My Lunch in a [Bento] Box
Hi guys! How are ya?? The weekend is in sight!! So. Stoked. 😀
The morning’s breakfast was delicious, but I was way more excited about lunch 😉
Breakfast cookie dough cereal with a crumbled macaroon
Is it scary that I get really excited about a lunch box???
Since I’m working a regular job now (instead of the make-my-own-schedule jobs I had in Valdizzy), I’m going to be packing my lunches pretty often. I did some research on Amazon and was so excited to see this cute bento box!
You can re-arrange the little containers according to what you packed:
and I ordered some different colors and shapes to have, too.
So functional!!! Even though it’s plastic (yes, BPA is bad, I know), I figured it would be more earth-friendly than using a ton of plastic baggies to pack my schtuff.
Today’s lunch:
-Arugula and Spinach
-Hummus with cayenne
-Carrot sticks
-Roasted beets (from the hot bar) with goat gouda and Garlic Gold
Lids on:
Ballerrrrrrrr 🙂
It fits perfectly in my purse and all I have to do is wash out the containers each night. Super easy and so fun 😀
After coming home from a long day of training at work, I had some multigrain chips with my cousin (because it was “chip thirty”), and an apple with peanut butter and almond butter crumbles (leftover over from the AB I made the other day).
Perfection.
I’m off to chill for a second and then hit up the gym for weights and a Zumba class 🙂
Have a beautiful night!
xoxo
G$
Something to talk about: Visions! Brace yourself, friends, things are about to get a little deep up in here 😉
At work today, we talked a lot about goals and visions we have for ourselves in the next year, five years from now and ten years in the future. We did a visualization exercise in which we closed our eyes for a couple of minutes and thought about a time ten years from now. We were supposed to think about an entire day in our life, from the time we woke up until we went to bed. Where would we live? Who would we be surrounded by? What would we do that day??
Since I had to share my vision with the group, I figured I’d share it all with you 😀 Here’s what my day, ten years from now, looked like:
I wake up to a little girl lightly brushing my face. “Mommy, wake up,” she says, “Dad is making pancakes!”. I open my eyes and see the house- neutral colors and tall ceilings. Clean lines and modern, simple decor. The smell of pancakes and bacon fills the air and I walk downstairs with the little girl to see the Pilot and her sister making pancakes together. We eat breakfast and I get ready for a hot yoga class. After yoga practice, we take our daughters and the dogs to the park, spent the day playing until we come home and I put the finishing touches on a meal I’m catering. After dropping off the meal and saying goodbye to the girls and their sitter, the Pilot and I go out for dinner and cocktails with friends. We come home to to the house, the girls fast asleep and call it a night.
This was a really powerful exercise because it made me realize that even with how Type A and ambitious I am, my family is what matters most to me. I really believe that people’s family and connections are what help define them, not necessarily what their line of work is.
So, if you feel like sharing (especially since I’m hanging out on a limb over here, hahah), I’d love to hear your ten year vision. Close your eyes for a couple of minutes and think about an entire day, start to finish, ten years from now 🙂 (It doesn’t have to be as descriptive as mine- even if you just want to say what you’ll be up to, I’d love to read about it)
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I love love love your 10 year plan 🙂 I think it’s fully attainable, which I think is key! Laptop Lunches are amazing lunch boxes! I had one years ago, and lost a bunch of the lids in my move to this house. I need a new one!
I am so jealous of your Bento Box! I have wanted one for a long time 🙂
I loved your “10 years from now” story — mine is similar and much simpler:
*I am driving to see Jason at work during his lunch hour — but there are 2 car seats in the back of my car. I walk into the building with our two little boys and go find Jason. Along the way we stop and talk to some of his coworkers, and he is so happy to see us. We get to do this every day but it always so special. After we all eat lunch together we take the kids to the park. Then Jason goes back to work and I take the kids home with me.*
What I don’t have a clue about? If I’ll be working and what I’d do. I know for sure when our kids are little I want to be with them but as they get older I would start working again. That is the part of the puzzle I want to think more about!
I love that you want 2 little girls. I want boys. I have 3 sisters and I can’t imagine a house full of girls again!
Your 10 year plan is AWESOME. I love it. And I want your lunchbox. Then end.
Oops I meant ‘the.’
No baby Pilots running around? Just little Fitnessistas? I feel the same way.
I would love to picture myself in a career that allows me to work at home and/or part time so I can raise my children (hopefully) with someone who loves me more than words. I hopefully will have completed a marathon without injury or pain. In the next five years I would like to travel, so in ten years the travel bug is far out of my system. I hope to be settled in a cozy home, within driving distance of my parents and the tiny lake I grew up on. Essentially…happy and healthy.
10 years from now….
