick as standard non-rotating pencil lead becomes when you don't rotate the pencil in your hand.

Here's the thing with the rotating mechanism: I still have to advance my lead. I had thought my gray pencil was a non-rotating Uni pencil because ads say that the rotating lead means you don't need to advance it yourself. When I bought my pink pencil I realized that I was also advancing lead. To see if it was how I write I asked a coworker to use my pink pencil for a week,. When she returned it, she told me that she never had to advance the lead. The rotating mechanism took care of that for her. My assumption is that this is because I write very quickly, to the point that I sometimes I have trouble reading over notes from meetings that happened a month or two ago. I have noticed that I need to advance the lead far less often than with standard rotating lead mechanical pencils.

BREAKAGE
The lead breaks far less often in my Uni Kuru Toga pencils than it does in other brands of mechanical pencils. I'm assuming that's because the rotating mechanism keeps the pencil from becoming very dull, and thus sharper and being rotated, which for me leads to frustration and my writing harder and slamming the pencil down. I'm also guessing it's because I start with a far less advanced lead than I do with other mechanical pencils. I don't have to continually click the lead out on my rotating lead pencil, so I don't feel the need to click it out as far as possible.

Less breaking is huge for me because I prefer a super fine point pencil but really do press too hard.  I tested a Retro 51 Tornado Crossword 1.15mm pencil at a Sarnoffs in Tucson, and it was amazing.  However, I can't come up with any reason to ever purchase myself a luxury pencil like that. It's gorgeous, but it lays such a thick line that I can't imagine what I'd ever use it for. I doubt that thinck lead breaks much, though!

ERASER
The erasers that came with this pencil are exceptional. I have other eraser refills in my desk from my other pencils, but I'm probably going to purchase the refills sold specifically for this pencil because they erase that well. However, this could be the age of the erasers - I've only had the gray pencil since February and the pink pencil since May. My erasers aren't used often, and dried out or dirty erasers just make a mess. The eraser cap probably helps keep the eraser working better since it stays clean and won't lay down schmootz on your desk.


CLIP
The pencil clip is a joke. You can clip your pencil to the top of your pad as long as you have no plans to actually move your pad around. The only thing the clips are good for is keeping your pencil from rolling off an unlevel desk. They would probably also work clipped onto a pocket protector as long as you don't bend over and pick up one of these pencils you'd clipped to your notebook before walking to your boss's office. I've never used a pocket protector. How do you keep the pocket protector in your pocket when you pull a pen with a working clip off it? Do you pin them into your shirt? If you use pocket protectors, these are pretty.


SUMMARY
I love my Uni Kuru Toga pencil, and I love the lead that comes with it. Even though I write too quickly for the auto-rotating mechanism to keep up, I advance the lead far less often then with other mechanical pencils, and it does work for the other person who tested the pencil for me. It's adorable, it feels smooth and soft in the hand, and I'm definitely glad I spent the money on these pencils.

PROs:

• The baby pink is attractive with nice little additions like the color coordinated eraser cap.
• The pencil writes well on all the paper I tried it on.
• The rotating mechanism makes the pencil far less annoying than all my other mechanical pencils because the lead breaks less because I don't have to advance it as often.
• The pencil feels good in my hand. It's smooth without being slippery.

CONS:

• This is inexpensive in the overall scheme of pencils, but it's more expensive than many folks are used to paying for a mechanical pencil. To that I saw pish tosh. Keep it in one place so that you don't loose it.
• The clip is a waste of money. They shouldn't have bothered wasting the time to put on a useless clip.
• I want to try the .7mm now, and that's going to be more spent money.

---------------

So, what do you think; should I give my coworker the extra pencil since she liked the auto-rotation so much?

Stationery

I'm having a very difficult time buying writing paper in person (with matching envelopes and not sized to go through the printer). Notecards are everywhere. Which is nice, but I want to write letters, not a thank you card!  I tried whining and complaining for a bit, that didn't get stationary into my hands.

So I made some stationary today. I have a gorgeous notebook with plain white paper that too small for my notebook taste but too heavy to use a jotter-pad. So I cut some pages out of it and grabbed the washi tape.

But what about an envelope? I mean, the note stationery pages are not big enough to turn into postalettes, so I need a paper transporting device.  That's where my new favorite toy comes in:

Kuretake Handmade Envelope Template photo courtesy of Jetpens

The kuretake handmade envelope template is amazing. I ordered a package that came in earlier this week, and this was one of my happy items. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of a huge project, and I didn't get to play with it the first four days I owned it!

I made up for lost time today. And I forgot to take photos, so I'll rifle through some of my outgoing mail and see if any of it is worth taking a photo of.

I used a map and some magazines. They only fit the second smallest envelope size, and I'd like to find something a bit larger to trace the template on. Any suggestions?

October Olive Box

Olive Box is a monthly stationery subscription service (so much better than the fruit of the month!). It's even better than the wine of the month. I can go to the store, pick the wine I'm in the mood for, then sip my chosen wine (I would like a Cassillero del Diable Carmenere, please) while playing with my new stationery.  

Olive Box has such wonderful stationary!

I place quite a few online orders each month, but I always know what's inside my packages. Olive Box is the answer! I get to increase my stationary collection and receive a nice surprise in the mail.  I had been considering a Quarterly Co., but I promised myself I'd only purchase myself one subscription, and stationery won.

That didn't last long. This morning I joined Goulet Pen's Ink Drop. But it's very nicely priced,  $10 with shipping included, and I need to get some ink! I don't know anything about ink, so Ink Drop's sample sizes will help me learn without costing me $9-20 per bottle.  Subscription services are addictive!

In September, I purchased the October box on a month-to-month basis. It was a test to see what I thought of the service. After sitting with my October box for a few days, I ordered a 6-month subscription. I look forward to monthly surprises through April. I would have liked to have gotten the 12-month subscription - it breaks down so that each box is cheaper, and it comes with a $25 gift certificate for its sister company, Pink Olive.  But it was too pricey for me at the moment. That's ok. In six months I will just re-join :-)

I've had to create wish lists in Pink Olive, Goulet Pen, and Jetpens just so that I can track all the wonderful writing things I need to buy!

It's all about me!

The October Olive Box came in simple, tasteful packaging. The box had a lid, so I didn't have to open the side and dump everything out like with a FedEx box.

When I lifted the lid, there was a package wrapped in blue tissue paper sitting on brown crinkly spring paper (no ugly bubble wrap or styrofoam peanuts). If you decide to give an Olive Box subscription as a gift, your friend will receive a beautifully package that doesn't contain billing information.

Each box has a theme. This month's theme is, "It's all about me!"  An unsealed, gold envelope contained a letter about the box's contents. The envelope flap had a small white heart sticker that easily peeled off to decorate my cork board. The blank envelope is now waiting to hold a letter. The envelope is made of a shiny, thick paper that will require a Sharpie or a ballpoint pen.

The blank notecard is a cheerful white decorated with triangles, and it has "hooray" emblazoned on the front. The envelope is brown paper that I can leave as-is or decorate.

The sticker that came in the box proclaims, "You are loved," and will make a delightful addition to a future package. I might even use it on the gold envelope.  If I didn't want to share it, I could decorate one of my plain notebooks (the simple gray text would make a nice addition to the plain black cover of my Black n'Red notebook).

A small plastic bag of confetti was included in the box. I hate getting packages with confetti in them. It's cute for two seconds, then I spend an hour picking itty bitty pieces of plastic and paper out of my carpet before the cat eats it and gets sick. My current apartment has tile and no kitties, but that doesn't change the fact that confetti makes a mess  I will probably give this away to someone (after making them promise it will not be included in anything they give me!).  

The final (main!) item in the box is a diary. I opened the diary, felt the smooth pages, and immediately wrote my name on the box that says "this is the beautiful life of" on the pink inside cover  Well, I took a quick picture before I wrote on it.