I see myself married with two kids and maybe a third on the way? Full time mom, part time Registered Dietitian living in a nice house and feeling happy and healthy. 🙂
What an incredible exercise! Here goes:
“I wake up with the sun beaming through my bedroom windows, white sheer curtains blowing in the breeze. I step onto hardwood floor and, not wanting to wake my sleeping husband. I pull on my run shorts, tank, and shoes and head downstairs to an eager dog, I let her out in the back yard before heading out myself on a quick 3 miler. I come back in, the husband awake and getting ready for a day of garden work. I shower, make us some oats, and we pull weeds and tend to flowers. Our yard is large, but cozy, surrounded by trees on either side. After gardening, we visit my family for an early cookout dinner with grapenut ice cream. As we drive back home, the sun is setting and there is nothing around us but trees and the occasional farm. We are content and happy as we pull up to our home, the dog waiting patiently for us on the wrap around porch. We go inside and spread out on the couch in front of the fireplace. Life is good. “
LOVED this <3
Awww this had me all teary eyed 🙂 So sweet.
I love that lunchbox! I too will be starting a new job and gone from the house most of the day so now I’m torn between buying a fabric lunchbox that will keep my food insulated or your cute little lunchbox that’s probably easier to clean!
I loved reading your 10 year vision!! You should save that and look back one day. 🙂
This would be mine (let’s pretend it’s a typical school day):
I wake extra early for my morning run with the dog(s) while the Manfriend (better be husband by then! haha) sleeps in and wakes the kiddos for school. He cooks breakfast and packs their lunches I made the night before. I head to the hospital where I’m working as a pediatric oncologist/stem cell therapist. I am very fulfilled in my career and really believe I’m making a difference. I leave work by 5pm since I arrived early to pick the kids up from soccer practice and make a healthy meal for the family to enjoy. The Manfriend arrives just as I’m setting the table. After dinner we do homework together (I help with the math and science, hehe) then we all play a board game before bed. I allow the kids a TV show as I make their lunches for the next day then cuddle up with the Manfriend and a glass of vino. 🙂
That was fun! Hope (some of it) comes true! <3
10 years…hopefully in the process of adopting a child (or twins! I can dream right?). Maybe living overseas? Both have been in my husband and I’s plans since…2 weeks into dating? Gonna happen. 🙂
I love visualizations. They give life to YOU, your dreams and all the opportunities you have in front of you to move towards them. 🙂
My vision..
I wake up to my husband curled next to me with two little one sprawled across the bed. They always run in every morning for last minute snoozes with us. We decide that today is a perfect day for homemade waffles. I take the dog out while the husband begins mixing the batter with his kiddos. We enjoy our meal and talk about the day ahead- a morning hike, lunch at the top and then an evening of a home cooked meal with our parents. Movie night ends it all! As we curl up together on the couch I soak up all the joy and bliss that we have. Work comes on Monday but the husband and I anxiously look forward to the start of the week with our wellness + fitness business that we share.
Perfection!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your 10 year vision!
By the way, the bento boxes are BPA free!
In ten years time, I’ll be exhausted. I’ll have just finished a summer packed with weddings (I’m a photographer) and editing. I’ve got a wedding ring on and I get an enquiry through my website about shooting a wedding the next summer but I discuss it with Adam over a really delicious breakfast in our kitchen in front of big french doors overlooking our big garden complete with a veggie patch with my dog on my lap because I’m not sure if I want to do it because I’m about three months pregnant! And we’re going to tell both our families today and we’re both super happy.
PS – I love your lunchbox! I’d love one of these myself 😉
Hi Gina! I was re-reading some of your family posts as I’m expecting my first baby, and I stumbled down the rabbit hole to this post and my comment I made over 13 years ago! It’s so lovely to see how your vision came true with your two beautiful girls! And actually, I’m a few years out with mine but it also is very true. Sending you and your fam lots of love
omgosh I just ordered a bento box!!! I’m pretty sure they are BPA free though! So you don’t have to worry about that! 🙂 Good luck with your new job. P.S. I commented awhile back saying that I ordered Sun Warrior, and I wanted you to know that I LOVE it!
very sweet 10 year plan…I love how you want the pilot to just be surrounded by girls 🙂
I’m gonna copy your box, I completely understand your excitement over it…I would be too:) Lol, no little boys in the picture?
Fast forward 10 years from now: I have a stable job that I love, with awesome co-workers. I live in a beautiful 2-story with my husband & 2 beautiful children. I am still a fit lady even though I’m 39 now. Age ain’t got nothing on me. Oh yah, I have big dogs& cute cats & I love to garden now.
That is so sweet 🙂 Family is definitely my priority too!
My perfect day would begin with a little boy and girl trying not to wake me up as they bring me a delicious breakfast in bed. It will be amazing because they helped make it! Then we will all go for a walk with our English Bulldog around the farmer’s market to get fresh fruit and veggies for the week. We will then come home and play whiffle ball in our backyard with my parents and the inlaws before our Sunday evening feast together. After everyone leaves, we put the kiddos to bed and the husband and I snuggle up on the couch with a glass of wine and a good book for him and a magazine for me.