The inside front cover is pink and has a square to write your name.
The Lamy Safari is included to show the diary's size.

I wrote my name on the inside cover before reading the smaller print on the cover. I was upset when I turned the page and saw on the cover page that it's "my autobiography in drawings." I don't draw. I tossed my Olive Box in the corner of my living room and moped for a few days because I couldn't regift it to someone else with my name on it. I didn't want to use it for text because then I'd remember I'm a lousy draw-er and that's why I was forced to write in a drawing diary.  

After a few days I got over myself and fixed the diary. It is now my autobiography in words and drawings. I am back to being in love with my new diary and my entire Olive Box.

My autobiography in words and drawings.

The diary is from  from Chronicle Books. Their website states:

Inspired by the enduring magic and importance of books, our objective is to create and distribute exceptional publishing that's instantly recognizable for its spirit, creativity, and value. This objective also informs our business relationships and endeavors, be they with customers, authors, vendors, or colleagues

The pages of my new journal are edged with silver. The pages are smooth, and they are thick enough that there's no bleed through with my fountain pens. In fact, writing on them with my Estebrook SJ fountain pen is one of the most beautiful writing experiences I've ever had. I used a fine point master nib with J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis (forget-me-not blue) ink. I have been eyeing Rhodia and other high quality journals, but I couldn't convince myself that they were worth the extra expense when the cheap Carolina notebooks are good enough. Writing in this diary has convinced me to buy the dotted Rhodia notebook that I've been oogling for ages.  I really, really want to write on a dotted page and enjoy the experience of high quality paper!

My Estebrook SJ with J. Herbin Mystosis Bleu ink writes like a dream in this Chronicle Books diary.

The pages are blank with small notes at the bottom that suggest what I should write about. I already have a journal to write random thoughts in, so this is a fun journal addition.  

Some pages have margin outlines, and some don't. I usually dislike margin outlines, but these are small enough that they don't negatively affect the page size. 

 A very small margin does not disrupt the white space like so many outlined pages do.
The Lamy Safari and the Estebrook SJ are included in the picture for size... and because they're awesome.

My conclusion?   Olive Box = Awesome  I am already looking forward to my November package!

March 2013 Update: I have fallen out of love with Olive Box. I misunderstood the type of content I would receive, and I haven't enjoyed any box as much as I've joined my first one. I don't want a book about home decorating or a country-charm style wall print. I thought I was getting a "paper" subscription, but I was mistaken. The boxes are always beautiful, and the products included in it are top quality. I would definitely give a subscription to Olive Box to someone who would appreciate it, but I won't be continuing my subscription once my current subscription is complete.

Carolina Pad Hot Chocolate Notebooks

SUMMARY OF THE FULL REVIEW:  I love the Hot Chocolate Notebooks

Pros:  They were cheap (I got them for $1 each on clearance). There's no feathering when used with my fountain pens. I can write on both sides of the pages with fountain pens and roller balls. The wire binding is strong, the cover is sturdy, and the notebooks are attractive.

Cons:  The 10.5" x 8.5" is a bit too large for my use. It's the standard notebook size I used in high school and college. The local store I purchased them from no longer sells these notebooks, and I'm not sure about the Carolina Pad customer service. I emailed them last Tuesday (today is Sunday) to find out where I can purchase the notebooks locally, and I still haven't received a reply. The smaller notebook has a plastic sleeve envelope at the front as well as plastic index tabs. The larger one doesn't.


FULL REVIEW

I'm at Seven Cups teahouse in Tucson, 
and they keep the lights dimmed. 

I am constantly looking for a notebook that meets my needs and doesn't cost a lot. That's how I ended up with the  Carolina Pad Hot Chocolate Notebooks. First and foremost, I should be able to use my notebook anywhere and everywhere. The paper should be thick enough that I can write on both sides with a fountain pen, and it needs to be smooth enough that there's no skipping or catching when the pen moves across the page. I need a sturdy notebook - it'll be tossed in my bag and carried everywhere. It might also be stepped on. I want my notebook to lay flat when I'm writing in it.  It should be attractive (which is extremely subjective - in my case, the colors should be ones that I enjoy looking at, I don't want movie stars on the page, and please, no fake heart tattoos). Oh, and the page should be completely usable. I will not purchase a notebook that has a huge flower along the bottom right corner leaving a portion of the page un-usable. The page should be lined or there should be dots marking where lines could be.  My Hot Chocolate Notebook fits the bill.

Paper

The paper is a crisp white, but it's not blinding. There is sometimes slight show-thru on the page of the page when I use a rollerball or a fountain pen (but it's not there all the time, perhaps it depends on how slowly I'm writing).  When there is slight show through, there are no detrimental effects to the page, and I can easily and comfortably write on both sides of the page without there being visible issues.

This notebook has 80 3-hole punched, micro perforated sheets. Microperforation is one of those innovations that started showing up everywhere while I was still a student, and it made me so happy. I tear pages from my notebooks, and I hate those long lines of ugly page edges hanging out of my wire.

10/20/12 UPDATE:  I have a larger selection of Hot Chocolate Notebooks now, and I've noticed that the microperforation sucks on most of them. About 1/4 to 1/3 of the page generally tears without following the microperforation.

I wrote a sample page, and there was no bleed through at all on the pens or pencil. There was a touch on a Sharpie Ultra Fine Point, but it's a Sharpie! You'll notice that there's no feathering with any of the pens - not even the Sharpie.

No feathering - not even on the Sharpie!

The picture above shows a page testing all the pens in my pencil case today. I wonder why I persist in calling it a pencil case when I store pens in it (and one pencil)?

Fountain Pen Usage

The page is smooth, and all my fountain pens glide across the page. Except the Sailor Candy. The Sailor Candy often catches and skips on this notebook, but it seems to do that on all of my paper!  I just used it today for the sample page, and the Sailor Candy actually had a beautiful, wet, thin line. I'm wondering if my Sailor Candy might just have more reactions to weather than my others.  I generally use my Platinum Preppies (blue/black and purple) and my Lamy Safari with Watermans brown ink with this notebook.

10/20/12 UPDATE: I have been using it regularly with my Estebrook SJ master 9665 nib and J. Herbin Forget-Me-Not ink for a few weeks, and I am very happy with it. It isn't bad with my dip pen in the forget-me-not ink, but the lines are too close to write neatly.

II sent an email to Carolina Pads to ask where in Tucson I can buy more Hot Chocolate Pads and where I can get a Sasquatch. The Staples I bought mine at put them on Clearance for $1 each because they don't stock them anymore.  Unfortunately, it's been five days, and I have not received a reply. The Carolina Pad website is annoying - instead of listing where you can buy a notebook by city and/or state, it's listed by individual store. So you have to go to each store's website and then click to see if there is a location in your town. They sell at a lot of stores, and I know for a fact that while they sell the notebooks at Staples, they do not sell them at the Staples near me.

Cover
The cover is a solid, hard cardboard. I generally write at a table or on a tray table that has been allowed down during the flight, but it's not always possible to lay my notebooks flat. The solid cover of my Hot Chocolate allows me to write comfortably while balancing the notebook on my thigh along the bottom margin of the page or while sitting in the car with it propped up between my body and the steering wheel. The covers have taken a bit of a beating over the last few months; they show a bit of wear along the edges, but they haven't bent at all.

Binding
I don't care what type of binding a notebook has as long as it can lie flat. That's hard to find in bound notebooks, so I often purchase wire bound notebooks. This notebook is wire bound using the same style of wire binding that I use for work. Since it's not a spiral binding, the wires don't move around, and there's no "unwinding." Remember back in high school when your notebook would start to unwind? By the end of the school year, you'd be ripping your clothing on the sharp edges of the wire!?