Ahh I can’t wait for little bambinos to be running around!
Gina !! I totally have one of those boxes, no BPA ! 🙂 🙂
I love your vision… mine involves opening my bakery each morning, spending the afternoon teaching tennis until Jason comes home… unless he is working in our bakery / brewery by then!! 🙂
I love your ten year plan! Thanks for sharing that. I know sometimes its hard to put yourself out there with the “deep stuff.”
Up to this point in life, pretty much every plan that I made for myself wouldn’t have lived up to the fabulous things that God had in store for me. I’m glad that he knows me better than I know myself. So though I don’t know *where* I’ll be living or *what* I’ll be doing I do hope that where ever/whatever it is it involves my husband, our chihuahua (they live super long lives, right??) and that we’ll be parents by then. Hopefully with some biological children and some adopted children. Maybe 1 of each…or 2…
That bento box looks like the brand I have… Laptop Lunches? If it is, it’s BPA-free!
Bento Box, Laptop Lunch, and about 10 other brands of lunchboxes, I have them. And you better believe that my Bento box has the EXACT same colors in it. I ordered it when Skylar was 6 mos old, long before she could even eat real food, just b/c I couldnt wait for the day she would eat kiddie food out of her pink bento box 🙂
Love your 10 year vision; kids, high ceilings and neutral decor, time w/ your family and dogs, and of course your hubs making breakfast…ahh, that’s a nice vision!
My 10 year vision….not working for money, Skylar will be in high school if we are not homeschooling, Scott will be alive and so will I (I say that b/c the men in his family die very young and he’s 17 years older than me!) and we are living in our other home for part of the year. Right now, we only stay there a month at a time, but would like to live there somewhat more permanently. I will be happy, healthy, and have Scott and Skylar surrounding me, that’s really all that matters to me 🙂
Oh and I probably won’t be blogging LOL.
Here’s to lots of little babies and family wonderful-ness headed your way 🙂
xoxo
okay so here is my ten year plan….. It’s a Saturday well bc I like Saturdays (:
So I’ll wake up cuddling in bed with the boyfriend [most definitely husband by then!] and we’ll wake each other up with kisses {love it when I get woken up from naps with kisses so I assume a whole night of sleep + kisses = amazing}. Slowly the kiddos start knocking on the door asking for breakfast. We’ll get up and make pancakes with the kiddos and watch some Saturday morning cartoons. Then we’ll get ready for the day and go enjoy some time at the park or a day at the beach. Then we’ll come home & I’ll get started cooking while hubby grills the meat & veggies on the bbq. I’ll get started on cooking the other side dishes, setting the table, etc. Then we’ll eat as a family and hubby & I will tuck the kiddos into bed. Then we’ll cuddle on the couch and watch our favorite shows we recorded then off to bed to snuggle (:
Definitely felt super fairytale-ish to write that out (:
In 10 years I’ll have had one more child. Our other two children will still be happy and healthy. They will be full of self-confidence and love for each other. Much like they are now. I will be personal training a little bit on the side while continuing my yoga practice and running marathons. I will have completed the Boston marathon. My husband and I will still be happy and comfortable with each other. I’m not sure where we’ll be living, but it won’t really matter. Our family can and will be happy anywhere as long as we have each other.
I am incredibly jealous of your lunch box! So neat!! I just put my lunch in various tupperwares which I bring in one of my recyclable grocery bags. It’s kind of a mess and everything gets knocked around but at least it’s garbageless!
As for ten years from now, whoa, I hadn’t really thought about it! Is that bad??? I imagine I’ll be married and just starting a family (I hope I have girls too!) I also imagine I will be either a paid writer or running my own company or department within a company!
Great visualization! I actually just muted the TV (it was only TMZ, I’ll catch up on E! News!!) and pictured myself 10 yrs from now. I didn’t even think about my career, just my future family and felt more than I saw. I loved it! I have never tried anything like that before and it was pretty neat. Thanks for encouraging it!
Ok, your ten year plan totally skipped the changing diapers, three am feedings, and finding cheerios in odd places…LOL Wishing you nothing but the best!!!
Cute…goal talk during training…I think I have a good idea of where you are working;)
Your 10 year plan is so sweet 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
I love that you show us your lunches everyday- it’s given me some great ideas for switching up my usual lunch. Thanks 🙂
love your bento box!!! I love getting new food related stuff, and that is so cute. I have a salad container and I use it so much!
Your 10 year plan is so cute!! In ten years I hope to be married [to a certain someone who I had an amazing dream last night with, which me super happy today aka dork] have completed and became an RD. Own a business making healthy vegan food and teaching nutrition to clients. Also I will be a food network star and cook healthy plant-based foods. I will also live in NYC. I like to dream big..