10 bonus points for the spiral binding being blue - it's very similar to the nib of my blue Platinum Preppy! Minus 1 point for the color not matching the covers. It's such an attractive blue, though, that it's still a win :-)

The cover has an elastic band on the side which holds the notebook closed when it's tossed in my bag.

Size
I fluctuate on my size preferences. At this moment in time, the Hot Chocolate I've been using is a bit too large for journaling. It's 10.5" x 8.5". All the pros out-weight this one con. I am looking forward to using this notebook up so I can use a smaller one again.

Smaller Notebooks
I've got an 8.6" x 6.5" waiting for me. The cover's got diagonal stripes, and the binding wire is brown. The brown matches the notebook color (kudos) but isn't nearly as fun as the shiny blue. However, the smaller notebook doesn't need a shiny binding. The cover is just as thick, and it has the rubber band (which is a shame, I've been looking for an excuse to buy Midori Book Bands.

This smaller notebook has something the larger one doesn't. When I open the first page, there's a plastic page with a folder sleeve and an envelope that I can put items into. It also has plastic index tabs.

10/20/12 UPDATE:  I received a smaller size as a gift, and it has the same paper as the larger versions and the same thick covers.

My large Hot Chocolate notebook (can you see the blue binding?) with my black matte Lamy Safari.

Photo taken at Coffee Cartel.

I enjoy writing on the pages of the Hot Chocolate notebook, and it looks good alongside both tea and coffee.  What more could I need?

Platinum Preppy and Sailor Candy Reviews

I've always been fascinated by fountain pens, but the ones I knew about were far too expensive for me to consider owning.  However, my fingers ache, and I began to worry about my hands. I read a bit about fountain pens and some folks noted that the fountain pen requires less pressure and a much looser grip. Still, I didn't want to spend $100 on a fountain pen (or $20,000).  I took a peek at my favorite website, Jetpens.  It's a site that I was already using, but I hadn't spent much time with the fountain pens.

I read some reviews and decided to order two pens:

Platinum Preppy Fine Point, Blue Black Ink

Sailor Candy Clear

The Platinum Preppy is a $3 fountain pen that uses cartridges. The Sailor Candy is a $16 fountain pen that also uses cartridges. 

The Platinum Preppy is a fun pen to use. I have since purchased the purple one both because the tip is beautiful (I love that the nib color matches the ink color) and because they actually write very nicely.  The blue black ink is an interesting navy blue. It's still bright, but it's not as bright as a lot of blue ballpoint pens. The ink flows smoothly, and I can write well on copy paper and on nice, smooth, higher quality papers.  I was thrilled with this pen from the moment I started using it.

The Sailor Candy was a serious disappointment. I had purchased brown ink cartridges at the same time I bought the pen, and I filled it with the brown cartridge. I tried to use it for several days with no success.  The ink skips, it's scratchy to write with - even if I am using high quality paper, and it's a difficult and horrible pen to use. However, the Sailor Candy brown cartridge is awesome. The ink is an iodine color, and it made me so happy to look at it on the page that I tried to use it for weeks.

I thought that perhaps the problem was with the pen itself, maybe I had a malfunctioning pen. I contacted Jetpens and explained that I had a defective pen, and they were wonderful. They sent me a new one free of charge and said I could dispose of my current pen. The new pen writes better. I'm willing to use it, but it's still not a great, fun use. I have a black ink cartridge in it, so I keep it in my pen case in case I need to write in black.

I used these pens for months and discovered that I'm more likely to write in my paper journal now because it's fun. I feel special writing on the page. Usually a new notebook is daunting. I worry about writing on the first page because I'll "screw it up" and everything will be ruined. With my fountain pens, I look forward to marking up the page, even if it's messy.

Bento

A bento box is a meal that has several small dishes, and the boxes sometimes have different layers that nestle together or are one box with a variety of small containers that can be added to compartmentalize the meal so your foods don't all get mixed together. I've read that the traditional Japanese bentos tend to have a container of rice, some fruit, some sort of vegetable dish, and finger foods like tamagoyaki, hard boiled eggs, etc. They are to pack your lunches in, but I think that the idea could be applied to any meal, even if it's not in a box.

Photo from amazon.com the Yum Yum Bento Box book

Living alone, my meals have become ridiculously simple. They're tasty, but rather dull looking, and even when they're tasty, I just don't enjoy them anymore. I don't have a usable table, and my dishes are bland. I have been putting together something simple and then just eating it at the computer. For breakfast, I'll have a rice ball or two, miso soup, and an egg on the side. For lunch, I've been having a sandwich with an apple and some fruit, and for dinner, I've been having pasta, a salad, and eggs. I just don't seem to be interested in spending all that time in the kitchen to make something just for myself. It doesn't feel worth the effort. I've been snacking on cream of wheat or dumplings made from bisquick. I make all different types of eggs (hard boiled, egg salad, tamagoyaki, poached eggs mixed into rice, etc., scrambled with different seasonings, etc.), but even that gets old. I sometimes add some variety by getting the Trader Joes edamame tofu nuggets (If you haven't tried them, go get some! They're awesome!)

These simple meals are not causing me to lose weight (which wasn't my intention), but they are leaving me feeling rather blah about my meals and craving cookies and sweets and other "more interesting" foods. Every trip to Trader Joes leaves me fighting with myself to not buy their delightful peanut butter cups, a cake, or something else that will let me mix-up my meals. I remind myself that the bread that I purchase is interesting, that I have roasted red peppers, a variety of condiments, and whatever veggies are in the house so I can make all different types of sandwiches, or that hummus on my salad is a delightful change, but it's just not enough.

This has left me thinking about ways to make my simple meals more attractive, and that reminded me about bento boxes. Several years ago, I began reading Jennifer's Vegan Lunchbox Blog.  I was fascinated with the really bento lunches she would make for her son, and I loved that they were vegan (I don't eat meat very often). I've recently become fascinated with bentos again, so I looked her back up again. Jennifer has written two books cataloging basic bento meals (I hadn't realized she'd published a second one), but she's not the only bento box book author. Some of the bento box books are so detailed and offer some adorable and nutritional meals. There are so many books on the market right now!

One thing that several bento bloggers have noted is that when you buy a bento box, it might appear to be too small for your lunch, but if you fill them with healthier foods, you will be quite satisfied.  For example, instead of adding cheetos to your lunch, add sliced vegetables. The veggies take up less room, are more filling, and have a positive nutritional value.

I am looking at the Mr. Bento.

Photo from EpicSelf

Mr. Bento's not as attractive as some of the bento boxes out there, but it's convenient, and most important to me, it can hold wet foods, even soup. Mr. Bento is larger than many of the bento boxes, but I would rather have an empty container then not enough space for my meals. I am about to start working 70 hour work weeks. This means that I'll probably want to have two meals, or at least more afternoon snacks, at work. I ride a motorcycle to work, so I need something that is absolutely leak-proof because backpacks are jostled about the contents often do not stay upright.

There are quite a few bento accessories out there . Of course, I want these items so that I, too, can have adorable lunches, but I'll stick with buying the bento box for now. http://www.allthingsforsale.com/ has a very large selection of cute bento accessories. A few of the items they sell include silicon cups shaped like animals to partition your food with, rice ball molds so your rice balls can come in shapes instead of being round or triangular like the ones made by hand, and vegetable cutters so you can make fun-shaped vegetables. I have a rather large list of items I want from this site, including some adorable dressing containers so my salads won't get soggy.

Mr. Bento comes with a spork, and sporks have never been my favorite utensils. So I want to get the portable utensils and case.  I'd like to get the really cute chopsticks and forks that have carry cases, but this case will be more useful. Such a shame, the black cat fork and case is so cute!

Photo from Allthingsforsale.com

So I'm jumping on the bento bandwagon a bit late (or at least it seems that way as I peruse websites), but I think it will be fun.