I have wanted a bento box forever. You are so lucky! Love it!
Have you checked http://www.anotherlunch.com/ out yet? Lots of fun bento ideas, though not all vegan. I’m sure you could think of fantastic stuff though!
My 10-year plan? Being soccer/swim mom to 3 or 4 amazing kiddos, D working a great job that he loves, living somewhere warm and happy, and being with each other all the time. Fun excursions on weekends or lovely and lazy Saturday mornings (fun breakfasts and cartoons included), happy holidays, and enjoying being around each other. And that trip to Japan that D and I have dreamed about. Yup. If all that can happen in 10 years, I will be one very lucky lady 🙂
i loved your 10 year plan.
that lunch box is totally cute, and totally you. Definitely is better than using tons of plastic baggies.
We did this vision exercise with Suzanne conrad when I was at the lulu ambassador summit! Soooo great – your vision sounds amazing lady!
I am always looking for new a cute lunch boxes that are practical as well–this one looks great!
Love your plan! Your work sounds amazing to have that kind of training exercise. Mine is to be a stay at home mom to 3 or 4 children, live in the country on lots of land, spend the days taking care of our children and home, cook healthy meals with food from our big vegetable garden, and teach some yoga on the side 🙂
Hiya Gina, super cure lunch box, so much so i checked it out for my daughter and ME!! 🙂 It doesnt hurt that it comes in such pretty colours. BTW i thought i’d let ya know that i had a looky on amazon and it is BPA free so its not so bad after all. Good luck with your new job!
In 10 years I’ll be 32.. hopefully by then im back in florida, starting my own business, volunteering at the local marina on the weekends, married? (eek), and buying my mom her own dream home! she’s taken care of my 3 siblings and i for so many years, I can’t wait until I can do the same for her.
Between you, Katie, and Heather I have complete bento box envy. I must get one!
I love your 10 year plan and I so almost ordered the Bento Box and didn’t…now your really making me want one!
Here’s my 10 year vision..
“I wake up with the sun (not an alarm clock) to a warm mug of lemon water. I change into my yoga gear and meditate outside in my beautifully landscaped back yard. I then do my morning yoga and head inside for some yummy oats or a smoothie (depending on the weather). I then make breakfast for my family (my girls will be 17 and 14) because that is what truly makes me happy. We sit around laughing and talking about the upcoming day. After breakfast I see them off to school (I am sure the 17 year old will be driving) and I began preparing to meet with my clients to counsel/discuss their nutrition, fitness, and recipes for the week. After work I gather with my family again for dinner and we all enjoy eating and talking about our day. After dinner (the girls will clean up!!!!) the hubby and I will enjoy some cuddle time on the couch and sit in awe at the blessings we have been given.
OK Gina I am crying now, this post really made me realize I need to go for what truly makes me happy and that my girls will be grown before I know it!!! Sieze the day!!!
I NEED a Bento Box!!! I’m so jealous. Amazon, here I come 🙂
I also have the Laptop Lunch 2.0 system! Did you also get the insulated carrying case? This past weekend, at the IKEA at Millenia, I found the perfect shaped cooler packs (reusable things filled with liquid that you pop into the freezer) to fit in the Laptop Lunch box. They are flat and very thin and are super cheap…like $1 a piece. You can find it in the packaged food section. Oh and FYI: all components of the Laptop Lunch system are made in the USA and are BPA-Free 🙂
Such a cutie cute lunchbox – I love the idea of the different boxes that fit in together – so smart!
You should totally check out Vegan Lunchbox. The writer packed her son’s (and often her own) lunches using the same bento box every day for over a year. All the meals are vegan, healthy, creative, and colorful! She published two books based on the blog too, though she no longer posts daily bentos.
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
What a beautiful vision! 🙂 I definitely see you as this kind of mom someday. 🙂
I love your 10 year vision. However, I cannot allow myself to go there because in 10 years I’ll be nearly 44 with an almost 19 year old daughter. Ack!!
All 4 of us use Bentos but ours are BPA free– did you see the Laptop Lunchbox brand? Still plastic but no BPA. We LOVE ours!
That’s ridiculously cute. I need something better than tupperware and a Lululemon bag for lunches.
Welcome to the world of the Laptop Lunch Box! I got mine many years ago when I was in high school, and it’s gotten plenty of use.
Very sweet! I hope your vision has someone that does the dishes, too! (other than you)
I don’t see myself with children of the two-legged variety, but rather the four-legged kind that bark. My 3 dogs will still be alive and getting themselves into all sorts of trouble still. My husband and I will live in a home with enough land (even a farm?!) that allows me to run a Sheltie Rescue or animal sanctuary. That’s good enough for me!!